Trucks

Abstract Electrifying long-haul heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) entails high private costs but offers substantial reductions in external costs by substituting diesel combustion with electricity generation. We combine technoeconomic analysis and life-cycle assessment of lithium-ion battery electric (BE) and diesel HDVs to estimate total private costs and monetized climate and health damages in the United States. In 2025, BE-HDVs are estimated to have 46% higher private costs ($0.71 mile⁻¹) than diesel trucks, decreasing to 33% ($0.52 mile⁻¹) by 2035. However, their external costs are 64–69%...

In this paper, we study the routing of commercial electric trucks through an application of distributionally robust optimization (DRO) for route planning and dispatch. This approach aims to minimize total cost of operation for the fleet, and considers the variability in energy consumption due to uncertain road conditions, traffic, weather and driving behavior. Furthermore, we augment the distributionally robust energy minimizing vehicle routing problem by learning the energy efficiency distribution over a horizon. We show that convergence to the true distribution is achieved while learning...

The reduced distances that can be achieved by truck platooning allow the reduction of drag resistance and therefore fuel consumption, gas emissions and costs for the transporters. However, this new way to configure trucks represents a new type of loading for pavement structures. This new type of loading is characterized by: (1) multiple load solicitations in a reduced period of time, (2) reduced inter-truck time gaps/distances, and (3) reduced lateral deviation of the vehicles forming the platoon, and therefore a more localized pavement damage. This paper investigates these effects and...

Greenhouse gases (GHG), the gases that cause climate change, are a major global concern. In the transportation sector, GHG reduction initiatives focus on passenger travel over goods movement, despite increasing freight demand and related emissions. California, with its recent GHG reduction legislation and large freight centers and corridors, provides a unique case study to evaluate the introduction of an alternative freight mode. Short sea shipping (SSS) offers a low GHG emission alternative to overland modes such as heavy-duty trucks. Analysis shows that this service is justifiable from a...