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Join Andy Marsland in Exploring Clean Energy where we uncover the ideas, innovations, and projects powering our sustainable future.
You may know us as Exploring Hydrogen, where for 31 episodes we’ve shone a spotlight hydrogen. However, our global challenge of decarbonisation is much bigger than one energy vector.
Now, as we continue as The Exploring Clean Energy Podcast, this 2nd season we’re expanding the conversation to include the other stories that are shaping the energy transition of Australia and the world. We hope you enjoy the diversity of thought, and I welcome you so engage with me to help shape the episodes moving forward – so we can bring you the technical experts and projects that you want to hear about and to answer your important questions. Welcome to our energising journey.
You are listening to exploring Clean Energy, where we uncover the ideas, innovations, and projects powering our sustainable future. I'm Andy Marsland, welcome to the show.
I'm thrilled to welcome our guest today, Corbin Luther, who is the e Mobility Solutions Specialist for Volvo Australia. So a very warm, warm welcome. Thanks for having me, mate. Yeah, thanks for being on the Exploring Clean Energy Podcast. Um, I'm sure the audience will. No, all about Volvo as an organization, but could you just break that down as in terms of Volvo, Australia and, you know, particularly your area focused Volvo trucks?
Yep. So Volvo Group globally is trucks, bus penter, like the, the marine engines, uh, and construction equipment. And there's a bunch of other small bits and pieces to that outside of trucks. Obviously I'm not too interested in, in the other stuff that we do. But in, in Australia, we have all of those main divisions in Australia that is both Volvo trucks.
And Mack trucks as well. So, um, that Mac became part of the Volvo business, I think in 2001. Those two factories here in Brisbane were combined in 2002, so both Volvo and Mack trucks that you see on the roads here in Australia, all the big ones anyway, all the Macs and then all the bigger Volvos. So like your garbage trucks that go past your house.
Yeah, those are not built in Australia, but all of the bigger stuff, stuff you see on the highways, all built in Australia, here in Brisbane, at a factory, at a Waco. Oh, fantastic. So yeah, for, so if one of, if not the biggest, it's us, us and the other guys down in Victoria that are depending on the year, who's the biggest heavy vehicle manufacturer in Australia, but manufacturing is not dead here in Australia.
And the exciting thing is electric. Is is coming soon for that factory as well. So currently the electrics come from overseas. Okay. Yeah. And we can dig into that throughout the course. Yeah. I was gonna say, I'm probably getting too far ahead on what your questions are. Yeah. So how big is Volvo trucks kind of globally in terms of sales and then mm-hmm.
What proportion of that is Australian? Okay. So I think this year will build something like three. Three and half thousand trucks in Australia, between Volvo and Mac. I think the last year that was, was a big year. I think it was something like 415,000 or 425,000 trucks sold globally in 2020. Three or 20, 24, I think that was, so those sorts of numbers.
I'm not so great with the truck detail I'm good with, but in Australia, well, like we're up to 117 electric trucks on road in Australia, like just over 50 of those are this year. Oh wow. Um, so that, that's, that's, that's where my numbers are. Good. But yeah, in terms of the business globally, I'm sure, sure.
About two years ago it was 400 and something thousand. Trucks delivered. Yeah. Right. Let's talk about immobility then, then. Um, yeah, so I'm sure it's Yeah. Those challenges. That's right. Yeah. So what are the kind of biggest technical challenges then that, uh, you know, biggest technical issues that you've gotta kind of work, work through as, uh, yeah, the, I mean, I guess the, the big thing that, that there's.
People much smarter than me, o over in Sweden that are doing the really technical stuff like with the batteries of electric motors and that sort of thing. The, the, the technical part that's difficult here in Australia is that making sure they're gonna be fit for purpose and, and how that stacks up versus the diesel equivalent.
So our challenges are things like the electrical infrastructure, you know, if the customer's based in an old. Area and the, there's not enough power left in, in the area that they wanna put. Even if they wanna put, say, a new office building in some more big air conditioning units and things like that, they may not have the electrical capacity on site for that.
So the challenges like that, um, in Australia is a big one. Is making sure that it makes sense for application. Obviously Australia is a relatively, very small population with a massive land mass. Yes. So then for Australia is a, you know, a huge part of the freight task in, in Australia is like in capital cities or, you know, whether it's in a regional center like a Toowoomba or, or you know, Mildura or somewhere like that.
So the trucks aren't, you know, in a 10 hour shift they might do 150, 200 kilometers because they're not going very far. But that's this much of the market here in Australia. A lot of people will ask, oh yeah, but it's not gonna do Brisbane, Sydney, or it's not gonna do Brisbane, Melbourne, these electrics.
I'm like, no. Never said it's going to. It's meant for that, that city stuff. So the challenges, I think the perception around it, same as it was probably good that cars have been around for a long time with electric cars and more people sort of get it. Yes. Is that if you live in a regional area and you drive a lot or you're towing things, electric cars probably.
Not gonna suit you, right? Mm-hmm. With customers of ours that do say heavy haulage, all they're in, you know, they, they only do say B, double work interstate. We're not gonna talk to them about electric because we don't have a suitable product. So the challenges around people's understanding of, of what it's actually meant for.
But then things like the electrical infrastructure, teaching drivers how to, to drive them in the most efficient way is another one. Yeah. Could we dig into that then? Yeah. Yeah. How, how would they kind of change that driving? So the, well, the interesting one with the driving bit, so what, I started with a Volvo like four and a half years when I came from the transport industry to work for.
The OEM, what I was doing to begin with all, was all around diesel fuel efficiency, and, and we've got a really good telematics system that can show how the driver's driving the truck, you know, braking inputs, things like that. So if the driver has really good driving habits in the diesel product, that's gonna translate into an electric very well.
But anyone who's driven an electric car, which I'm imagining is probably a lot of your listeners, is that it is quite different to a combustion engine with the trucks. I feel like the driving solar is a bit more like a hybrid, like much like a, a, you know, common hybrids on the road, like a Camry. Stuff that's been around a while, just in terms of the braking and the acceleration feels more like that.
