Traton : Baggage and life cycle

Surprisingly clear

"Like every electric vehicle, our electric truck started out with a poorer emission balance when it left production, mainly because of the battery," explains Andreas Follér, Head of Sustainability at Scania." But as soon as the vehicles go into operation, the electric truck's balance starts catching up." The main reason, of course, is that charging with electricity produces significantly lower emissions than filling up with diesel or gasoline. Eventually, after a certain number of miles, the break-even point is reached - that is, the point at which the electric truck produces fewer emissions overall. "What matters for the comparison is when this important moment is reached," says Follér. Basically, it is a case of the sooner, the better. Because from this point on, with every additional kilometer driven, the electric truck becomes less emission-intensive than its combustion-engine counterpart.

So far, very few of these comparisons have been made for trucks. "That's why the publication of our study has attracted quite a bit of attention in the industry, in the media, and also within our company," Follér points out. One reason for this were the study's findings, which gave a surprisingly clear verdict in favor of the electric truck. Using electricity with the mix of energy sources common in 2016 - a mix still clearly dominated by fossil fuels - the break-even point comes after a distance of just 68,000 kilometers (about 42,250 miles). Given a projected service life of 500,000 kilometers (about 310,700 miles) for this kind of vehicle, the electric truck will emit 38 percent fewer greenhouse gases into the air than its diesel counterpart. And this despite the analysis being based on the study's most conservative calculation, where the authors assumed the most unfavorable conditions for the electric truck. "Today, the share of renewable energies is already significantly higher than in the 2016 energy mix that we took as the basis for our calculation, and it will continue to increase considerably," Follér notes.