Ceres and the California Trucking Association, in a May 5 study, found battery cost “has declined as much as 80% over the last eight years. Further cost declines of over 50% are expected in the next decade, which should put upfront costs of many EVs below their conventional competitors by 2030.”
The Samsara survey found 85% of electric truck owners said traditional vehicles cost more than electric trucks to maintain. And 53% of managers said they will use savings to increase driver wages.
Electric trucks are the ‘inevitable future,’ fleets say
Despite the pandemic environment, states and fleets push forward on electric tractors.

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May 19, 2020
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With 1.3 million electric vehicles on the road in 2020, and with lawmakers pushing for more adoption, fleets have been looking at Class 7 and Class 8 vehicles carefully — kicking the tires and doing the math.
But will the coronavirus crisis — and the resulting plunge in diesel prices — cause fleets to suspend their plans? Right now, some fleets are starved for freight business. Investment in electric trucks, with the uncertainty about their dependability and the maintenance involved, could pause if fleets have to juggle costs as the COVID-19 pandemic roils the markets in North America.
But according to Mark Russell, Nikola Motor president, electric trucks are still very attractive to fleets — in part because little has changed about the industry and related policies.
“Our target customers are typically very large and often global enterprises, and they need our battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) and our fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) … in order to meet their announced strategic environmental, social and governance commitments,” Russell said in an email to Transport Dive. “They have already made the decision to pivot away from fossil fuels, now and forever. Thus their plans to partner with Nikola are unaffected by temporary fluctuations in the price of diesel fuel.”
Work hasn’t slowed at Nikola because of the COVID-19 shutdowns, he said, noting the pandemic “has not impacted our long-term plans and progress.”
“[Fleets] have already made the decision to pivot away from fossil fuels, now and forever.”
Mark Russell
President, Nikola Motor
Nikola has not manufactured and sold a vehicle yet, something Nikola CEO Trevor Milton admits he hears from critics in a Thursday post on LinkedIn.
But the company has been growing. It announced a reverse merger with VectoIQ in March. The deal, valued at about $3.3 billion, made Nikola a publicly traded company while aiding it in its quest to supply fleets.
Nikola has 14,000 trucks on preorder, with the first delivery of battery-electric trucks to European fleets expected in 2021, a Nikola spokesperson told Transport Dive in March.
The company, which originally focused on hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles, did a test run of one of its trucks in November 2019, when it helped complete an all-electric delivery of a trailer full of Anheuser-Busch beer in St. Louis. The company is also producing battery-electric vehicles.

The leader in truck makers in the United States has also made clear it will go with electric power in the future, using BEVs. Roger Nielsen, president and CEO of Daimler Trucks North America, told attendees at the April 2019 ACT Expo in Long Beach, California, that the future of trucking was battery-electric tractors. Daimler Trucks would therefore bet it all on BEVs, even as competitors such as Hyundai and Nikola were at ACT Expo too, speaking of their investments in FCEVs, which use hydrogen as fuel to create electric power, creating water as emissions.
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Cost savings motivate fleets
There are other signs fleets have not shelved plans to buy BEVs and FCEVs.
First, fleets have made no major announcements about existing plans. Many firms have decades of strategy laid out. Toyota, which owns a majority share in truck maker Hino, has a plan to reduce its vehicle emissions by 90% by 2050.
Samsara, a fleet management and Internet of Things (IoT) company, released survey results Tuesday showing trucking industry leaders are still in agreement on the future of electric trucks. In the survey of 300 fleet managers, 90% said EVs were the “inevitable future of commercial fleets.”
Another factor that has not disappeared: government pressure. Government mandates continue even during the COVID-19 crisis, with California accelerating its policies on Class 7 and Class 8 trucks in a surprise move in late April.
On April 28, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) updated its policy of the percentage of truck sales in the state. By 2024, the state wants 5% of Class 7 and Class 8 sold to be zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs). The previous mandate had been 3% of trucks sold in the Golden State. By 2030, that mandate will be 30%, up from a past goal of 15%, according to an analysis of the memo from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The cost-savings are beginning to appear for fleets. In the past, the battery alone for a BEV was the main cost. But Ceres and the California Trucking Association, in a May 5 study, found battery cost “has declined as much as 80% over the last eight years. Further cost declines of over 50% are expected in the next decade, which should put upfront costs of many EVs below their conventional competitors by 2030.”
The Samsara survey found 85% of electric truck owners said traditional vehicles cost more than electric trucks to maintain. And 53% of managers said they will use savings to increase driver wages.
Greener pastures
Still, cheaper diesel has been a rare spot of relief for fleets during the crisis. West Texas Intermediate oil actually slipped below $0 briefly in April. The average diesel price per gallon was $2.386 on Monday, a substantial drop of 77.7 cents in a year.
Cheap diesel and more efficient engines have been the main competitor for electric trucks. Yet the environmental pitch for the electric vehicles remains strong, according to Patrick Gervais, VP of marketing for the Lion Electric, a Montreal-based company that sells electric trucks and buses to North American buyers.
“People see the water is blue again.”
Patrick Gervais
Vice president of marketing, Lion Electric
Lion Electric has 300 electric school buses on the road now, Gervais told Transport Dive, with the first hitting the road in Massachusetts in 2016. Lion Electric produced its first Class 8 truck in March 2019, and Class 7 and Class 5 trucks will roll off the assembly line in 2021, he said.
Gervais said he sees no slowdown in momentum for electric as the lockdowns idle many greenhouse-gas-producing businesses and autos. People see the environment is cleaner, and it could stay that way even as freight movement returns to normal — if fleets use zero-emission vehicles, he said.
“It seems to us people are more aware of it now,” said Gervais. “People see the water is blue again.”