Mm-hmm. The regen braking in our heavy duty is pretty intense, but the diesel product is good as well. So the guys that are really good at driving the diesels efficiently, generally they're the ones we wanna put in the electric, but the important thing is. Unlike the diesel where there's another, you know, 400 liters spare when they finish their day.
We don't have that with the electric, you know, we've, we've got a finite volume, you know, in terms of energy. So if they have been flogging the truck all day, they might not make it home. So that's where we've really gotta manage it, because one of our prime movers will do up to 300 kilometers in a day, depending on weights and topography and so on, and we can calculate all of that out.
Mm-hmm. We've got some really good tools to do that. If the driver is absolutely hating on the truck all day, you know, I'm getting a phone call going, eh, your truck ran outta juice. Then I've gotta look and go, well, this is how they were driving it. So that's why it's really important to manage that. It's a really hard thing because of driver shortages and so on.
Is that often transport companies are leaning towards, you know, someone driving the truck. But flogging it is better than no one driving it. Yes. Yep. But with the electric, we can't really take that mentality so much. Yeah. My mind just went to the kind of labor shortage. Do you get any kind of pushback from your clients saying, oh, my drivers are, are resistant to kind of changing from a diesel truck to a um, an EV truck?
Yeah. Yeah. Even, even operations managers, fleet managers. It's very easy to change their mind when you stick 'em in the, in behind the wheel. Yeah, because, uh, it's like a lot of people, I suppose, that haven't driven an electric car before, it's exactly the same. Well, I don't wanna drive that. Put 'em behind the wheel and like the instant talk and it's quiet and you don't have the vibration and, and so on.
It changes their mind very, very quickly. And that's probably one of the most fun things that I've got to do over the last couple of years is. Guys that I've known a long time, or I haven't known very long, and they have this immediate attitude to, you know, the owner of the business gets 'em out and you know, oh well we've got this electric here and is, and you know, whatever they read on Facebook or their uncle said about it or whatever, and you get them behind the wheel.
Five or 10 minutes, just the attitude changes. And that is hilarious because it's kind of like an I told you so, which is always fun, but it's from that point of view, it's really amusing from fleets once they've taken on the truck. It sounds too good to be true, but it really is. It's, it's more that they then have the drivers fight over who's driving the truck.
Oh, really? Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Because of, you know, like our product is very good. Like our diesel product is very good. It's quiet, it's comfortable, but the electric is something else again. Mm-hmm. You know, so the. It's less fatigue and when the guys are doing, you know, 10 or 12 hour days, it makes a massive difference.
So they've proven to be really popular. The, the people driving them the way that the talk comes on as well. So they, they're just, we haven't really had anyone drive them, whether it's for a test drive or, or, or longer term demo or once it's gone into service. As far as I know, not that I've experienced, haven't really had anyone not like it.
Some of them are a bit indifferent, like, I don't care. That's a nice truck. I'll drive it. Or the other one, whatever. Mm-hmm. There has been that, but there's certainly been no negativity once they've driven it. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, I mean, yeah, from personal experience with the EV cars, I can, you know, completely understand what you're saying.
Like as soon as you get in, when like the, the talk and the acceleration, there's just so much fun, aren't they? Oh, levels a hundred percent. And, and you know, for me, like a lot of people, it doesn't suit to have an electric car just yet, but anytime I. Book a hire car, which is pretty often with all the travel.
I try and get usually the, the, the options like a Polestar and I, I'm a big fan of those. It's, and it makes such a difference, like particularly somewhere like Sydney where I'm following the navigation because there's only so many places. I know where it is and I've been going there long enough, I should know, but you're following that, you're on the phone constantly and it's just a much nicer place to be because it's quiet and it's comfortable.
You don't have that vibration through it. Particularly with, you know, all those highways in Sydney, our much chop, they were all pretty rough. Like our roads are full stop. But it's, that's the reminder for me because driving any trucks that, you know, for me, I get in and out of different ones, electric and diesel, and I don't drive often enough anymore.
That you don't, you sort of get reminded of it, of just how good they are. It's more a car thing. Yes. Right, because that's, that's social license of Yeah, because that's more common for me. It's not like I don't drive trucks a lot anymore, so it's a novelty getting in any of them. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I know we're jumping around a lot.
How much is, um, uh, Volvo getting involved in building out of the recharging infrastructure? Do you have partners that you get involved or, or do you see kind of opportunity within a certain area and, you know, leverage off your partnerships with other organ organizations or highlights of them that, you know, this is a potential market that could be Yeah, well, could be grown.
I mean, there's, there's two different parts to that, I guess is, there's the, in Europe, there's a joint venture between us and. Two of our, our two European competitors being Trodden Group, which is Scan Your Trucks and Dimar being, uh, Mercedes. Yeah, so there's a, they're working on charging hubs in for Europe.
Obviously that's not relevant for us, but they obviously realize it's a big deal to be able to start doing, you know, intercountry stuff over there. You're gonna need big charges around to be able to do that. So that's what they're working on over there. As far as here, we sort of get involved to the extent where we advise on what sort of charger the customer's gonna need.
So if they're only doing, say a day shift, 200 kilometers, they're only gonna need a small charger. Not much bigger than what you'd have for your car to charge the truck overnight. Off you go the next day, if they're wanting to double shift the truck, and we're looking at prime move as bigger distances, higher weights, then we look at bigger chargers.
So there's a couple of different charging companies that I have relationships with. The, the people that work there that I get along with well, and they're good because they've looked after our customers. So I, I sort of refer, say, well, this is what I think you need. Talk to this guy. Yep. But we don't, we don't have any tie up as such.
And certainly not in, in, in terms of any, like charging hubs. Mm. So it's sort of, it's something that we stay out of. 'cause it's kinda like, well, we build the truck that that's what we do. Yeah. Truck and, you know, the, the servicing and that sort of thing. So we sort of stay out of it in a way, but we support plenty of companies in terms of advice on, well, you know, how much space do you need?
How long does it take for your trucks to charge? That sort of thing. So we never shy away from helping industry in, in terms of that. But we don't get involved any more than. In an advisory space, I guess is probably the easiest way to explain it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And how much does Volvo see the, the long haul market changing over the next sort of five to 10 years and what the options, I presume renewable diesel is Yeah.
