Trucks are big polluters, but can batteries make them cleaner?

Transport will overtake energy production as Australia’s leading source of emissions by 2030 as the diesel-reliant trucking industry faces a crossroads on how to cut its carbon footprint to zero.

In 2024, trucks emitted 22 million tonnes of CO2, accounting for nearly a quarter of all transport emissions in Australia. With lack of charging and fuelling infrastructure limiting progress for electric and hydrogen-powered heavy vehicles, the transition to greener trucking is also hampered by high costs.

Industry figures agree the sector will decarbonise, but are still navigating the debate on whether battery-backed electric or green hydrogen-fuelled trucks are the long-term answer.

Janus Electric CEO Ian Campbell. The company is unique by using “swappable” battery units to electrify trucks.Credit: James Brickwood

The federal government has commitments to both camps, with its National Electric Vehicle Strategy outlining infrastructure plans for both widespread EV charging networks along major highways and also “hydrogen highways” on key freight routes for long-haul trucks.

Electric Vehicle Council chief executive Julie Delvecchio said decarbonising Australia’s freight industry would require a “range of different strategies” but the main advantage of EVs was the availability of models in the market.

“What’s great about electric trucks is that they are commercially available now whereas other fuels, such as hydrogen, are still in development,” said Delvecchio.

Ian Campbell, managing director of Janus Electric, a company which retrofits used trucks with EV batteries and launched on the ASX earlier this year, said trucking had proved to be a difficult sector to decarbonise, but one that was under increasing attention.

“We’re seeing a lot of inquiry from people [customers] trying to create a zero-emissions supply chain,” said Campbell. “That’s been a big focus of people that have come into us.”

Campbell said the ageing trucks his company converted into EVs had an advantage over hydrogen of not needing any new infrastructure. But they are limited to return-to-base trips anywhere from 150 kilometres to 350 kilometres depending on cargo weight.

Battery electric trucks are widely viewed as the best option for shorter routes which can be completed on a single charge cycle. But the industry is still debating how to decarbonise the long-haul routes, such as those along Australia’s east coast, which account for the majority of emissions.

Todd Hacking, chief executive of the “technology agnostic” Heavy Vehicle Industry Association, said the best form of fuel generally “depends on the freight task”.

Electric trucks on the production line at the MAN Truck and Bus plant in Germany. Credit: Bloomberg

Because of limitations in travel range, “battery electric is obviously harder when it gets to longer-haul trucks”, Hacking said.

“If you’re looking at it from purely a policy area of trying to reduce emissions, targeting that long-haul trucking is where you get your biggest bang for your buck,” he added.

Scott Brown, managing director of Pure Hydrogen, a company that makes both hydrogen fuel cell and battery electric-powered heavy vehicles, argued hydrogen was better suited for long-haul trips.

“Anything that is short distance, i.e. inner-city delivery, so you might have a warehouse for example, and then you are distributing it to particular locations around the city, that is quite a good application for battery electric,” Brown said.

“Probably with the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, you can do longer ranges for big vehicles, that’s one of the advantages.

“So we can put more fuel tanks in, and you can do a longer range, but it does depend on the carrying capacity of the vehicle.”

Scott Dwyer, research director at the University of Technology Sydney’s Institute for Sustainable Futures, said both technologies faced headwinds, but “where you start to see battery electric … overtake trucks is just in choice of vehicles and the infrastructure as well”.

A Hyundai hydrogen fuel cell truck. Credit: Bloomberg

There were a plethora of EV trucks readily available, said Dwyer, whereas with hydrogen, “there’s really not that choice … if you’re a truck business that wants to decarbonise.

“Hydrogen trucks are still … early stages, they’re pilots, they’re receiv[ing] funding. Battery electric trucks, there’s more choice, and you see overseas as that choice is increasing on the roads. That will eventually filter through to Australia.”

Hacking said the major challenge for hydrogen currently was “not only the cost but also the supply network, or lack [there]of”.

“Until those two things are solved, I suspect that hydrogen is going to be a little bit further off than what it once was,” he said.

Hydrogen optimists, like Brown, believe the technology is better suited for long-haul journeys along Australia’s east coast, and that businesses and government could establish refuelling points along these routes.

“The infrastructure is not there today, so someone has got to make an investment,” he said.

But Brown believes as the industry grows, service stations could begin to sell both electricity and hydrogen alongside “traditional fuels like diesel”.

Dwyer expects battery electric to continue to outpace hydrogen as the preferred clean fuel and “wouldn’t be surprised” to see an electric highway built by industry to “decarbonise a particularly busy freight route”.

“But do I see hydrogen making inroads there? You may still see some limited commercial pilots being deployed, but I definitely expect the market activity to be focused around battery electric vehicles for heavy duty,” Dwyer said.

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