Gervais said transportation makes up about 30% of annual greenhouse gas emissions, and electric trucks can cut that number with wider adoption.
Russell agrees fleets and consumers see the green benefits.
“We think the social distancing countermeasures employed around the world out of medical necessity have had a powerful secondary effect: demonstrating how much cleaner and sustainable our planet is when we burn significantly less polluting fossil fuel each day,” Russell said. “We are confident this vivid demonstration, obvious to everyone who is observing it, will only increase the … resolve of voters, politicians and policymakers worldwide.”
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March 4, 2020
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Dive Brief:
- Nikola and VectoIQ, a publicly-traded acquisition company, said the two agreed to merge and create a company focused on the development of zero-emission trucks. The new company will be known as Nikola Corp. and is expected to remain NASDAQ-listed under the new ticker symbol “NKLA.”
- Nikola said it will use proceeds to accelerate production of battery-electric vehicles (BEV) and hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEV) in the Class 8 truck market and sell to fleets eager to produce zero emissions as they transport goods.
- The deal, valued at about $3.3 billion, will aid Nikola in its quest to supply fleets. Nikola has 14,000 trucks on preorder. The first delivery of battery-electric trucks to European fleets is expected in 2021, a Nikola spokesperson told Transport Dive.
Dive Insight:
North American fleets are under heavy consumer and political pressure to shift to emission-free electric power. The big question is which kind of zero-emission Class 8 truck will prove most efficient, free of breakdowns and unforeseen technical problems.
Nikola has focused on trucks using hydrogen fuel cells, but it is also developing battery-electric vehicles.
The fuel cells produce zero emissions and are lighter than battery-electric systems. Fuel-cell electric vehicles also have longer range than battery-electric vehicles.
But hydrogen-fuel electric vehicles tend to refuel, creating a logistical concern. As an incentive to fleets, Nikola promised to build 700 hydrogen fueling stations in the United States by 2030. Nikola’s first such station is at its Phoenix headquarters, used for testing, according to Colleen Robar, a Nikola spokeswoman.
In November, Nikola and electric-vehicle company BYD Motors helped Anheuser-Busch complete its first-ever zero-emission beer delivery in November in the beer company’s hometown of St. Louis. Nikola used a hydrogen-electric truck on its delivery leg.
But Daimler Trucks North America CEO Roger Nielsen told industry leaders in April 2019 that the future of Class 8 trucking would be battery-electric and that his company would focus on development of such trucks.
Robar said the “reverse merger” into VectoIQ will allow Nikola to move faster on production and the delivery of battery-electric vehicles to market. VectoIQ has a facility in Ulm, Germany.
The market for either type of truck appears to be heating up. In January, BYD announced it delivered its 100th battery-electric truck in the United States. BYD said it delivered more than 12,000 zero-emission electric trucks across all classes at the time.
BYD’s 100th U.S. truck is a Class 8 truck that will deliver for Anheuser-Busch around the San Francisco Bay area to grocery and convenience stores on a daily basis. The trucks will charge at the Anheuser-Busch Oakland facility overnight, BYD said.
But the industry is also eying electric trucks for longer hauls. On Feb. 23, the North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE) said more fleets should put such trucks into regional use. Mike Roeth, NACFE executive director, said 800,000 of the 1.7 million over-the-road tractors are day cabs, which are regional haulers.