Abstract:
Long-haul road freight is one of the ‘difficult to decarbonise’ sectors of the economy. Heavy vehicles require large amounts of power for long periods of time, making battery electric technologies challenging. There are two main alternatives to battery-electric vehicles with static charging: fuel-cell electric vehicles powered by hydrogen and ‘dynamic charging’ technology: like electric trains, trams or trolley buses. This talk will consider the basic numbers associated with these issues. Important factors are cost of ownership, logistics mass and time penalties and provision of energy infrastructure. It will show that one option is technically much better than the others.

About the Speaker:
Prof. David Cebon, ScD, FREng is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering in Cambridge University Engineering Department. He is the Director of the Centre for Sustainable Road Freight and the Cambridge Vehicle Dynamics Consortium. Professor Cebon has authored or co-authored many papers on dynamics, safety, manoeuvrability, energy consumption and decarbonisation of heavy vehicles. He is a founding member of the Hydrogen Science Coalition.

Dr. Parth Deshpande is a Research Associate at the Department of Engineering and Jesus College, University of Cambridge. His research primarily explores technology choice models for road freight electrification from both engineering and logistics perspectives. He studied for the PhD degree at the University of Cambridge and the BTech and MTech degrees at IIT Madras. He is a Board Member of the International Forum for Heavy Vehicle Transport & Technology.

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