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The UK requires a £100bn investment to decarbonise its heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) or risk missing climate change targets for the sector, a report from the Green Finance Institute (GFI) has said.
The HGV sector is a priority sector to decarbonise, representing a disproportionately large 19 per cent of UK transport emissions despite only making up 1 per cent of vehicles on the road network.
The government has committed to ending the sale of new diesel HGVs weighing 26 tonnes and under by 2035, with all new HGVs sold in the UK needing to be zero emission at the exhaust from 2040. This is in addition to the pledge for 30 per cent of HGVs sold in the UK (including coaches and buses) to be zero emission by 2030.
The freight and logistics sector contributed £127bn to the UK economy in 2022 and is a critical element of UK supply chains. Around 89 per cent of all goods in the UK are moved directly by road.
But currently almost all of these vehicles are diesel-powered, and adopting new technologies is challenging considering the slim operating margins typically faced by the sector.
The GFI report estimates that £100bn of investment will be required, delivered through collaboration between the public and private sectors. But it warned that there is limited time remaining, as many HGV operators in the UK have just one more cycle of replacing their fleet before the diesel truck end-of-sales dates.
The electric trucks currently available are best for short to medium ranges and fixed routes that allow them to return to the depot at night to charge. Most models available today offer ranges of 200-320km on a single charge, although some models can offer up to 600km, making them compatible with long-haul applications.
As of November 2023, there are over 300 battery electric truck models available worldwide, while hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are typically able to offer longer ranges (450-700 km) and require less time to refuel. However, model availability is more limited (21 models as of 2023).
Adoption is very limited at the moment, with an estimated 500 low-emissions HGVs on UK roads out of a total of 450,000 vehicles in the sector. The vehicles that are being used are typically bought for local government fleets and by larger companies driven by commitments to reduce their own Scope 1 emissions.
The report called for new infrastructure to be built to improve recharge or refuelling, while it also urged operators to install chargepoints in depots. Furthermore, some public infrastructure will be required to facilitate long-haul operations – there are also currently no hydrogen truck refuelling stations in the UK.
“Failure to overcome the barriers identified puts the transition to a zero-emission road freight and logistics sector at risk,” the report said.
“There is an urgent need to create the right conditions to facilitate an orderly transition. The barriers to investment – and solutions needed to address them – are granular in nature. Alignment, coordination and collaboration between the public and private sector, and between the finance, transport and energy sectors, will be key to ensuring the necessary solutions are effective in unlocking the private capital needed.”
