The Unparalleled Push for Commercial Electric Vehicles

This might not be top on everyone list but I see it as very beneficial as I am a father of a baby that is easily awakened from her nap and someone that does enjoy peace and quiet (which I don’t get very often as a father). I think that this could even benefit commercial vehicles operating in residential areas, making them a lot less intrusive. This quietness does not come at the expense of power.  Electric motors generate a huge amount of power and torque and, unlike internal combustion engines,  this power can be generated much quicker and without the “spool up” time of a traditional engine. Electric vehicles will also open up design elements that were not possible before as most electric platforms are flat, skateboard like design which will allow for just about any shape to be placed on top of it. With the removal of the engine compartment this will leave vehicles more room for passengers or cargo and companies like FedEx and UPS are paying close attention to this.

With all the positives of electric vehicles, I do see some major issues that will need to be resolved before electric vehicles become mainstream.  Things like practical range, weather and temperature effects on batteries, battery degradation over time, payload/towing capacities, lack of infrastructure and price are some of the biggest concerns that come to mind. For some use cases and locations these things may not be a big concern but for others this will be a total deal breaker. 

Electric vehicle range is a very tricky subject as there is no standard of measurement to compare different vehicles. I imagine, in the near future, the EPA or another government agency will have to step in to standardize these claims being made by the manufacturers. Even then, because currently there are huge variations in range that an electric vehicle can get depending on things like wind, payload, temperature and age of the battery, it will be very hard to relay practical ranges to end users. Manufacturers will be pushing out the highest numbers that they can based on perfect conditions that will not be applicable to a lot of real world applications. Like this experiment done by Adam Berger of Doering Fleet Management where he towed a light sailboat with a Tesla Model X (which has a stated towing capacity of 4500lbs) and the range estimator, that started at 150 miles, dropped to 31 after only 15 miles of driving. Check out the article here.

https://www.fleetforward.com/10136746/understanding-effects-of-payload-and-towing-on-commercial-ev-range

Some of the biggest areas for concern are in fleet and commercial applications. Many commercial vehicles are driving more than the current available range of electric vehicles. Not only that, they are doing so with lots of extra weight in equipment and tools. Several commercial vehicles also operate in inclement weather or parts of the world that get very hot or cold. All of these conditions can greatly affect the range of EVs and require more time to charge, and we all know that in business, time is money. In many cases that we see, like oil field trucks in West Texas or logging and arborists in the Northwest I am not sure that the environment or the application the vehicles are used for will ever be a perfect fit for EVs. Cost is another big hurdle that electric vehicles are going to face in the commercial market. Not only are EVs more expensive than traditional vehicles, but the infrastructure required to charge a large fleet of electric vehicles would be incredibly expensive. New infrastructure and technology like fast charging or swappable batteries could help some of these issues in the future, but I think for most commercial applications, EV limitations will keep many companies from being early adopters of these vehicles.