Everything is connected.
As a technologist,or futurist or engineer or whatever my job is today after nearly 40 years in industry, it never ceases to amaze me how everything seems to be interconnected. I have done research and writing about battery electric vehicles, fuel cell vehicles and other hybrid electric vehicles for some time, but my roots are firmly in the diesel world.
All powertrain alternatives care about efficiency.
Put simply, dollars-per-mile ($/mi) is a key performance indicator (KPI) that doesn’t care if your current engine runs on diesel, CNG, RNG, electricity, hydrogen, propane, or any of a hundred other permutations of energy. It’s a business metric that everyone wants to improve no matter what drivetrain the vehicle is running.
If your competitors can move freight cheaper today than you can, they make more money and have more opportunity to attract customers. This is Business 101. Long-term, fleets can plan technology transitions, but also have to operate in the here and now with the trucks they have today.
Don’t get me wrong. I am a strong advocate of improving the environment, improving inclusion, improving social justice, and all that those things entail. But those factors also can be put in perspective of total cost of ownership and ultimately measured in dollars.
