Europe’s ICE truck ban in danger with new fuel loophole from EU Parliament
MEPs of the European Union voted to adopt strict new rules regarding emissions from trucking and busses today, seeking a 90% reduction in total fleet CO2 emissions by 2040 — but there’s a big loophole involved. While initial planning from the EU Commission sought to categorize effectively all ICE trucks and busses as CO2-emitting, the EU Parliament has other ideas.
Under the proposed rules adopted today, medium and heavy-duty trucks using biofuels and e-fuels will be exempt from fleet CO2 calculations, and in effect considered zero emission. Busses using biomethane will be similarly exempted. The change was adopted at the behest of more conservative ministers in Parliament, including those from the German CDU party. Their reasoning is, at best, duplicitous: Ministers in support claim not to want to take “green” fuel technologies under development off the table, but it’s plain that truck manufacturers and trucking interests are the key beneficiaries of such a change.
Biofuels (fuels derived from organic waste products, crops, or biomass decomposition) and e-fuels (synthetically manufactured replacements for gasoline and diesel) are deeply controversial in the context of sustainable transportation. While both theoretically come with far smaller carbon footprints than traditionally refined crude oil products (gas, diesel), both also mean vehicles that produce emissions.
Proponents of e-fuel argue that the production of such fuels is sustainable and carbon-neutral by design, because they use carbon capture and renewable-powered hydro-electrolysis to synthesize end compounds like e-methanol, e-kerosene, and e-methane. Biofuel, on the other hand, is a very squishy term — technically, hugely environmentally impactful practices like industrial-scale corn or sugar cane agriculture can be used to make biofuels. After all, they’re made from plants. But it’s not clear what the working definition of biofuels will be under the EU Parliament’s proposed rules or if sustainability requirements will be built in, so it’s possible naked greenwashing will be skirted. Biofuels derived from waste wood chip biomass or spent food oil are at least putting someone else’s trash to work. But, again, the end product must still be burned and thus produce some level of harmful emissions, particularly CO2.
The rules adopted by EU Parliament today are not binding, and must still be negotiated with the EU member state councils into final legislation. But it’s clear that there’s a substantial lobby pushing to keep ICE trucks on the road in Europe, and it’s all but certain that the truck manufacturers and many of their largest customers are pushing hard on this.
The rules, otherwise, are still far stricter than anything you’ll likely see the US adopt this century. By 2030, Europe is targeting a 45% reduction in fleet CO2 emissions for trucks and busses. By 2035, the target increases to 65%. Finally, in 2040, 90% reduction in fleet CO2 emissions must be achieved.
For more about the decision, check out the reporting over at Electrive and the EU Parliament’s press release.
Electrek’s take
The EU’s targets for fleet emissions reductions in trucking and bussing are admirable — on paper. 90% CO2 reduction for some of the biggest emitters on the road by 2040 is a seriously lofty goal. But when you put in a carve-out for e-fuels and biofuels (with the latter, again, being kind of fuzzy as a category), this mandate starts to lose some of its teeth.
For one, such an exemption all but guarantees massive investment in e-fuel and biofuel commercialization — an investment in continuing to produce vehicles that put CO2 and other harmful compounds directly into our atmosphere. Dress up the arithmetic any way you want, a truck belching e-fuel is putting a ton of CO2 back in the air. And biofuels are an even more complex topic, with some being far dirtier than others when weighing both production and end combustion.
Counterarguments about the growth sustainability of battery electric infrastructure and the struggles to commercialize true zero-emission fuels like hydrogen should be heard out, but nothing about this exception feels sourced from rigorous academic investigation into these topics. It sounds like trucking interests are just concerned they could be squeezed and disrupted by radically necessary action to preserve our biosphere and restore local and global air quality.
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GreenPower Motor Company says it’s received three orders for 11 of its BEAST electric Type D school buses for western state school districts in Arizona, California, and Oregon.
GreenPower hasn’t made the sort of headline-grabbing promises or big-money commitments that companies like Nikola and Lion Electric have, but while those companies are floundering GPM seems to be plugging away, taking orders where it can and actually delivering buses to schools. Late last year, the company scored 11 more orders for its flagship BEAST electric school bus.
As far as these latest orders go, the breakdown is:
- seven to Los Banos Unified School District in Los Banos, California
- two for the Hood River County School District in Hood River, Oregon
- two for the Casa Grande Elementary School District in Casa Grande, Arizona
Those two BEAST electric school buses for Arizona will join another 90-passenger BEAST that was delivered to Phoenix Elementary School District #1, which operates 15 schools in the center of Phoenix, late last year.
