The Daimler Truck CEO Martin Daum has spoken about what the trucking industry will face in the coming years ahead. With the rising gasoline and diesel prices, moving with cleaner mobility options could be the way forward for the trucking industry. Options such as electrification could be viable options for the Mercedes Benz lineup of trucks in the future, however, the range is still something that could slow down this process. Hydrogen power also presents itself as another option, however, the infrastructure to support this has yet to be determined.
The first truth is, in heavy-duty commercial vehicles you need such a huge amount of energy, meaning you need such large batteries, that such a truck always will cost significantly more than a combustion engine powered truck.
He continues by stating that “The savings come if the price for green, renewable energy drops and the cost for emitting CO2 rises and then out of that equation you might get a cost parity, or in other … cases road transportation will become more expensive.” Despite this, Daum says that Mercedes Benz trucks will need to move forward with zero-emission transportation.
The German brand already has laid out plans for zero-emission vehicles that will hopefully accord to up to 60 percent of its sales by the year 2030. This includes passenger vehicles as well as commercial ones. The utilization of both hydrogen and electric technology could prove to be an ideal situation for the truck maker as these could solve the long-standing problem of range anxiety that comes with electrification. As hybrid and electric technology is becoming more accepted in the passenger car industry, it could soon leap as well into the commercial vehicle sector. For now, we will have to wait and see what Daimler has in store for its future lineup of passenger vehicles as well as for the Mercedes Benz Trucks lineup of vehicles.
