E-Truck Task Force Background
CALSTART is a fuel and technology neutral organization that when the opportunity exists will facilitate “co-opetition”, enabling competing organizations to collaborate and launch a new market segment. CALSTART has successfully enable co-opetition in renewable natural gas, fuel cell buses, ethanol infrastructure, hybrid trucks sectors and now see an opportunity in the emerging electric truck market.
To target and assist this sector we will be building on our established program structures, particularly the Hybrid Truck Users Forum (HTUF) program, and our industry relationships to pull together the players and begin the effort. However, we will be expanding efforts beyond these structures too, as warranted, to maintain US leadership here.
CALSTART already works with E-Trucks in several ways because of our strong national and state role supporting advanced, efficient trucks. This work comes currently via tech development in the California Hybrid and Efficient Advanced Truck (CalHEAT) Center and the development of a truck electrification pathway in that program; via the Hybrid Vehicle Incentive Program (HVIP, managed under contract with the ARB) that provides purchase funding for hybrid and electric trucks; via our EV Infrastructure coordination activities which has identified needs around commercial-grade refueling/charging; and through HTUF via our existing application working groups and the tech panels at our national conference.
Why a Task Force for E-Trucks?
We are forming a specific E-Truck Task Force initially through HTUF to target the specific issues of this segment. We are doing this because of the recent promising emergence of this industry sector, its potentially large benefits, and the focused efforts needed to assist this segment’s growth and maturing.
This Task Force will be made up of two primary groups: early and interested users; and early E-Truck manufacturers and suppliers. Based on differential issues facing these two groups, we will create two tracks for the Task Force to assist developing data on their specific needs.
Based on our industry experience and conversations with key users and manufacturers, it is clear there are some significant unknowns that may slow or inhibit future market growth of these vehicles unless targeted and addressed. Not least of these issues are: applicability of the technology (where to deploy); payback and business case for the vehicles; expected improvements to that business case based on manufacturing improvements and future expected price reductions; and validation of performance.
The overall goal of this effort is to speed and support effective E-Truck production and use. In the short term, it will specifically identify key issues that need targeting; develop an action plan for addressing those issues; and then work to implement those recommendations with industry and public partners.
The Task Force will take on several of these issues to both understand and quantify the challenges and then to speed E-Truck uptake via action steps to targets and solve barriers. We anticipate these being some of the first activities of the Task Force:
- Identify key market and tech barriers
- Identify fleet user needs
- Identify and quantify industry development and production needs
- Quantify benefits and better validate business case
- Identify fueling/charging issues and needs
- Highlight best duty cycles, ways to deploy vehicles and cases for success
- Collect and report current validated data on performance
- Collect and outline expected price points for future volumes
- Recommend action steps to address key barriers identified, and implement action steps
- Report out these findings; including at a special session at
HTUF conference in Fall Timeline
• Initial issues Survey: April-May
• First meeting – review, priorities: June 9
– Provide initial incentive feedback to ARB, CEC, Air Districts
• Parallel Track Meetings – through summer
– Fleet: 2-4 meetings, every 3 weeks or so
– Industry: 2-4 meetings, every 3 weeks
• Draft Findings – First Recommendations: August/September
• Work Shop on Recommended Actions – October 11 – Baltimore, MD HTUF Conf