International Energy Agency Technology Collaboration Programme – Hybrid and Electric Vehicles Final Report of Taskforce 41 “Electric Freight Vehicles”

Road freight transport is one of the fastest growing modes of transport and has an increasing share in the total GHG emissions of transport. Furthermore, higher gradients are observed for freight emissions compared to passenger travel emissions for most of the IEA countries. Hence in order to meet the Paris Climate Agreement targets, the global road freight sector will need to cut its CO2 emissions by 60% until 2050. Various technical and non-technical options
exist for reducing the emissions of road freight transport, such as improving the efficiency of freight logistics, reducing the fuel consumption performance of conventional vehicles and introducing (near) zero tailpipe emission vehicles such as battery-electric vehicles (BEV) into the market that could result in the large-scale emission reduction. However, current emphasis is on incremental technology developments to reduce fuel consumption of conventional vehicles.
Although electrifying the fleet is the ideal option for the future and has been the subject of significant discussion, there is still a high degree of uncertainty regarding technology developments of electric powertrain options. Specifically, the challenge has been to introduce electrification whilst continuing to meet the user requirements. This has given rise to numerous activities in the different vehicle segments of the freight sector with some uncertainty as to which
solutions will be adopted in the longer term.