The kind of ways to decarbonize that sector. So yeah, for the listeners, could you give an overview what renewable diesel is and then how that com, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So how that's used in your trucks. And it's, and it's, for us, it's, it's the multi-pronged approach. So we've got electric. We've got renewable fuels and then we've got hydrogen.
So the quicker part to explain is hydrogen, which we've got three, I believe, three trucks on road in Europe testing, so that's still early days. So it's a hydrogen fuel cell, which is essentially a range extender for what is otherwise an electric truck. That's gonna be something that. Probably to market in the next five to six years, depending on a number of factors.
Specifically for Australia, it's gonna depend on whether there's the availability of it. Mm-hmm. Which has been all over the place in the last sort of year or so. Then we've got more sustainable fuels, so like HVO, so hydro treated vegetable oil, so all of our trucks that are built in our factory in WA coal as of, I think it was November last year, and now factory fill with HVO.
It's already doing that. It is considerably more expensive at this point in time because it's not mass produced enough. So essentially that's the well to wheel emissions, so it's more sustainable in the way that it's made. So that's where you're getting the emission saving. Mm-hmm. But as far as then once it goes into using the truck, then it's same.
Same. To regular diesel. Our trucks, our Mac and Volvo product have both been completely tested. Our Euro five engines already on the road now, newer Euro six engines all tested. They work, they're fine. There's no discernible power difference, like the driver doesn't notice the difference. You can put HVO in one day.
Regular diesel the next day depends on availability. So that's a good one where it's good for Australia because. At distances, again, like this, it's so vast. We have a huge number of customers where we've got, these trucks are doing 400,000 kilometers a year in some places more. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So they're doing shuttle runs where we've got, you know, trucks are doing seven and a half, 8,000 ks a week, where the truck's leaving Brisbane to go to somewhere like a Townsville or a cns.
Halfway. The drivers are swapping over at a motel truck, keeps going. So it's the truck that's constantly running six, seven days a week. So for us. Like diesel's gonna be around a long time. Volvo's still pouring bucket loads of money into r and d on the diesels. It's not forgotten. Mm-hmm. We've only introduced early this year our new 17 liter engine replacing the 16 liter engine, which sounds like a horrible thing to discuss on this podcast.
Right. Go. Yeah. Bigger diesel engine, but it's more efficient than the old one. It's got more power. It's got a lot more torque. It's more efficient than the previous 16 liter that replaces, and it's Euro six, which when you look at the emissions, like in, in terms of like particle matter, it's so much lower from Euro five to Euro six.
So powering something like that off HVO is going to be a big thing here. It's just that availability and therefore the price. Is what's sort of holding it back being used commonly at the moment, but plenty of customers are asking about it and seeking out themselves to try and get a supply of it. Yeah.
Oh, interesting. Yeah, I mean, we've spoken quite a bit on previous episodes about the kind of ita iterative process of decarbonization. How do we move organizations down the, um, you know, the emissions curve? And it sounds like, you know, that's, that's one such a, you know. Option for it. All those, it's, yeah.
And I, you, I guess, I suppose probably like when I spoke at that conference where, where you found out who I was, the work where, whenever that was earlier this year at the smart Yeah. And it was, you know, and I, at those sorts of things, I, I, and same with talking to our customers, is that it's very much, we've gotta be realistic about it and do what we can.
So we've gotta make sure that it's fit for purpose for our customers, right. Because at the end of the day, we sell trucks. That's what. Volvo does, and, and all the things associated with that. It's gotta be fit for purpose. So if that customer has a, has an application where an electric truck would suit one out of their truck of, you know, their, their 50 truck fleet, but the numbers don't really stack up because say their electricity's really expensive or they're in an old area and they can't put a big enough charger in to suit their application.
Like, we're not gonna force the customer into that truck to hurt a relationship with a customer that buys, you know, say five or 10 trucks a year. That's just. It doesn't make any business sense, right? Yes. So it's all well and good putting in the zero emissions truck, but then also we can look at that, the rest of that fleet, and if they, if we can help them with their out Volvo Connect telematics system, we can help them save, say, 5% fuel on average across a 20 truck fleet.
Well, the fuel saving is sort of like, it's kind of the same. Putting one, one diesel off the road and replacing with electric. Right. So, mm. It's sort of like, it's not just a we've gotta go electric everything. Yeah. That, that's sizely not gonna be one. Yeah. Yeah. It's not gonna, it's not gonna be practical.
Right. And it's, you know, we've got, you know, some customers might get a, the smaller 13 liter engine for doing heavy. Interstate type work. And for some it works if it's flat running. But once they're getting into hills, then the fuel economy starts to be a problem. And then you, you, you're sort of overworking the engine and they should have bought the 16 liter engine.
So it's, it goes both ways in terms of fit for purpose, right? It's like, are you buying something that's big enough to do the job or are we like, it's not just. In terms of like the emissions, it's like, is it fit for purpose? Is it gonna do the distance, is it gonna have the pulling power and all those things.
So that's where we work with a customer. Make sure that we can help them as much as we can with driver training and, and them continuing to monitor their own fleet. Yeah, idle time, that's a massive one as a. Someone used to manage a fleet like that, annoyed the hell outta me. You know, like drivers would pull up and they'd go in to have their smoker or make a coffee, go to the toilet, like stick my head out the out the door and their truck's still eye blink, like just drive me nuts, you know?
I just go and turn them off and they think there was a problem and their truck, oh, my truck's been turning itself off. No, I'm turning it off because it's annoying me. You know? So we've gotta look at all those things. And, and, and that's what you probably heard me bang on about at that conference is it's gotta make sense.
It's gotta be fit for purpose. It's gotta be fit for the application for the customer. Yeah. Yeah. And if we're looking at the kind of region, uh, you know, C cities Yeah. What's been the kind of biggest resistance or what is kinda slowing down the uptake of EVs now then if we're looking at the kind of, you know, more urban kind of market.
