Thread | Brutkey

I did the maths today on the EV change-over of commercial trucks.

It's simplest to start with the cost of fuel vs electricity per kilometer and per year. If Diesel costs $2/l and trucks get 10km/l, then the cost is $0.2 per kilometer. If electricity is 25c/kwhr and truck EVs get 15km/kwhr, then EVs cost $0.01666 per kilometer.

Assuming that a truck does 200km per day, five days a week, fifty working weeks a year, that's 50000km per year. So the diesel truck costs $10,000 per year to run, and the EV costs $833.33 per year to run.

Let's assume that the truck costs $200,000 new, and the business can sell a decent second-hand truck for $160,000. So it costs $40,000 up front to buy the EV truck.

Then you save $9,166.67 per year.

So it takes 4.36 years to pay off.

So firstly show me the company that would prefer not to save ~$9,000 per year?

And secondly show me the company that can't plan five years ahead.

Apparently that's 99% of the entire transport industry.

Matt Palmer
@womble@infosec.exchange

@PaulWay@aus.social your fuel consumption numbers are too generous. The dinky little 4.5T truck I drive for work is closer to 5km/L (on a ~300km round trip, it typically uses 55-60L). From https://fleethvnews.com.au/every-electric-truck-model-available-in-australia-right-now/, it looks like your km/kw is generous, too; I'm getting numbers closer to 2.5km/kwh. Based on that article, though, it looks like a 300km round trip is marginal at best for an EV light truck in Australia at the moment, sadly.

PaulWay
@PaulWay@aus.social

@womble@infosec.exchange I fed your numbers into my spreadsheet and to repay the $40K expenditure for the new EV takes 2 years 8 months.

Remember, this is not throwing away the old vehicle. This is selling the old perfectly good vehicle. The prices I saw on trucksales.com.au for used 4.5T trucks were in the $120K to $200K range depending on phase of moon, number of hairs on the owners head and number of demerit points on the driver's license. It didn't seem to depend on kilometres driven or on age. I don't know what a new truck costs, so I'm just guessing on $200K - if there's a more accurate figure I can feed that into my spreadsheet.

Matt Palmer
@womble@infosec.exchange

@PaulWay@aus.social I'll ask my boss if he knows what a replacement for the truck I drive would cost. It won't be the price of an EV truck, but it'll be a floor for calculation.

Another argument strongly in favour of moving early is the used vehicle resale value. A company that switches now can get a good price for their old one. When the stampede begins, used diesels will plummet in price due to oversupply, and the payback time will shoot up.

Matt Palmer
@womble@infosec.exchange

@PaulWay@aus.social the truck I'm driving now (4.5T bare-chassis Isuzu) was bought new in 2013 for $38k. Interestingly, the insulated (but not chilled) box body cost about $20k. Boss reckons the whole-cost for a brand new one would be about $100k today. So whatever those $120k+ second hand trucks are, they're a different breed to what I'm running around in.

Matt Palmer
@womble@infosec.exchange

@PaulWay@aus.social another couple of data points: I just drove past a truck dealer, took note of some sticker prices on similar trucks. $13k for a very pre-owned unit with chiller, $93k for what looks like a brand new one with insulated box.