Daimler trucks chief warns cost of electric will ‘forever be higher’

The price of constructing a battery-powered truck will “eternally be larger” than a combustion engine equal, the boss of the world’s largest truckmaker has warned, because the battle in Ukraine accelerates an already speedy rise within the value of essential commodities.

“Should you take the whole lot of engine, transmission, axle, tank system, cooling . . . ” the chief govt officer of Daimler Truck, Martin Daum, instructed the Monetary Occasions, “we’ve a most of about €25,000 [of material in a combustion engine truck].”

“How a lot battery do you get for €25,000? Even when [battery costs fall to] €60 per kilowatt hour, and I want 400 kilowatt hours, then I want €24,000 alone for the battery cells [in a single truck]”.

He added that it could be as much as governments to make up the distinction, utilizing whichever mechanism they selected. “With none subsidies . . . the value of an [electric] truck will at all times, eternally be larger than a [combustion engine] truck.”

Daum’s feedback come after Daimler Truck, which was an early entrant into the electrical market and has been manufacturing batter-powered autos since 2017, reported that it had greater than tripled the gross sales of zero-emission vans and buses final yr, to a complete of 712.

Nonetheless, that accounts for a fraction of the 455,000 vans and buses the corporate delivered in whole in 2021.

Its long-haul eActros mannequin, which went into collection manufacturing final yr, nonetheless prices 3 times the value of its combustion engine equal, and that hole is unlikely to slender considerably within the close to future.

The price of the important thing uncooked supplies utilized in fashionable batteries has risen sharply over the previous yr, with cobalt and lithium greater than doubling in value, and nickel climbing by virtually 40 per cent, based on IHS Markit.

Because of this, battery pack costs, which fell to a median of $132 per kilowatt hour in 2021, based on a survey performed by BloombergNEF, are predicted to stay above the $100 degree till a minimum of 2024.

Daum, who like different bosses within the trade has known as for a tax on carbon to slender the fee disparity between combustion engine vans and battery-powered fashions, stated he nonetheless supported efforts by the German authorities to assist companies take care of hovering diesel prices.

“We’ve got to lift the value over time,” the chief stated, “we are able to dwell with two or three euros per litre, however we are able to’t dwell if that comes in a single day.”

Daimler Truck, whose longstanding technique has been to pursue each battery-powered and hydrogen vans, may focus extra on the latter if battery prices continued to soar, and commodities remained scarce, Daum added.

“Within the gas cell, we’ve far much less uncommon uncooked materials,” he stated, “and we don’t compete with thousands and thousands of passenger automobiles for a similar materials.”

Daum praised German economics minister Robert Habeck for signing an settlement with Qatar final week for the supply of hydrogen, in addition to for the provision of liquid pure gasoline.

However he criticised antitrust authorities in Brussels for dragging their ft in the case of approving a three way partnership between Daimler and its key rivals Volvo and Traton, which can spend €500mn on growing a community of 1700 truck charging factors in Europe.

“We’re prepared to speculate the cash,” he stated, “we’ve somebody able to take over the chief govt position and she will’t do it as a result of we don’t have the approval.

“It ought to have been carried out three months in the past. We should always have been up and working operationally.”