The North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE)—a non-profit organization dedicated to doubling the freight efficiency of North American goods movement—has determined that regional trucking operations are well suited to be early adopters of electric trucks. It is also a rather large segment of the market with sufficient scale to have a big impact on the industry.

As a result, NACFE will focus much of its attention on electric trucks in regional haul. Early workstreams include:

• Identifying high-potential regional trucking routes in concert with changes to freight movement;

• Supporting the implementation of initial and future deployments outside of California;

• Scaling best practices in infrastructure development for fleets and communities; and

• Increasing confidence in the value of electrification.

Our research has shown us that regional haul is an important segment of the trucking industry and also one that makes sense for electrification, given its short-haul nature and return-to-base operation.

We are embarking on a three-year project to gain a better understanding of how commercial battery electric vehicles will best fit into the regional haul market.

—Mike Roeth, Executive Director, NACFE

Specific activities for 2020 will include data analysis, interviews with key stakeholders, collaboration workshops and publishing findings in order to share learnings with all interested stakeholders. This work will build on NACFE’s existing work in this area, including Run on Less Regional, its thought-leadership piece on regional haul, and its Guidance Report series on electric trucks.

NACFE is being aided in its efforts by funding from Hewlett Foundation, a non-profit, private charitable foundation that advances ideas and supports institutions to promote a better world; and ClimateWorks Foundation, a non-governmental organization that is committed to climate action.