Electric HGV fleets record over 500,000 zero emission miles

Hitachi ZeroCarbon and GRIDSERVE, lead partners of the Electric Freightway project – operating under the Department for Transport and Innovate UK’s ZEHID (Zero Emission HGV and Infrastructure Demonstrator) programme – have published their third report, demonstrating that electric HGV orders surpassed expectations and fleets recorded over half a million zero emission miles in the UK.

While the first and second report looked at the project’s objectives and planning stage, the third and latest report provides an update on how the rollout of eHGVs and charging infrastructure went.

79 electric trucks were delivered to fleet operators and a further 78 were on order – going beyond the original target of 140 vehicles – and 20 plus organisations benefited from subsidised HGVs, including Amazon, Royal Mail, GXO, and Wincanton.

The first high-speed depot eHGV charging facilities have been completed, including Nissan’s Sunderland factory depot, making it one of the largest dedicated eHGV charging hubs in the UK.

Although energy constraints are a barrier to electrifying charging sites, the project has made a compelling case for the value of transitioning to eHGVs; looking specifically at the total cost of ownership (TCO) and environmental arguments.

For example, under certain operational conditions managers are able to reach cost parity with diesel vehicles after five years. Higher mileage operations in particular are set to benefit more from adopting eHGVs as it significantly lowers the TCO.

“As the number of miles undertaken by electric fleets continues to grow, our priority is ensuring the infrastructure keeps pace,” said Sam Clarke, Head of eGHV, GRIDSERVE.

Hitachi ZeroCarbon also released a new TCO calculator alongside the report, designed to be a tool to help fleet operators understand the financial and environmental case for eHGVs. By inputting their operational data, they receive an estimate of TCO and CO2 from the specified fleet.