The Biden administration’s plan to invest $250 million to boost electric trucking in the Northeast Corridor faces uncertainty because the needs and desires of a trucking industry are difficult to predict.
Under the Clean Corridor Coalition’s newly funded plan, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and Connecticut will install chargers to charge electric trucks along Interstate 95, one of the nation’s busiest highways. The plan is central to the administration’s climate pollution reduction goals because it will prevent 18.6 million tons of carbon emissions from the atmosphere by 2050, according to estimates by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
But it’s by no means certain that trucking companies will play along. Zero-emission trucks make up just 0.23 percent of all registered trucks in the country. That’s at least partly because battery-powered trucks cost two to three times as much as their diesel counterparts, according to the American Trucking Associations.
The factors that go into a transportation company’s fleet decisions are so complex that it’s nearly impossible to predict where the industry as a whole will go, says Jacqueline Gelb, ATA vice president of energy and environmental affairs.
“Every fleet is a snowflake,” Gelb said. “They’re all different. They’re set up differently, they run different routes, they have different types of customers, they buy equipment at different times, they use different technologies. There’s no clear answer to that.”
According to Gelb, some trucking companies are already using modern diesel technology; some have older fleets than others and can therefore save more on operating costs; some employ drivers who prefer one type of truck to another; some are more dependent on freight transport as their main source of income than others who only transport their products out of necessity; and some are simply more willing to experiment than others.
In the transportation industry, it’s usually the big companies that lead the way by experimenting on a small scale, and “then that trickles down,” Gelb said. “The midsize and smaller fleets can then get proof of that. That’s how technology gets adopted and spread.”
This could already be happening.
The funding for the Northeast Corridor Coalition was announced in late July as part of a $4.3 billion package for climate projects across the country. The grants, known as Climate Pollution Reduction Grants, were authorized by the 2022 climate bill and are politically important for the Biden administration because they allow the White House to show voters tangible evidence of its successes.
To make the first step
The Biden administration’s strategy of creating supply and hoping demand follows is a necessary step because someone – either the federal government, state governments, the transportation industry or electric utilities – has to make the first move, says Kevin DeGood, director of infrastructure policy at the Center for American Progress.
“Everyone looks at each other and says, ‘OK, you go first,'” DeGood said. “Everyone is at risk of being first. So it’s really important that the government reduce that risk by being first. That’s what the government is supposed to do.”
The Biden administration sees it that way too.
“Often you see the government offering incentives,” says Lisa Garcia, regional director for Region 2 of the Environmental Protection Agency, which includes New Jersey, the lead state in the Clean Corridor Coalition. “You’ve seen that with solar panels. In the past, the government has always said, ‘We’re going to help you get to your goal, and here are the incentives.'”
In the best case scenario, electric truck transportation will prove so popular that additional routes will emerge through the Mid-Atlantic region and even down to the southern states, Garcia said.
The new charging stations could even send a signal to private drivers who see that their trucks are being charged from plugs and no longer need to fill up with diesel, she said.
Location as a key factor
The success of the corridor will depend largely on whether the chargers are installed in suitable locations that are easily accessible to truck drivers, experts said.
Those decisions will be negotiated through a planning process that includes public participation and a competitive bidding process, a New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection spokesman said.
Until then, it makes sense to consider existing rest stops and truck stops that drivers already know and are comfortable with as a first step, Garcia said. But that may not be possible because trucking companies will likely want megawatt chargers to charge quickly, and that kind of power may not be available at existing truck stops, said Steven Nadel, executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.
“It depends on exactly where the circuits and substations are,” Nadel said. “Some have extra capacity, some don’t. And the utilities haven’t done much to prepare in that area.”
As part of the planning process, the coalition will rely on two studies funded by the Department of Energy that examine how charging stations should be located in the Northeast given the existing transmission and distribution infrastructure.
On the other hand, Gelb says not every charging session requires a full-size megawatt charger. Sometimes — such as when the driver takes a mandatory eight-hour break — he or she has time to use a slow charger. A one-megawatt charger delivers about 100 times more power than a standard car charger.
Gelb also noted that constant megawatt charging can damage a truck’s battery, so having a diverse selection of chargers at each location is probably the best solution, she said.
Ideally, charging stations should have an oversupply of chargers so companies can plan their routes without worrying that their drivers will have to wait hours for a free spot, Gelb said.
“A truck that is broken doesn’t make any money,” she said.
For now, the coalition states have begun working with local governments to find ways to simplify permitting and zoning issues, the New Jersey DEP spokesman said.
DeGood said he did not believe the permit would be a serious problem since most chargers would likely be built within existing power corridors.
Ultimately, the corridor’s biggest impact could be that it triggers wider adoption across the country. Neither the government nor industry are anywhere near that stage, and fully electrifying the commercial vehicle sector would cost $620 billion for charging infrastructure alone, according to a recent report from consulting firm Roland Berger.
“But if we build these ports, the leaders will definitely respond,” Nadel said. “The laggards won’t. But it makes it much more likely that the middlemen will respond.”