I think probably like the price is a, is a big one. Yeah. Maybe we can talk about that then. Yeah. So what, yeah, in terms of, yeah. To total cost of, of, of ownership. Yeah. What's the comparison between diesel and, and EV at the moment? So it's, it very much depends on, on the individual and what, what they're using it for, what they pay for power.
That's a really critical one. Like we've had just in Sydney alone, I've had customers paying as low as 9 cents a kilowatt for electricity. Someone paying 43 cents a kilowatt. Wow. Now 43 cents a kilowatt. I stopped doing the numbers and said, sorry, mate. Like, it's not gonna, it's not gonna work. It ain't gonna work.
Like when we're so far away, I'm not gonna do the numbers right? Mm-hmm. So the electric truck to buy it is more expensive than the diesel equivalent, but it's cheaper to run, but that cheaper to run depends on what you're paying for electricity versus what you pay for diesel. The bigger the fleet, the more buying power they have.
Or maybe they just have a really good relationship with their account manager and they get diesel cheap. But obviously you've got buying power there with the diesel. Then there's the electricity price, so there's that. But then there's a sweet spot in terms of the kilometers that the truck does. So if the truck's not doing enough kilometers, then you're not gonna offset.
With your fuel. Fuel, we'll say fuel difference 'cause it's still fuel, right? Electricity or, or the diesel. So you're not gonna have enough of a fuel difference per day to offset the purchase price difference. So it might be seven or eight years, it's, it's cost neutral and then they start to go, well I dunno if that makes sense.
But then if you're doing two many kilometers for that particular truck, then it might be outside the scope of what. An electric truck can do in a day. So you've gotta be somewhere in the middle where you're doing enough kilometers and, and your uptime's good enough that it makes sense, but not too many that then we're getting to a point where like, nah, this actually needs to be a diesel truck.
Yes. So it's not so much that that's a, a stalling point or, or a roadblock, it's just that we talk to so many people and we do the exercise with them, make sure it's gonna. Makes sense? Mm-hmm. Like commercially it's gonna make sense and depending on the person is, depends on their motivating factors to do it.
Right. So it might be that whoever they do work for, they're putting their sustainability targets onto them. So then they are being forced to do it. So they might be able to up their rates with whoever they're working for. They might not. They might look at it and say, well, that one truck is only gonna make a margin of this much because it doesn't entirely make sense for us.
It's a low kilometer truck. It's hard to justify. We run our fleet to 10 years or whatever it is. And they might go, well, we need to do it with one so that we keep work for 10 trucks. Yeah, yeah. Or they might be their own sustainability takes, so they're not where they just go, no, for marketing reasons, we're just doing this.
And the bulk of people go, no, no. It needs to make sense. So there's all sorts of motivating reasons and then those reasons potentially just. You know, knock down those, those brick walls, that would potentially be a problem to, to go ahead with doing it. Yeah. And over the course of time, have you seen people more willing to pay a green premium or has that reduced in recent, um, months or years?
I guess probably it has, I suppose, because I mean, we're selling more than what we were three years ago. Right. So I guess so, but you know, there, there's plenty of customers that I spoke to two or so years ago. Okay. And then they sit on it. Mm-hmm. And then they go back to whoever it is that, you know, their big customer they're doing work for.
And then they come back, might be six months later, 12 months later. And, and quite often with transport people, you know, particularly if it's a family run business, it's, you know, the owners get it, be on the phone and be like, you, you won't have heard from for 12 months. It's like, come and have you under us about these electrics again.
Okay. So you sort of almost starting all over again because something's changed or there's a new motivator or they got dragged to a meeting where it's like, oh. These are our sustainability targets going forward. So, you know, you've gotta do it. So it's kind of push back through the procurement kind of supply chain Yeah.
To them. Yeah. One of, one of our customers, the, the, it was their kids, like older kids, like 20 somethings that were going, well, what are you doing about this? So it was, that's what drove them to Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh yeah. Volvo do that. Mm-hmm. And, you know, they buy plenty of trucks from us. And then it was that, that was the motivator.
It's like, well, what are you doing about it? You've gotta be seen to be doing it. And then it, for them, it worked out that the numbers made sense for that particular truck to do it. So there's all all sorts of motivating reasons and then the, the reasons why they then actually do it. But I don't think it's really so much that the willingness to pay a premium, it's just that it's taken time for it.
Between, yeah, between the kind of people getting used to the idea of, of doing it. And no, there's a lot of people who wanna be the first, but then they're scared to be the first. And there's plenty of people who don't wanna be the first. So it's like one of our customers that, you know, they know really well has done it.
So then it's almost like a keeping up with the Jones' thing. Mm. It's like, oh, well, if he's done it, it's working for him, and they've rung them and they're like, oh yeah, it's, it's good. It's working. The drivers like it, you know, whatever their feedback is. Then I have them on the phone going, yeah, okay, righto.
Let's, let's, let's talk about this some more. Yeah. So it's, it's that building confidence and transport. People, I think are very, very, very good at making, how I word this, I, I, I guess that, you know, there's not too many people that just make kneejerk. Decisions, you know, they, they. But like the family owned business, like the retail customers that I mostly deal with mm-hmm.
Is that they try and make sound decisions and make the decision once and then run with it. Right. It's not just a, oh, well let's just get one of these things and give it a go. I haven't really had anyone who's pushed back against the doing the homework as such. We'll just buy one and then we'll just, you know, figure it out.
Yeah. It's a big asset, isn't it? They, you know, what's the typical, um, life of a, of a truck? So, 10, 20 years is it? Yeah. In Australia, I think the average age of a registered truck is something like 15 plus. Well, yeah. Yeah. So it makes sense to make that, you know, thoughtful decision rather than just jumping into something and, um, absolutely.
Yeah. Yeah. It seems like a lot of organizations, you know, rightly or wrongly, they kind of. Live off the, instead of the first mover advantage that you, you sometimes get in markets like the second mover advantage. Ah, yeah. You don't wanna get caught with a, um, you know, stranded assets or Yeah. Or what have you, to let someone else prove it up and then we'll jump in after that.
