Last-mile delivery vehicles targeted for electrification

This article originally appeared in the October'24 magazine issue of Electronic Specifier Design – see ES's Magazine Archives for more featured publications

By Mark Patrick, Director of Technical Content, EMEA, Mouser Electronics

The transportation sector is a significant source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In 2019, MHDVs alone accounted for more than 5% of the global CO2 emissions, and this figure is projected to rise to over 11% by 2050 if no measures are implemented.

The earliest efforts to reduce GHG emissions by phasing out internal combustion engines (ICE) focused on passenger vehicles. The next transportation segment likely to transition to renewable fuels will be medium-duty vehicles (MDVs) – the trucks, vans, and buses used in last-mile distribution from warehouses and distribution centres to retailers and end customers.

The MDV segment of the market is in dire need of remediation as it contributes a disproportionate amount of harmful emissions. MDVs and heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) represent a mere 4% of the total vehicles in circulation worldwide but together are responsible for 40% of all road transportation emissions. Last-mile MDVs alone contribute up to half of all delivery vehicle CO2 emissions.

Last-mile delivery innovation

Electrifying MDVs will be a significant step toward mitigating climate change, but doing so also creates the opportunity to reimagine last-mile delivery. The following are potential changes in last-mile delivery that are being tested or are under consideration:

• Autonomous driving on highway segments
• Using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve delivery routing
• Using AI to coordinate the activities of vehicles and human workers in truck yards and distribution centres
• Equipping electric vehicle (EV) frames with mounts that would allow fleet operators to exchange cargo containers with each other, or even with passenger cabins, which would make the frames dual-use
• The use of alternative MDVs, including robots and drones
• The adoption of light EVs (LEVs), a category that includes micro cars, e-bikes, e-scooters, and e-rickshaws

These measures are expected to increase operational efficiency while reducing delivery times, costs, wear on roads and other infrastructure, traffic congestion (especially in urban areas), and carbon emissions. Automated and autonomous MDVs and LEVs will ease traffic congestion simply by being smaller and, in the case of aerial drones, by shifting delivery traffic off roads entirely.

Deploying fleets of automated and autonomous delivery vehicles can also contribute to the development of smart cities. AI can direct autonomous delivery vehicles on routes that take municipal priorities into account; the obvious example is managing delivery schedules and routing to ease traffic congestion. Also, data collected by autonomous delivery vehicles can be used by cities to improve traffic management, identify hazards such as road obstructions, or monitor the condition of infrastructure (e.g., roadbeds, sidewalks, streetlights, power lines, bridge supports).

Market challenges and technology

Regardless of the fuel used, there is a direct relationship between the weight of the vehicle being propelled and the amount of energy required to get it in motion and keep it moving. Larger vehicles simply need more fuel, whether it’s gas or electricity.

Delivery vehicles are divided into formal classes by weight. Medium-duty vehicles (MDVs) are in Classes 3 to 6; heavy-duty vehicles in Classes 7 and 8. Class 1 includes cars and small vans; Class 2 includes SUVs, vans, and buses. The higher the class, the more power is consumed, requiring increasingly larger battery packs. (MED = Medium; COE = Cab Over Engine.) (Source: WTWH Media, LLC)

One drawback with battery-driven vehicles is that recharging a battery can take much longer than refilling a gas tank. Companies that manufacture charging equipment are striving to reduce charging times, primarily by replacing silicon power ICs with similar parts based on gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC). These chargers, though very expensive, are significantly faster, and their use makes it far more practical to operate MDVs and larger vehicles.

Meanwhile, the battery industry’s perpetual goal is to provide increasingly more power in batteries of decreasing size and weight. Solid-state battery cells can theoretically reach 11kWh/Kg, but today’s batteries provide roughly 3% of that. The industry wants to get to 1kWh/Kg; it is considered a realistic goal, and if achieved, the weight of any given battery could be reduced by up to 30% for the same capacity.

One way to avoid long charging times for any EV is to set up stations where depleted batteries can be quickly swapped out for charged replacements; the vehicle goes on its way, and the drained battery is recharged offline. The proposal is considered impractical for passenger EVs, but it could make sense for organisations that operate fleets of MDVs and LEVs.

One of the most widely used battery chemistries today is lithium-ion. However, the world is struggling to discover new sources of lithium. As the market for passenger EVs grows and the market for MDVs develops, the accelerating demand exacerbates the challenge of finding new sources.

In addition to expanding mining operations to extract basic materials, electrification will require significant investments in infrastructure, including the following:

• Vehicle factories
• Battery factories
• Charger factories
• The installation of more charging stations
• Power plants
• Upgrades and/or expansions of power distribution networks

Last-mile distribution

The larger the battery, the more complex it is; therefore, it made more sense to electrify vehicle types in order of size, from small to large, starting with passenger vehicles and then moving on to MDVs (and LEVs), and eventually later addressing HDVs.

No link in the supply chain is any more or less critical than any other, but the last mile has several distinctions that make that segment a sensible candidate for electrification and automation as soon as practicable:

• Value can be added in this stage (for example, by offering one-day delivery)
• Direct contact with customers means last-mile operations have a stronger effect on perceptions of customer service
• Logistics in the last mile can be more complex; factors such as fuel prices and local traffic tend to be more variable
• Last-mile delivery averages 40% of the total delivery cost, and sometimes more than half

What’s next

Achieving sustainability goals requires electrifying and automating delivery vehicles. As a practical matter, this process is also likely to include fundamental changes in the delivery process itself, as organisations begin to scale down the size of some MDVs, and at the same time rely less on MDVs in favour of using LEVs. There is a natural opportunity to use the data collected by automated delivery vehicles for other purposes, including smart-city applications. Innovation in power ICs, battery chemistry, battery management systems, sensors, AI, and other technologies will make it all possible.