The huge HCT combination truck of 68 tons of tractor and two semi-trailers was solemnly flagged off on Wednesday Liquid To Linnatuulen station in Janakkala.
Finnish highways are full of long and heavy combination trucks, but fully electric DB Donor the over 35-meter HCT combination is currently the only one of its kind.
“The only one of its kind in the whole world”, CEO of transport giant DB Schenker Petteri Nurmi says.
Energy solutions for heavy traffic are now moving forward at a slow pace.
DB Schenker’s HCT combination served as a model for the new electric world, when the car’s batteries weighing almost 4,000 kilograms began to be charged with 400 kilowatts of electricity. The size of the batteries is a princely 540 kilowatt hours. At this stage, their power is sufficient to drive the trunk traffic between Lempäälä and Vantaa’s Viinikkala – in good weather.
Schenker has now been running the main line since the beginning of January, and the experiences are familiar to electric car drivers: the battery capacity freezes surprisingly much in hard frosts as well as on slushy snow roads.
Neste faces tens of millions of investments
Neste’s Linnatuulen station now serves as a good stopover for the electric car fleet, as the station can charge heavy traffic cars with a power charger.
“It makes it possible to charge a heavy vehicle, for example, during the driver’s break of about half an hour”, Director of Neste’s Marketing and Service Business Mr. Kopra says.
Only.
Volvo’s fully electric HCT combination over 35 meters long is currently the only one of its kind in Finland and in the whole world.
PHOTO: Matti Kankare
For Neste, the investment in heavy traffic power chargers is a big effort, despite the size of the company.
“The Linnatuulen investment is more than half a million euros, with which we got two charging stations on both sides of the station. However, the user volume is still very small,” says Kopra.
Neste’s purpose is to increase the number of high-power charging stations to at least 70 points around Finland by 2030.
In practice, this is also required by the EU-approved AFIR regulation, which sets minimum requirements for charging infrastructure on busy roads. According to the regulation, the roads belonging to the European TEN-T trunk network must have charging stations for passenger cars at least every 60 kilometers by 2026.
In Finland, such roads include the Helsinki–Turku–Naantali, Helsinki–Tampere–Oulu and Helsinki–Jyväskylä–Oulu routes.
The situation is interesting. According to the regulation, member states should ensure that every 60 kilometers along the TEN-T network there is a fast charging station of at least 150 kW and the total power of the charging field is at least 400 kilowatts. For heavy vehicles, the minimum power of the charger should be 350 kilowatts, the charging area 1400 kilowatts and the maximum distance 120 kilometers.
The challenge is the chicken-egg phenomenon
Minister of the Environment and Climate Kai Mykkänen (kok) stated in Janakkala that the government has prepared to support these infrastructure projects with 10 million euros in next year’s budget. Presently Traficom organizes a competition for the best objects to be supported.
At the same time, however, it became clear that the government trusts that private operators are more at the forefront than at the back when it comes to building charging infrastructure.
Domestic.
Neste purchased power chargers for Linnatuulen station from Kempower.
PHOTO: Matti Kankare
It should be clear that the schedule required by the regulation is very challenging, because in this case it is also a chicken-and-egg phenomenon. Who will take the risk to bear the investment of millions of euros, if they will not start producing until, for example, the 2030s. The change also costs so much that logistics costs rise, but the magnitude of the increase and the payers are still open questions.
However, change is coming. who developed the HTC combination Volvo’s Finland CEO Magnus Björklund says that Switzerland’s heavy traffic fleet corresponds to the Finnish fleet.
“Of the heavy vehicles we sell, 26 percent have already been electric.”
Heavy traffic in the rest of Europe is rapidly becoming electrified. DB Schenker’s Petteri Nurmi praises the development of Sweden and Norway, compared to them, Finland is clearly behind.
“They have provinces or regions where logistics can already be handled completely carbon-neutral. This is also the goal in Finland. It definitely only requires the close cooperation of all parties to be successful.”
Fact
Slow and expensive
In Finland’s truck stock of 95,000 vehicles, changes in driving forces come slowly, as 97 percent of the fleet are diesel trucks.
In 2030, the emissions of new heavy vehicles registered for the first time in the EU should be 45 percent lower on average. The current goal is to reduce emissions by 30 percent.
In Finland, the active useful life of a truck is typically 10–15 years. A truck registered today is assumed to still be in traffic in 2034–2039.