Yeah. And, and the, I mean, there has been plenty of that. There's also been plenty though that wanna be the first, so we, you know, with all the different, like, articles that have gone out to media from us or, you know, from the, from the customer, it's like, first. Electric Prime move first. You know, electric Prime Mover in New South Wales, first fridge truck in New South Wales, and it's the, you know, it's the first truck that's doing port work or whatever it is.
It's some sort of, there's been so many different firsts. Claims that it's, you know, they, they, so they should, you know, like you use any opportunity to promote with business. Yeah. You know, they've stumped up and they, they're the first person in their area. So say they're the first person on the port of Brisbane or whatever it is to do it.
You wanna tell everyone that you're doing it right. I guess it's probably like, you know, you do something good internally and you, you know, say you sell a truck, well, you're gonna tell a boss, aren't you? Yeah. Right. So it's, it's almost like they're gonna promote that they're doing it so that. The port of Brisbane knows what they're doing or whoever their big shipping customer is, knows that they're doing it.
It's just part of it. Are there any technologies that either Volvo's working on out of Europe or, or even more broadly, dunno if you wanna name any competitors that you're particularly excited about that any, you know, big advancements in battery technologies or you know, any thoughts on solid state batteries?
That sort of thing. Yeah. So I mean there, there's plenty coming, I think, out of Asia in terms of the truck market, just like what we've seen in the car market. And that's great. 'cause competition's good. And particularly with something new like this, what it means is, is that our people in Sweden are going to see that, and we're gonna be reporting back and saying, well, this is now into the Australian market and so is this.
And so that, and it all it does is it just means that you can't be asleep at the wheel. Mm. Right. And it's good because, I mean, competition's great anyway, so there's gonna be more electrics on the road, whether it's European. Or competitors outta China, that's great because there's gonna be more people accepting of there's electric trucks on the road.
That's just a fact, right? So that's good. And then it also means that if we have those competitors coming in, so someone comes along and goes, well, their truck's no lighter, and you know, say it, um, doesn't go any further, but the batteries are smaller, so the packaging is better. Well, that's feedback. We can, we can rely and go, well, hey.
We lost a sale on this because, so it, it's driving development, so it's good. Mm-hmm. It, it's, it's good. It means, I mean, vol, Volvo's good in that the r and d is just constant, the rate of them, you know, doing things, but they do things generally properly. We're not always the first to do things. We're the first OEM to market in Australia with electric, and our European competitors are sort of one one's just on their first delivery and then the other's not far away, I think.
But, so we've, we've got 55% market share or something in Australia for electric trucks. Yeah. Fantastic. I, I think that's the number, 55, 54, something like that. About half, let's call it that. And you know, there, there's plenty of competition knocking on the door, so I, I, I think it's good. Yeah. Yeah. How important are government policies in this and incentives and perhaps.
Even before that, you know, what, what incentives and policies are in place at the moment, and for the listeners, you know, are they helpful, do you think? What needs to be done? Mm-hmm. From this point, you know, if you were in the big seat, what would you change? Ah, so much. So much. So the one that's probably been the biggest, I guess a roadblock for us is axle weight allowances.
So any changes in terms of like legalities and ADRs and so on. Like, it, it's time consuming. It, it just is. It always has been. So it's taken a long time for us to get allowances. 'cause these trucks are quite heavy because of the batteries. And then all the computers and the control modules and whatever that run it that sits sort of where the engine normally would be is just as heavy as the engine.
And then you've got these batteries that are on the chassis rails where fuel tank would normally be. So they're heavy. They're heavy, particularly over the steer axle. So what we've needed to maximize payloads and be comparable with a diesel in terms of payload, is we've needed to be able to run higher on the front axle.
So that then is two things, is getting the approval to do that. But then. If we're going off the main highways onto local roads, it's local council to approve that. A lot of these roads don't hold up when you've got trucks running up and down them all day and then you go and put a heavier truck on it makes it even more of a problem also.
Then it comes back to that same old problem is that it's very hard to maintain roads in Australia because you've got an enormous country with a lot massive road network, but not a lot of people. You know there, there's some figure out there, and I can't remember what it was, but it's like, how many dollars or be cents?
How many cents per kilometer is. Coming from the taxpayer to pay to maintain roads. When you look at that, you just go, well, how the hell do we even have the roads that we've got? Right? Because there's such a massive road network in terms of kilometers, but comparatively not many people to pay for it. So then when we're asking to go, oh, we wanna put an even heavier thing down the road all day, it's not like it's a heavy haulage load that's gonna, you know, move a transformer down that road.
As a one-off project, then something similar might be a month later or two months later or something, or you know, something for a building project, it's, this is daily. Mm. So that's where we've, you know, we've tried to do as much as we can with truck spec and the, the electric trucks, like the prime movers are quite long comparable to a normal prime mover.
So then our overall length becomes a problem. So it, it's been time consuming, like things have been slow, it's not too much stuff has been knocked back or things that have been knocked back. We've sort of been able to overcome. But it's like, you know, the a TA and all, all these different trucking associations and, and Smart Energy council that have really been pushing that we're all and smart Electric Vehicle council and so on, all pushing for the same thing to, to drive that development in terms of incentives.
There's not really anything other than the arena funding. So the Arena project, basically the short version of is, is there's a, a number of our customers have got arena funding, but it's more a big term or a big picture project. So one of those customers being Team Global Express, who took 36 of our trucks across last year, 36 rigid trucks, and then a competitor's smaller product, I think there was 34 of them.
They had like the first dedicated EV depot in the country. That's Toll group. Yeah. Team Global Express. Yep. So they did that. Mm-hmm. And so basically, but that was like a more than 18 month or two year project, so they got a pretty big funding to do that, which helped. Bridge the gap versus a diesel truck.
But little mom and dad operators can't do that. They don't have the power of a, you know, a big sustainability team and a legal team to go and put this in. And the thing with that is that then also if those projects, you've gotta show a point of difference of what someone else has done. So the whole idea of it is to promote, basically, you know, whether it's electric vehicles or something in that sustainability space, but you can't just do the same as what the other guy did.
