System Cost Evaluation and Fast Charging Market Assessment for Battery Electric Trucks

Opponent: PhD Magnus Lindgren, Trafikverket
Examiner: Professor Torsten Wik
Main Supervisor: Professor Anders Grauers

Abstract of thesis

One possible step for reducing human use of fossil fuel due to transportation is to replace diesel trucks with battery electric ones. This thesis considers the potential for battery electric trucks to be cost effective in the long run. It investigates how to size the batteries and chargers for different transport tasks and compares the cost effectiveness of electric trucks with commercial diesel trucks. The thesis focuses its examples on long-haul trucks, but a large part of the developed theory can be applied to other trucks and vehicles as well. Further, queueing conditions, charger utilisation and price levels in a future public fast charging market are estimated. This is done by agent-based models, simulating competing charge point operators and charging trucks with traffic data from a Swedish highway. The aim of the work is to gain better understanding of a possible future system of battery electric trucks and their chargers, and what is important to make them cost effective. Also, it aims to find an estimated value for the mean price for public fast charging, which is important for the trucks charging strategy and could affect the overall cost effectiveness of the electric trucks. The results indicate that battery electric trucks can be competitive compared to commercial diesel trucks in many cases, and the utilisation of the public fast chargers can be quite high with low queuing problems and reasonable charging prices. Hopefully, this positive result will accelerate the transition from trucks running on fossil fuel to trucks running on electricity that can be sustainably produced.

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