The world’s freight moves via trucks. Even when cargo is flown or shipped in containers around the world, delivery to the end of the supply chain is by freight lorry. And while the carbon footprint for a freight truck is much greater than any car, SUV, or small truck, so far no one has come up with a green solution for large trucks.
It’s easy to say, “Just add batteries, like with cars,” but the battery volume and weight to haul a vehicle and passengers in a typical car or light truck is much lower than needed to haul a tractor trailer with 80,000 pounds of freight over long distances. So the solution
to “greening-up” trucks has remained an unsolved challenge.
Swedish firms Siemens and Scania are testing an electrical system which may solve at least part of the big truck/big carbon question. German Siemens AG and Swedish heavy-vehicle maker Scania AB have teamed up to test the world’s first e-highway in central Sweden.