Andreas Gorbach started with a short introduction on the technology strategy of Daimler Truck, defined by two strong expressions: The Power to Drive and The Intelligence to Drive.
“Trucks and buses are the backbone of economy and society. As long as the living of humans on this planet is based on trade, there will be transportation of goods, there will be trucks on the road, and that gives technology a special meaning. Technology needs to create value for the customer and it needs to create scale for us. The power to drive relates to the propulsion system and everything related to that. The intelligence to drive encompasses software and electronics. Because both have the highest impact on total cost of ownership on the one side. And both can scale in the global product portfolio.”
Diesel will keep evolving
Gorbach went ahead to clarify that the Diesel platform will continue to be developed, alongside the EV platform, whilst we wait for the latter to increase it’s share of the market until it, eventually, becomes dominant, particularly in the medium duty segment.
Regarding battery electric trucks, after the initial generation of ICE platform-based, Daimler Truck in going for dedicated truck battery platforms. The way forward, according to Gorbach, is exemplified by the eActros 600, a +500 km range 40 tons electric truck that will arrive at the market next year. The plan is to deploy battery platforms to 80% of Daimler Truck global portfolio.
H2? H2 times 2…
Gorbach sees hydrogen being used in the future not only on fuel-cell electric trucks, but also on internal combustion ones, as a CO2 emissions-free solution, even though other types of emission are unavoidable, like NOx. For Daimler Truck, as a tool for many uses, these vehicles have to provide different solutions for different realities in different parts of the world.
The infrastructure conundrum
This topic was a clear highlight, not only of this presentation but also from Karin Rådström’s interventions during the event. The new Daimler Truck CEO was adamant on this topic: infrastructure is lagging behind.
Gorbach called it a “dilemma”, explaining in a very clear way that the formula for decarbonization speed in the transportation sector is the existence of product multiplied with cost parity TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), multiplied by the infrastructure.
Since is was clear to see at the IAA Transportation that the product is now available, this is not the problem anymore.
Regarding TCO parity with Diesel, things are not so rosy, at least not yet, as explained by Andreas Gorbach: “We need to lower the cost of trucks and we are working on that. But also green energy prices need to be reduced. And that, in some markets, is still not good enough. We need a price tag on CO2. In Germany this is done by the toll. That is one mechanism to make CO2 more expensive. And with that you already have cases where zero emission is more economically favorable for our customers. But this is not the case around the world. And this still impacts zero emission sales significantly.”
But the big obstacle is infrastructure. “In Europe, there are six million trucks on the road. They burn 60 million tons of diesel every year. That translates into 700 terawatt/hour of energy. If you double the efficiency with electric drive, it’s 350 terawatt/hour. We need to bring 350,000,000.000 kWh into the mobile assets called trucks. This is the infrastructure challenge. It requires 35,000 high power chargers in Europe. And today we have 200. And it requires 200,000 hydrogen refilling stations. And today we have 100/120.”
“Each month we need to build 400 high power chargers and 30 refilling stations. And it is not happening. And the longer it does not happen, the higher the number becomes per month and the more unrealistic it becomes.“
It is clear that, for Daimler Truck, infrastructure is and will remain the bottleneck of decarbonization. Delaying this transition has great consequences, particularly if we take into account that, in Europe, manufacturers have to reduce the new vehicle sales CO2 footprint by 45% until 2030 (compared to 2019). Without equivalent charging infrastructure, this will not be possible and we are looking at are very heavy penalties (possible, existential) for manufacturers.
Gorbach was adamant that the ambition of the target is the right one, suggesting flexibility to the introduction of the 45% target in relation to the development of the infrastructure. Otherwise, the price of the product will probably reflect the cost of the penalties, making the transition to decarbonization much harder and slower.
In this presentation is was also accentuated that, due to the high voltage needs for truck fast charging, the limitations are not the chargers themselves, but the electric grids that need expanded capabilities, demanding huge capital investment and also a significant amount of time to implement. There is nothing Truck OEMs can actually do regarding the grid improvement, apart from releasing calls to action.
Centralising intelligence
Lastly, Andreas Gorbach addressed more thoroughly the tech strategy regarding adding more intelligence to the trucks. He explained that, moving forward, the goal is to centralize the intelligence of the truck, as opposed to have individual controllers for different components. In the future, Daimler Truck is looking to have a large computing unit, with an operating system that would allow the deployment of applications allowing the full customization of the truck to better the customers’ needs, with over-the-air improvements and without visiting a workshop. This is currently being developed in a joint venture with Volvo and it is open to the addition of other OEMs.
Welectric asked about the challenges regarding digitalization and software development in Europe, including cybersecurity, regulations and specialized workforce. Andreas Gorbach replied that data protection and talent acquisition are big challenges, when it comes to software. “As a global company, we are not dependent on having all these talents in Germany. We have a very big and important development hub in India. Also, on the software side, we work in other locations like Portugal or in the US. Cyber security and data protection are inevitable to comply. That costs time and adds complexity. But we do have the time in trucking. Technology only makes sense if it increases the asset called truck. We don’t have that pressure to be fast to the market. We have the time to do it diligent and step by step.“
Autonomous driving
Our final question was about autonomous driving. How is Daimler Trucks looking at this functionality, expected to revolutionize the trucking industry? “We work at the moment with Torc, a Daimler Truck owned company in the US, which develops the virtual driver and we aim to enter that market with autonomous trucks in 2027. We have no rollout plans to Europe with that technology. We are likely scaling to similar US like markets, like Canada and Australia. I do not see any regulatory environment inhibiting autonomous trucks in Europe, but I see the application in the US much more attractive and it’s mainly related to driver shortage and driver cost, because the whole idea behind autonomous trucking is TCO again. And with the driver costs and the driver shortage we have in the US, the benefit for the customer is the biggest to start with.”
Accordingly, this is also the justification for Daimler Truck to jump from Level 2 partial driver assistance, already available in the current line of products to Level 4, high driving automation, skipping Level 3 altogether: “Today we have what we think is the best level two systems in the market. And the next step is really to take the driver out. And that’s the big TCO benefit, not to strive for the best level three, as we don’t see a big TCO advantage for our customers.”
