HVIA-LITE: Collaborating to understand EV duty cycles

This week HVIA’s LITE Project steering committee met with the QTLC and the authors of their report “Addressing barriers to zero emissions trucks in Queensland to 2025,” to discuss its recommendations for stakeholders from the heavy vehicle industry.

The Queensland Transport and Logistics Council (QTLC) is a cooperative industry and government advisory body that provides advice to industry stakeholders and state and federal governments on the development, planning, regulation and operation of freight and logistics transport, infrastructure and services.

The report was written by Mark Gjerek, principal of specialist clean transport advisory firm MOV3MENT.

Acknowledging the report’s conclusions, the HVIA LITE committee has agreed that understanding the duty cycles of heavy vehicles is a key to identifying the applications where zero emission heavy vehicles (ZEHV) can be successfully deployed.

Mr Gjerek explained some of the complexities of understanding heavy vehicle energy use and the importance of having a well understood framework for analysing what trucks do to analyse their energy usage.

“The technical suitability of a zero emission truck hinges on how much energy it uses, and how much energy it uses really depends on the kind of work it does,” Mr Gjerek said.

“The challenge here in Australia is most fleets …. would struggle to do a deep level energy analysis.”

Mr Gjerek argues that the lack of an Australian definition of duty cycles and the collation of local data needed to support this framework are key knowledge gaps. He is working with key stakeholders and funding bodies on a project to fill this information gap.

QTLC is also close to launching a pilot program aimed at providing ZEV transition assistance within Queensland freight hubs.  

In response to questions from the group, Mr Gjerek explained that the next phase of the project on duty cycles will help to understand how we need to differentiate the duty cycles to better understand the suitability of vehicles:

• How deep do we need to go?
• How many sub segments do we need in that process?

HVIA will continue to work closely with QTLC and other industry stakeholders to determine how HVIA members can best add value to the project, and to provide customers with the best tools to evaluate their own business case.