With its hot climate and long driving distances, electrification remains a challenge for the Australian trucking market. But recent innovations aim to at least increase truck efficiency without compromising on usability. The solution? Electrifying the trailers, not the trucks.

With 135-tonne road trains that need to cover thousands of kilometers in sweltering 40-degree Celsius heat, the life of an Australian truck driver is often not easy.

And that makes electrifying them all the more difficult compared to European trucks, which are lighter, cover less distance, and can rely on a denser infrastructure. But British company Sunswap and Australian company VE Motion have developed solutions to help decarbonize the Australian road transport industry.

Solar trailers are ideal for the Australian climate

Sunswap’s tech focuses on reefer trucks, which usually rely on diesel gensets to keep the perishable cargo (food, medicine, flowers, …) cool. A task that is doubly important during Australian summers, when the high ambient temperatures make life more difficult for cold transport.

But all of that sun can also be put to good use. Indeed, Sunswap has developed solar trailers that power electric reefer units by Protran Solutions. To prove their efficiency, Sunswap and Protran completed a 1,600-km round-trip from Brisbane to Sydney and back during the summer, taking no longer than a traditional diesel reefer trailer.

“Up to 43% TCO reduction.”

Sunswap also promises up to 43% TCOreductions, thanks to fuel savings and the fact that solar panel prices have come down in recent years. The company operates in Europe but has partnerships around the globe, as evidenced by this recent Australian outing.

Plug-and-play solution transforms trucks into PHEVs

But what about regular trucks, which benefit less from solar installations? That’s where VE Motion comes in. It has developed a plug-and-play, battery-powered trailer solution that adds electric drive to existing trailers. The truck combination then functions as a hybrid, using electric power to aid acceleration, particularly at low speeds, and recovering energy with regenerative braking.

VE Motion promises up to 50% fuel savings, particularly in transport operations with frequent start-stop driving, and also thanks to the option of using a smaller main diesel engine at the front.

The e-axle uses a 295 kW (401 hp) electric motor, and battery packs of 200, 40, or 600 kWh are available, all of which can be recharged using standard CCS connectors. The battery packs can also power reefer units and other V2L and V2G applications.

Really interesting, or is there a simpler solution?

But prices are steep: the base trailer kit with 200 kWh costs nearly 200,000 AUD (€119,400). That’s nearly half of a Mercedes eActros 600, which starts at around €280,000 in Europe. And, of course, there’s a payload penalty due to the weight of the batteries and e-axle. VE Motion’s solution is therefore probably meant for transport companies that can’t rely on fully-electric trucks yet, that don’t need a heavy payload, and that want to save on fuel costs or meet ESG targets.