The end of the diesel truck has been announced in Glasgow
It would be strange if all passenger cars switch neatly to electricity and hydrogen, but trucks and buses happily continue to puff dirty dust. Don’t worry, this is also being worked on. The Netherlands presented a plan at the climate summit in Glasgow. In 2040, only clean trucks and buses have to be sold. That means the end of the diesel truck – or affordable CO2-neutral (synthetic) diesel must be invented in the next twenty years.
According to the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, most trucks and buses last about ten years. The last diesel truck will then be sold in 2039 and will be retired in 2049. The transport sector should therefore be emission-free by 2050. Incidentally, those diesels will probably not go into the crusher, but cross the border to chug somewhere else for a while. That does not matter, because there too they will eventually be replaced by clean means of transport.
The United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway, Austria, Turkey, New Zealand, Luxembourg, Finland, Canada, Chile, Switzerland and Uruguay thought it was a great idea and joined the Netherlands’ plan. That reports Nu.nl. Companies such as Unilever, Ikea, Volvo, Scania, UPS, Amazon and Siemens are also pleased with the initiative.
Which clean trucks and buses are there?
Transport of large groups of people and items without diesel is still in its infancy. There are already some electric trucks available, but they are now mainly used on short journeys. The Futuricum company is now working on a truck with a 900 kWh battery. That is ten times as large as that in a Tesla Model S. Tesla has also been working on the Semi for some time, which should appear in 2022 after much delay.
The Volvo trucks in the photo above are already available and electric buses are already running at Schiphol. In Amsterdam, the entire bus fleet must be electric by 2025. Many experts also think that hydrogen will play a major role in trucks and buses. Hydrogen is often not the most efficient solution for passenger cars, but it probably is for larger items.