Mm. So that's where it's been hard for, like our retail customers where it's a family owned business, they don't have access to that. So that's where it's been a bit tricky. So there's no, no incentives there. Yeah. Are the government looking at anything at the moment to the best of your knowledge? Not that I'm aware of there.
There's people within our business that deal with government for various different things that are looking at that, but there's not, like, there's certainly nothing that I'm aware of that. Is gonna be, you know, something that's gonna happen anytime soon. Yeah. Is there a solution or a way around the additional wear and tear on the on the road roads or is that just a case of if we're gonna go down the battery route, this is what we're gonna have to Well, this, this is the interesting thing because we've got our clever engineers to do a lot of work with Aus Roads.
So what they've figured out is basically our truck at seven. I think the figures were what they were, what they were comparing was our truck at seven ton. On the steer axle. So those, those front two tires on the ground at seven ton on our air suspension with our wide tire did less pavement impact than a traditional narrower tire on spring suspension at six and a half ton.
Oh, right. Wow. Yep. So. Basically what we proved was is like, yeah, we've got more weight, but between the bigger footprint of the tires and the nicer or better, more forgiving suspension actually did less damage. Yes. Yeah. And I think those are the stories that needs to be told. 'cause you, you hear someone in the pub and say, oh no, you know, EVs are much heavier.
They're just gonna smash all our roads up. And, you know, it's like there's a bigger picture kind of thing. It's, uh, doesn't make sense if then you've gotta create more emissions to Yeah. Refix the roads. Yeah. It's, and it's, well, I mean, was that. I was at a hotel bar a couple of weeks ago and I heard someone mention something about like electric trucks or something, and I just, I, I did have a Volvo shirt on and I just kept my mouth shut.
I just, I had my laptop there, I was working, and I think at that point in time I'd probably had three beers and then, so I was probably a bit more argumentative and I was just like, nah, nah, I'm not gonna, 'cause I just at the next table, I'm just like, nah, don't get into it. Don't. 'cause factually they had no idea what they're on about.
Mm. You know, they, they were generally just pretty negative about the whole thing. They're just like, nah, don't just. You know, obviously having no idea, no idea who they are. There might've been people that were good to set straight or they, you know, they, I have no idea who, who they were, but it's like.
Bottom A tongue. Bottom A tongue. It's not, it's not. No, now's not the time to get into an argument with someone. And it's all those kind of one percenters that you touched upon before we came on, on air. You were talking about the kind of, you know, optimization of people's distribution or, or what have you.
So you, yeah, maybe you can sort of talk to, you know, give the listeners a bit of an overview of some those improvements as well. And that, that's probably something like, so, so my background as a, as a driver and then into fleet management, and one of the things that I learned from the general manager of that particular business was like got absolutely hammered on making sure I knew what was going on in the business.
So it was like asking me figures that I knew that he'd already looked at the figures for what, you know, what we'd done in terms of collections and, and so on and, and kilometers done and fuel burn and so on. But he was making sure that he knew it, but it was constantly optimizing those runs so that you didn't have drivers going over one another.
Or if they were, there was a particular reason. So it was time constraints or something like that. You know, not driving through school zones and things like that. So that got hammered into me. So it's something now that when I look, so I'm work working with a customer and let's say truck A and truck B, and they're going, oh, well, truck A is what we're looking at.
That's the route that we're looking at replacing with an electric, you know. Okay, so why do you spend all your time, you know, say around this area, you know, where we are, you know, say Bowen Hills and, and you know, out to and Ascot, and then you go to Redcliffe. Why? Like, can the, is have you got another truck go there?
So I look at things like that to sort of, you know, and it's, and it's. I look at things to try and improve that way so we can sort of change it if we can change it, if it makes sense for them. Mm-hmm. So it's gonna make it efficient already anyway, but it's, we're making it so that it's, it's more suitable for an electric.
It's like, well, is there work that this, say truck B does, that's nearby? That would make sense to give that work to the electric truck. And they might say no, because it's time constraints and they both need to be in the same place at the same time. Okay, fine. No worries. But that's what I tend to look at as well.
And then also then as part of my role is to help the salesman at the dealerships across the Volvo network in Australia to look at that the same way and it's. I suppose because my background is not truck sales, it's it's fleet management and driving. So, you know, they have the relationships with their customers.
They know how to spec a truck, but I help them to sort of look at it a different way or help them in meetings with their customers to then explain it all and see what we're looking at. Because these customers are getting asked questions, they're not used to being asked by their truck salesman. So when, when you start asking things like.
Where does that truck go today? How many kilometers does it do? Why does it go there? It doesn't make sense when you've got a, didn't you say you have a prime mover? Go there. Why does rigid go there as well? I'm like, they get a bit put off because it's like, why are you asking this? So yeah, you end up finding improvements that way just because it's looking at it a different, A different way.
Yeah. Yeah. Which, you know, it's not necessarily always the right thing, but you've gotta ask the questions to find out. Mm-hmm. Is there any other messages that you wanna get across to, to the audience or anything else that you're particularly excited about? Um. It's, uh, that Volvo's, uh, working on. I think what is exciting is that we're getting to a point where it feels like the wave's about to crash.
Or break. I dunno what probably is the right terminology for that, but it feels like we're getting to a point where there's more acceptance in the market of it. And it is a really good product. Like it's great to drive, it's, it's, it's better to drive than a diesel. Like it, it just is. And our diesel truck product is really good.
So I think it's getting to a point where there is excitement in the market for it and. We just wanna make sure that it's gonna be fit for purpose. We're not gonna sell someone a truck that's not, but you know, the important thing is to ask, ask the questions when we find out and we, we work with our customers to make sure that it's gonna work.
Yeah. So that, I mean, that's probably all there is to it, is we just, we wanna make sure that it's fit for purpose because what it is meant for, which is local distribution work. It's really, really good for it. And it's not just the emissions in terms of what's coming outta the exhaust pipe. It's also then noise as well.
So if you are delivering, say to a little grocer or, or a little cafe that backs onto residential, well suddenly you don't have complaints when you turn up at five 30 in the morning. Yeah, good point. Because the trucks. Obviously it's not silent completely 'cause of break noise in the doors and such, but it's, it's just all these things that aren't necessarily thought about.
