Fennell Forestry’s first electric truck in action in the Green Triangle. Picture: Laura Thomas
Soaring fuel prices and greener policies have given electric vehicles (EVs) a serious boost in recent years. Now the attention’s turning to trucks, but manufacturers still face a dilemma over which technology can best do the job. Source: Timberbiz
Some companies are embracing battery-electric trucks because they’re cheaper and the charging infrastructure is more developed.
Australia’s first electric log truck arrived in Mount Gambier earlier this month.
The truck is just the second electric log truck in the world and has been commissioned by Green Triangle harvest and haulage company Fennell Forestry to provide a realistic carbon reduction solution for the heavy transport industry.
Others are betting on hydrogen-powered fuel cells because they can support longer ranges, heavier payloads and longer uptime via faster refuelling.
For some, the solutions likely to be somewhere in the middle. Electric trucks have recently been launched where their normal range can be doubled or tripled using hydrogen as a backup energy source.
As well as electric conversions from diesel powered log trucks, hydrogen powered trucks, including log and timber haulage trucks have already been brought into New Zealand, the first nationwide hydrogen refuelling networks are being rolled out, dual-fuel hydrogen technologies have been trialled since late 2021 with one large trucking fleet involved in log transport planning to have ten of these dual-fuel hydrogen diesel trucks on the road by the second quarter of 2023.
Hydrogen, electric and dual fuel are all future fuels solutions that are going to work for the entire heavy transport industry. Those involved in wood transport are right at the forefront of this conversion.
The technologies, the results and the lessons from these early conversions are going to be profiled in the first Wood Transport & Logistics event run for more than five years, in Rotorua, New Zealand on 24-25 May 2023.
