INCOMING CARGO Story by Dion Cowley
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NEW ZEALAND’S
FUTURE
FLEET What will trucking in a future New Zealand look like? The second of a three-part series by Hiringa Energy.
T
he future of transportation will be a combination of multiple technologies working in synergy. Battery electric (BEV), hydrogen fuel-cell electric (FCEV), and biofuel vehicles will each have an important role to play and need to be deployed where they work best. For battery electric, it’s the metro and return-tobase tasks, where the vehicle weight, range and charge times aren’t going to encumber productivity and the electrical grid has capacity.
For hydrogen, it’s linehaul and HPMV operations, where uptime and payload are critical and where fleets are large (with high energy requirements). For biofuels, it’s the existing legacy fleet of trucks, those that are being road-registered today and will still be on the road (albeit in a reduced capacity) in 2040. Vehicle owners must be able to choose the option that best suits their needs. It’s too risky for New Zealand to rely on one technology, given the scale of the new fleet required and
Mercedes-Benz GenH2.
100 New Zealand Trucking
its variety of uses.
Committing to hydrogen, providing high impact Early collaboration with Waitomo Group and some of New Zealand’s largest truck owners and operators, such as TR Group and TIL Freight (now Move Logistics Group), helps to ensure that the hydrogen refuelling infrastructure and vehicles are suitable locally. This combined effort targets the highest impact segments of the freight market, such as line and bulk haul, with one of Hyundai Xcient Fuel Cell.
August 2021
these trucks emitting as much CO2 as 150 average cars per year. The carbon reduction impact of addressing this sector of the transport fleet is highly material. For example, the first 300 trucks planned to be introduced by Hiringa and its partners into the heavytransport fleet will have the equivalent emissions-reduction impact of more than 45,000 cars, at less than one-eighth the capital cost. Hydrogen fuel cells are best suited to electrify these heavy vehicles because of the payload, range, and refuelling advantages over battery-only solutions and