So it's good. We're, we're getting to a point where after a good couple of years of, you know, really talking to a lot of our customers and trying to get that acceptance that I think we're, we're getting to a point where we're getting. A lot more inquiry now. Yeah. Yeah. It's good. If you had a crystal ball five years from now, what, what's do you think will be the uptake of, um, oh, it's of electric and then Yeah, maybe if we, 'cause I know hydrogen, if at all, it's gonna be a lot further down the track.
Yeah. Um, yeah, what would the split be, say, maybe 10 years between, you know, electric, um, at that point? Screen diesel and potentially hydrogen. So let's go with the three different prongs that I spoke about. The Volvos going out. So I think HVO will be, I think, probably the biggest saver as as such, like in terms of what our customers, you know, being that we're in the heavy duty market, I think that's gonna be the biggest one.
The price of that. I think roughly, and this is rough numbers, but I think when we put HVO in our trucks at the Brisbane truck show in 2023, I think it was about $6 a liter. We had to import it in and our in IBCs in a shipping container and took forever to get here from overseas somewhere. Wow. $6, I think it was about $6 a liter for Brisbane truck show this year, which was back in April or May, whichever it was.
I think it was just over $3 a liter or maybe $3 50 a liter. So in two years, that's how much it's come down and we've got a lot more customers asking about it. So once it gets to a point where it's cost effective, that'll be a big one. And that that's a, you know, the pretty big emission saving there. I think with hydrogen it's gonna be entirely on if the infrastructure's there for it that.
Like we'll have a product to market, I think in the next five to six years outta Europe, which is the latest that I've heard. We're obviously not gonna bring it here if, if there's no infrastructure and it doesn't make sense. Like if someone can't power their truck, it's no use to them. Right. With electric, like we've got some pretty big targets for the next couple of years, which are in line with what Volvo groups own emission targets are like.
'cause obviously we're doing stuff with the factory. You know, with our own travel and all, all these sorts of things as well, but own operations and recycling and so on. But I think still in Australia, like it's gonna be a small part of the market still just basically due to, you know, how vastly populated the country is generally.
But I, I think like now, some days I can drive from, say our dealership at Pink and Bar to our dealership at Waco where head office is and I might see three or four electric trucks and that. That's cool. I sold that. I know what they're doing with that, and it's, and it's good to spot them. Yep. And I, I think in, you know, three to five years time, it'll be a lot smaller distance than that, that you can drive and see one, and if it's not ours, it'll be someone else's.
I think so, yeah. Look, I don't think that it's ever gonna be something like, or certainly in the next five years, I don't think it's gonna be like 20% of the heavy vehicle truck market, but, you know, might be, might certainly be 10, 10% of what we do. I, I think is entirely possible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool.
And uh, yeah, like we touched upon kind of bringing people down the emissions curve, so, uh, yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think, I think we were talking about it before we started is that drivers or fleet managers that you know, are electric, you know, and whatever their opinions are about it, not wanting to drive it, sticking them behind the wheel is great, you know, and sometimes that's how they're convinced to look at it.
They just like, I don't wanna do it. We'll stick to what we know. I understand that mentality, but. Also like they change their mind so quickly once they've experienced it. It's almost like with some people that they don't believe it exists until they've actually driven it. It's like, oh yeah, I know. And it's not like Volvo's a new brand to them, right?
So we're not new to the market, but it's almost as like as if, oh, that's not possible. And electric, that much weight just, it, it boggles the mind sometimes. So we just, you know, the best way for us is to get people to drive it, and no one has anything. Negative to say after they've actually driven it, like, which is really fun.
Yeah. Yeah. Do you think to a certain degree that organizations perhaps haven't monitored their usage and the diesel cost and that kind of thing to, like you're saying that you do the optimization modeling and stuff like that? Uh uh. There are a lot of your. Customers who aren't that sophisticated that would kind of monitor Ah, yeah.
So it's providing them with the data of what Yeah. What the options are. Yeah, de definitely. And that was, um, we've had this software to, to be able to allow fleets to do this for a long time, both for the Volvo and the Mac product. But it's interesting because I think once then everything got busy. So there was obviously the lull when COVID started and then there was the peak.
So when, when sort of COVID was at its worst was about when I started at Volvo. Like I said, that's what I was doing first. It was amazing to me basically, 'cause I came from a business where we were very big on. Fuel and wear and tear and tires particularly, we were really big on that. So to me that was like something that you just did.
But it was surprising to me how many customers just weren't on it. But then also most businesses were so busy that they're screaming for staff, struggling to keep, you know, backsides in seats to drive trucks, fleet managers, owners that were regularly having to drive trucks themselves. And the software still requires you to look at it, you know, we make it as easy as possible and show them how to use it.
And sure, you can grab the piece of paper that comes out of it. And look at it and go, oh, I need to talk to Dave and I need to talk to Jane and I need to talk to Bob or whatever, and tell him off for their idle time or whatever. But like, if that person's been with you for 20 years and they're a solid person, never calling sick, whatever, but they're a bit hard on the gear, you're probably not gonna upset them by going mate your idle time's, you know, it's not real good because it's not worth upsetting a driver over that.
So that's where it was really difficult for a, for quite a period of time with businesses because. Someone who was a bit hard on the gear and flogged the truck was better than no one driving the truck. So that's where it was sort of like I had to go a bit softly, softly with customers because you're not, obviously, you don't wanna tell 'em how to run their business, you're just there to help.
But also, you know, with driver shortages and so on, you, you sort of, when if people were a real problem and they're doing things were just inherently unsafe and really like getting to the point where they would've been causing premature damage or wear and tear to the truck, you need to have a conversation with them.
But that's something that just, I found that it wasn't a big thing that customers dealt with. But also at the time, like just keeping drivers was pretty hard, that you didn't wanna upset 'em by being critical of how they were doing the job. Really. Yeah. So it was a, it was a difficult thing. Yeah. Mm-hmm. We did an episode with, uh, Boeing, maybe two or three episodes ago.
