Commercial truck companies say electric semis may find a place on Maine’s roads, but not anytime soon.
The lack of a higher-voltage charging infrastructure for the amount of electricity needed to run a truck — it could take eight hours or longer using an automobile charger — is only one challenge.
Limited driving range per charge, which is almost halved when temperatures drop below freezing, is another. With weight limits, trucks would have to carry fewer goods because batteries to run them contribute considerable weight. That could necessitate more trucks on the road to carry the same amount of goods at a time when Maine is trying to reach carbon reduction goals, trucking experts say.
Maine Forest Products Council Executive Director Patrick Strauch doesn’t believe a mandate from the state to step up a timeline to have electric- or hydrogen-powered vehicles on the road makes sense given such challenges, particularly in the forest industry where trucks are large, carry heavy loads and often are in remote northern areas of the state.
“We think there’s a future with some solutions, but a mandate approach is pretty heavy handed and won’t put us in the right position to make progress,” he said. “We should let the market develop and evolve and match up to the power grid structure that we need to build.”
He is among the people who will testify Thursday at a Maine Board of Environmental Protection public hearing about adopting California Advanced Clean Truck regulations aimed at reducing emissions from vehicles topping 8,500 pounds gross weight. The proposal in Maine would begin with vehicles manufactured in 2027 and ramp up over several years to require 82 percent of sales to be zero emission.
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Those supporting the measure, including senior attorney Emily Green at the Conservation Law Foundation, said cars, buses and trucks that use fossil fuels contribute more than half of Maine’s greenhouse gas emissions. Trucks and buses, she said, often rely on some of the dirtiest fuels, including diesel.
But the short timeframe to implement emission reductions worries truck business owners including Brian Bouchard, CEO of H.O. Bouchard in Hampden, who will attend the meeting in Augusta on Thursday. Trucks have weight limits and can only be in service a certain number of hours.
“We travel long distances from our terminal and if you are limited on how far the truck can travel and you have to wait eight hours for a charge it’s a problem,” he said.
While Bouchard does not plan to have electric trucks in his business anytime soon, Bob Whited, CEO of Whited Peterbilt of Maine, a dealer in Bangor, said he has some for sale, but they don’t draw much interest from potential buyers. Many of his truck customers haul paper, wood, potatoes or other products that make electric power difficult.
“There is no scenario in the foreseeable future that there will be electrification that can move those kinds of payloads,” Whited said.
He said electrified trucks might work for local deliveries and in ports. But they won’t work in northern Maine to move potatoes, broccoli or blueberries all over the East Coast, in the near term, he said. Many trucks use cranes, plows and other attachments that also require power to operate.
Whited installed two higher-voltage chargers in the company’s Bangor operation but had to add another electric line from the street to power them.
Maria Fuentes, executive director of the Maine Better Transportation Association, said the association supports voluntary adoption but is not yet ready to back a mandate that would force fleets or manufacturers to move forward. She also is concerned about long charging times with the current infrastructure.
“It would add a lot of cost to shipping because trucks would have to stop and get charged, which, at this point, takes a long time,” she said. “Those are costs that get handed off to consumers.”