While all eyes are fixed on the glamorous electric scooters and electric cars, we often forget the elephant in the room - heavy vehicles, especially trucks.
Here's an interesting stat: While trucks comprise only about 2% of on-road vehicles, these trucks are responsible for about 40% of emissions and fuel consumption from road transport. (For the more number oriented: India has over 2.8 million trucks that clock over 100 billion kilometers per year.)
So what is the industry doing about the electrification of trucks - lots of plans, but little to show so far by way of wheels on the road. But the industry may have to act much faster because studies suggest that the share of electric trucks when it comes to overall freight trucks should be 79% by 2070 to reach net-zero emissions.
So, that would be zero to eighty percent in about 50 years. Doesn't sound impossible, really. There is a good chance that a large proportion of such electrification for trucks could occur post-2040 when battery costs would have fallen dramatically, charging is far more efficient and powerful, and hopefully, alternatives such as fuel cells can provide a bigger bang for the buck.
But for now, we await efforts and innovations from both startups and the big boys to get the electric truck sector moving.
