Electrification of Road Freight – With David Cebon

Forget cars, what does the transition to electric FREIGHT look like? How capable are HEAVY vehicles? What’s the future of charging infrastructure? What changes for shippers and logistics companies? How should they think and plan?

On this episode of FutureBites, I travel to Cambridge University to ask Professor David Cebon, a visionary in the electrification of heavy vehicles.

David is Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Cambridge University. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Director of the Cambridge Vehicle Dynamics Consortium, and -- his principal focus for the past 15 years -- Director of the Centre for Sustainable Road Freight. 

In short, he is THE global guru on the electrification of freight. 

We discuss:

• Intelligent charging in cities, and why top-up charging in urban freight is a BIG win.
• How electric trucks are already good enough for 80% of journeys and getting better fast
• The compromises necessary for weight-limited Loads, and how electric vehicles are close to a drop-in replacement for diesel for volume limited loads.
• Why charging at truck stops is NOT the future
• The triple-win of static charging at warehouses and factories
• The biggest bottleneck in static charging: cabling up all the connections
• Why hot-swapping batteries is a plausible, but less likely part of the future
• Why dynamic charging (charging on the move) is a huge win and a BIG part of our future
• The pros and cons of competing approaches to dynamic charging

The opportunities are HUGE.

Listen to hear David’s exceptional insights not only on the future of electric freight, but on the calculations and compromises every organisation needs to make to get there. And once you see the future of electric garbage trucks, buses, and long-haul big rigs, you can’t help but think more deeply about the electrification opportunity in ALL contexts.

Enjoy the podcast!

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As always, additional commentary and takeaways and the full transcript will be on the Future Bites page soon. More on my work as a Futurist Speaker, and why I do what I do, at www.brucemccabe.com