Mm-hmm. And they, they've got an online tool that people can change all the inputs and, and see what the outcome is in terms of ah, what the carbon content is like. Yeah. Have Volvo got something similar that you can Yeah, we're working on something similar. Okay, cool. Um, and things like, so basically for the spec of the truck.
So it's not so much the driver behavior piece 'cause we're, we're, we're pretty good at that. Also, the truck spec, so like say if you don't put a bull bar on it, what difference that's gonna make, you know, heavier axles or what, whatever the spec of the truck is. Sun visor, you know, things like that. Hire chassis 'cause there's different chassis heights depending on what sort of roads you're running on.
So yeah, it's, it's something that's being worked on that's a quite a simple sort of tick and flick to determine what the fuel consumption of that should be or. By, I mean, in a country like Australia, like if you need a bull bar, you need a bull bar. Like there's no getting around that from a, you know, saving downtime point of view.
Like it's just reality of, of our market. But yeah, it's certainly something that, that we're working on. When we look at our electric trucks in terms of what they're going to do in terms of range, yeah, we, we put that in. So we put in like, what's, what's the truck way? Does it have an external sun visor?
Does it have a splitter like on the bottom of the bumper? And often we won't put those splitters on because it's gonna just get ripped off on a driveway or something anyway. And then does it have our new camera mirrors? So is it just the little stalk with cameras on it, or is it a full conventional, proper mirror?
Not proper mirror, but you know what has been a conventional mirror for a long time. So we calculate what difference that makes in the arrow effect as well. Oh well, yeah. And just for a matter of interest, what sort of percentage does it change on the efficiency with the air? Divisor and the different, uh, different, um, it's like percentages.
It's ones or twos percent. Yeah. But all, all that's up, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. It, yeah, it does. But thi this is where I think where we get into the nitty gritty, uh, to, to really show confidence in what we're telling peoples or to give them confidence in what we're, what we're telling them. Because we put in topography, we put in also the, um, like traffic, so, we'll, it'll use historical traffic data.
Wow. So you've got your average speed brought into it as well, but also the temperature because you know, batteries, depending on what they're in, whether it's a mobile phone or whatever it is, they have an ideal operating temperature. So for our batteries it's about 25 degrees air temp, I think it is. So in Queensland, Brisbane particularly great.
Perfect. You know, like I think it's like 27 degrees or something outside today. So the truck's not using much of its own power to heat the batteries up to ideal temp or cool them. Yep. They're just, you know, that which uses less energy obviously. So we, we've sort of forecast all of that so we can determine like a customer hit or a customer in Melbourne is gonna be very different in terms of energy usage.
'cause when you start getting down to like five degree mornings and you are running around in five or less degrees for a couple of hours, that does affect the battery range. So we are pretty good at. Doing that. Our testing, like us here, doing it ourselves in Australia, driving from wake old port of Brisbane, doing big loops like that, that range simulators usually within one point or two, three kilometers accuracy in terms of what it says we're gonna do.
So we're very good at forecasting that. The diesels, I think we've, we've, that we've got that tool that we're working on. That's, that's in terms of, you know, if you have a ballbar, if you don't. Other spec of the truck, different cab types and so on. That's a little bit of a harder one because usually it's, it's gonna be things like a ballbar where they need it, they need it, they're gonna put it on.
Mm. But it's interesting 'cause I probably more, since working in in this space and getting more and more fixated on fuel efficiency, I've become more like aware of when I see stuff and it's. Like when you see four drives with roof racks and all the garbage on the top, and it's like, I get it. Like I try and take weight outta my car when it's stuff that I don't use very often.
Mm. Or what, whatever the items are, you know? So that's something that I've become quite, you know, annoying with. Like, I annoy myself when I go, oh no, I don't need that carrot. You know, take it out. And it's like, you know, it's not gonna be like some, you know, an extra drink bottle or a jacket or something.
But, you know, jumper leads, I took jumper leads out when I got a new car not very long ago. It's like I've never used them myself. I test the battery, I'll make sure it's up to date. That's only been used once in a while, mean to help someone else. Now. That's why I don't need, I don't need that in the car anymore.
So it's just trying to get our customers to think the same way. And there's plenty of them that do. Yeah. There's plenty of them that do really clever things that I, that I would've never thought of. But, you know, there's a lot of things that we can do that isn't just, let's replace a truck with an electric.
There's so many other things that we can do with, with fuel saving. Yeah. Yeah. Because, yeah. And how, how can the audience follow what Volvo is up to them? Uh, so where we. Post plenty on all of the social media channels. LinkedIn probably the big one. Do a lot on, um, Instagram as well and on our website.
Global website's really good there. There is a lot of information on there as well. We tend to go to a lot of, um, like, you know, the truck shows and, and things like that. But the main thing to follow is we do a lot of stuff with customer deliveries and, you know, get what their thoughts are on it. We don't really filter it much like in terms of what they have to say about the product.
It's like, it is what it is. And that's gonna be different for every customer. So, you know, fuel economy's not the focus for everybody. It's, it's pulling power 'cause they're doing heavy work off road, that sort of thing. But, you know, we, we put plenty of that sort of stuff up. We'd like to put customer testimonials up there, but it's, you know, it's all there.
It's all on the, the LinkedIn and the Instagram and Facebook. Yeah. Facebook, yes. Yeah. And we'll share your details as well if anyone get, wants to get in contact with you. Yeah, yeah. AB absolutely. Regarding, yeah, electric truck and if it's, if it's not me, I'll be supporting the, the sales person who, who is looking after it right across the country.
Yeah. Great stuff. Yeah. Thanks so much. Yeah, I found that extremely informative discussion and um, yeah, it's just interesting to know that not one size that fits all, all those kind of one percenters are getting right up and, and you know, Australia is a challenging en environment. Yeah. So it seems like, you know, it does need to be fit for purpose.
Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks so much Corbin and uh, wish you all the best. Thanks mate. Appreciate it. Cheers.
Thanks for tuning into today's episode of Exploring Clean Energy. I hope you enjoy the show. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. I'm keen to continue to bring you the best experts and most interesting projects. So if you have an exciting story to share, please feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or email.
I'm Andy Marsland, and hopefully see you next time.