Transition to sustainable transport system may be quicker than predicted

When I write this, I am hearing on the radio that electric car sales have skyrocketed in several countries during 2020.
According to the science news on the radio, this had had many experts believe that the transition to a sustainable transport system may be quicker than previously predicted.
I share that belief, especially when it comes to the transport sector. But the prices on these vehicles must be suppressed, and those who buy transports must realize why sustainable transports costs more.

One of the countries where sales more or less exploded during the last quarter of 2020 is Europe’s “Car-Mecca”, the very car conservative Germany, which is also Europe’s largest and most important car market. Only in December, sales increased sevenfold compared to December 2019. This means that 14 per cent of all manufactured cars in Germany in December 2020 were electric. But it is not only in Germany the trend is clear. Several other European countries show similar numbers. In Sweden, for example, a third of all new car sales during 2020 was electric or plug-in hybrids. And over half of all new cars sold in Norway were pure electric.

Meanwhile, the truck manufacturers have sped up the process to follow on the same path. Volvo and Scania have already started manufacturing fully electric trucks, and we see reports that the up-and-comer Volta Trucks from Sweden has received orders of more than 2 billion SEK. The same company recently raised more than 160 million SEK in capital, from an American venture capital firm, among others.
It will be very exciting to follow that project.

Thus, it will not be long until we will see more completely silent trucks and tractors with trailers on our Swedish roads. Everyone wants to, in some way or another, contribute to a sustainable development.
But the issues at hand are about money and range. Today, an electric truck is around four to five times as expensive as a traditional truck. With today’s quotes for transport and logistics, such an investment will never be profitable.
Of course, the Swedish Government subsidize parts of the purchase, around 1 million SEK for a truck costing 5 million SEK, but it will still remain a much larger investment.

While truck manufacturers work towards suppressing the prices, clients buying transports – and in the end – the end customers must prepare on paying more for future transports than they are paying today. Sustainable transportation is simply more expensive to execute. But hopefully it will also mean that the costs of producing batteries, fuel cells and complete drivelines will lower with time.

We at NTEX follow this development closely, which I will get back to in future blog posts.

Thomas Ström