“As school districts continue to make the change from NOx emitting diesel school buses to a cleaner, healthier means of transporting students, school district transportation departments are pursuing the gold standard of the industry – the GreenPower all-electric, purpose-built (BEAST) school buses,” said Paul Start, GreenPower’s Vice President of Sales, School Bus Group. “(The) GreenPower school bus order pipeline and production schedule are both at record levels with sales projections for (2025) set to eclipse the 2024 calendar year.”
GreenPower moved into an 80,000-square-foot production facility in South Charleston, West Virigina in August 2022, and delivered its first buses to that state the following year.
Electrek’s Take
Since the first horseless carriage companies started operating 100 years ago (give or take), at least 1,900 different companies have been formed in the US, producing over 3,000 brands of American automobiles. By the mid 1980s, that had distilled down to “the big 3.”
All of which is to say: don’t let the recent round of bankruptcies fool you – startups in the car and truck industry is business as usual, but some of these companies will stick around. If you’re wondering which ones, look to the ones that are making units, not promises.
SOURCE | IMAGES: GreenPower Motors.
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While some recent high-profile bankruptcies have cast doubt on the EV startup space recently, medium-duty electric truck maker Harbinger got a shot of credibility this week with a massive $100 million Series B funding round co-led by Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund.
It’s been a rough couple of weeks for fledgling EV brands like Lion Electric and Canoo, but box van builder Harbinger is bucking the trend, fueling its latest funding round with an order book of 4,690 vehicles that’s valued at nearly $500 million. Some of the company’s more notable customers including Bimbo Bakeries (which owns brands like Sara Lee, Thomas’, and Entenmann’s) and THOR Industries (Airstream, Jayco, Thor), which is also one of the investors in the Series B.
Other prominent investors include Tiger Global, the Coca-Cola System Sustainability Fund, and ArcTern Ventures.
As for what makes Harbinger such an attractive investment prospect, Dipender Saluja, Managing Partner of Capricorn Investment Group’s Technology Impact Fund explains that, “Harbinger has demonstrated a remarkable ability to reach significant milestones far quicker than other EV companies … the market has been impressed by their ability to develop large portions of the vehicle in-house to drive down unit costs, while remaining capital efficient.”
The company plans to use the funds to ramp up to higher-volume production capacity and deliver on existing orders, as well as build-out of the company’s sales, customer support, and service operations.
“Harbinger is entering a rapid growth phase where we are focused on scaling production of our customer-ready platform,” said John Harris, co-founder and CEO. “These funds catalyze significant revenue generation. We’ve developed a vehicle for a segment that is ripe for electrification, and there is a strong product/market fit that will help fuel our upward trajectory through 2025 and beyond.”
The company has raised $200 million since its inception in 2021.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Harbinger.
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There is no state more associated with cars and car culture than Michigan – and the state that’s home to the Motor City has just taken a huge step into the future with the deployment of its first-ever all electric police vehicle.
The 2024 Ford Mustang Mach-E patrol vehicle is assigned to the Michigan State Police State Security Operations Section, and will be to be used by armed, uniformed members of the MSP specializing in general law enforcement and security services at state-owned facilities in the Lansing, MI area.
“This is an exciting opportunity for us to research, in real time, how a battery electric vehicle performs on patrol,” says Col. James F. Grady II, director of the MSP. “Our state properties security officers patrol a substantially smaller number of miles per day than our troopers and motor carrier officers, within city limits and at lower speeds, coupled with the availability of charging infrastructure in downtown Lansing, making this the ideal environment to test the capabilities of a police-package battery electric vehicle.”
The MSP’s Precision Driving Unit is nationally renowned for its annual Police Vehicle Evaluation, which our own Scooter Doll participated in last year, driving the then-new Chevy Blazer EV Police Pursuit Vehicles in a game of “cops and robbers.”
In those tests, the EVs have impressed – but the MSP has been hesitant to commit to a BEV until now. “We began testing battery electric vehicles in 2022, but up until now hybrids were the only alternative fuel vehicle in our fleet,” said Lt. Nicholas Darlington, commander of the Precision Driving Unit. “Adding this battery electric vehicle to our patrol fleet will allow us to study the vehicle’s performance long-term to determine if there is a potential for cost savings and broader applicability within our fleet.”
Michigan joins other states like Wisconsin and California in deploying electric patrol cars and saving big money on fuel and maintenance, with many more out there and many more to come.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Michigan State Police.
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