4+ Ways Transport Can Remove 25% Greenhouse Gases

I just watched Simon Sinek’s rant regarding “global warming” and he made a good point - it’s the wrong messaging!

Global Warming - a name the construes something pleasant, an ambience to look forward to.

He says “we should have called it Climate Cancer”, because people react to something like that. We’re talking “save our planet”, while in actual fact, our planet will survive and it’s us, the human race that’ll be wiped out.

We’re affecting the planet whereby we’ll make living conditions impossible, through killing our food sources or making it impossible for us to live.  

26% of greenhouses comes from our transportation and 95% of those include Light-duty vehicles (our cars), Medium & Heavy-duty Trucks, Aircraft, Rail and Ships/Boats.

now is the moment to move to an Electric Transport!

This week on The XDI Experience LIVE Show we’re jumping into all things electric vehicle with some good friends of our EvoLectric (Bill Beverley and Jakson Alvarez) to talk electrifying the world of transport and so I though I’d dig a little deeper prior to that discussion. 

Please register here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/events/6691812999725887488/?showShareByPost=true

and have your questions ready for some EV experts 

Yes, I know Electrifying everything isn’t perfect

but it’s a step in the right direction

I appreciate there's plenty out there who'll react and tell me Electrifying transport and the overall "well to mobility" damage to the economy is bad. Or the more advanced among us, start to talk battery recycling versus Internal Combustion Engine recycling is disappointing and even you supply chain analyzers will come at it from a battery cost to the environment is awful!

Let's however first agree that continuing to purchase and, or use an Internal Combustion Engine transport isn't helping our environment, is it?

For me, we can start by electrifying, so let me tell you whyt

So, can we all stop traveling using fuel and all start walking/cycling?

The COVID-19 period showed us what a greenhouse gas impact us all stopping traveling

Well I can't stop traveling, because as much as I love walking and cycling whenever I have chance it’s getting with people that’s “the air that I breath”. Let's agree we live in an ever increasingly borderless world and there's nothing more stimulating than conversing, socializing and for me, doing business with cultures all around the world.

Not to mention supply chain logistics that until we grasp personalized products at scale, manufacturing and supply chains will be dispersed and things need to be moved by air, water and land.  

Changing to an EVs is a step in the right direction

Is it perfect in every respect? No!

Are there potential other forms of transport that exist today or potential other forms that could be better? Yes, maybe

Allow me to remind you

Environmental resource economist Marshall Burke calculates that two months of pollution reduction in China has probably saved the lives of 4,000 children under five and 73,000 adults over 70 (which would otherwise have been affected by high levels of pollution). 

So what can we electrify?

Heavy duty transportation—trucks, ships, aircraft etc—account for 10%+ of greenhouse gases. 

Although the sector has long been a challenge, with demand for transporting goods increases (despite the last few months), research shows it can now reach net-zero emissions as soon as 2050. 

While these sectors have seen dramatic decrease in activity/revenues, c/o COVID-19, the period has shown huge reductions in greenhouse gases due to lack of logistics movement. It can be argued reduced revenues will bring a reluctance to invest in new mobility technologies, neither the cost (0.5% of global GDP by 2050) of doing so and inbound government regulations surrounding climate action maintain the pressure to take the necessary action. 

By acting quickly and ambitiously on climate change, the world could generate 65 million new low-carbon jobs in 2030, and avoid more than 700,000 premature deaths from air pollution by 2030.

Let’s look at 95% of our transport options.

• Electric batteries pack much less energy per unit of weight than fuel. About 40 times less, even if we consider the best batteries available.
• Electric motors partly compensate this disadvantage by being more efficient in converting energy into power, but a huge gap remains.
• The result is that most transport would need to carry very heavy batteries in order to even approach the current performance.
• Difficult doesn't mean impossible, though. 

1. Electric Cars

Let’s really start this conversation looking at it from an entirely difference perspective - the User Experience.

With the shift to electric powertrains, vehicle design enters a new era of freedom. Electric Motors are much smaller and allow for between 20-50cm of extra space - imagine a BMW 1 Series with the leg room of a 7 Series.

If you go into electric cars, you get rid of the very fundamental problems with respect to interior design. All the different tunnels don’t exist because in an electric car, you just have a flat floor. So you can move around all the chairs wherever you want. You can even turn them around and make them swivel seats. All that is enabled by an electric powertrain.

We’re entering an era of total redesign on vehicles, with no going back.

2. Electric Trucks

While I’m not a big advocate of government intervention, we do need big government to play its part in placing goals and regulations to refocus our minds on the macro perspective and the greatest challenge before us as a species. 

Only five countries—Canada, China, Japan, the United States and India—have imposed national fuel-efficiency standards for logistics trucks. Others coming through include Brazil, the EU, Mexico and South Korea.

The revolution has long been started, but now, it’s hitting the trucking world. 

This might be an apparent advancement for the environment, but it isn’t as simple as you may imagine.

Trucks need to travel hundreds of miles at a time, carry 75,000 pounds or more, and have torque to travel up and down hills with that weight.

The trucking industry was lacking innovation to help the emission issues it faced. Until recently, nothing was being done.

Enter Elon and CEOs like him, who knew the trucking industry needed an update. Tesla has weighed in with the 

Tesla Semi:

This truck is loaded with features that make it, arguably, the most innovative truck ever built.

• 0-60 mph in 20 seconds with a payload of 80,000 pounds.
• $180,000 for an engine capable of driving up to 500 miles per charge.
• The driver is situated in the middle of the vehicle, instead of the left seat. This makes driving safer by providing more visibility. 

Nikola ONE

• Taking only 10 minutes to recharge, the Nikola One is giving Tesla a run for its money.
• Fit with 1,000 horsepower and an estimated 750 miles of range, it has the longest mileage of any of the new zero-emission semi-trucks.
• Unlike Tesla, Nikola Motor Company is using hydrogen to power its vehicle.

Hydrogen will release zero emissions into the atmosphere, creating better air for our lungs and a cleaner earth. The Nikola One already has $13 billion in pre-order reservations. 

Daimler Ecascadia & EM2

Developed in 2018, Daimler began releasing these two models of electric vehicles: 

• The eM2 is your basic medium-duty truck, similar to a large Fed Ex truck.
• The eCascadia is the heavy-duty truck capable of pulling that of an average diesel semi.

BMW Semi

The BMW Group has teamed up with Teberg, a Dutch engineering group, to bring the electric truck to Germany.

It has already released the truck into regular service on the streets of Munich, with huge success.

The BMW all electric truck doesn’t have the payload of most diesel trucks yet, but innovations are in the process.

This truck is the only one in the world to have real-time experience. 

Next up, of course is the industry embracing electric vehicles.  Last year, Anheuser-Busch ordered a fleet of 800 hydrogen fuel cell trucks from U.S. company Nikolas. Researchers predict that electric trucks will become cost-competitive with diesel and gasoline vehicles by about 2030. 

3. Shipping

The disparity across ships in terms of fuel efficiencies, despite tighter air pollution regulations is alarming. The least efficient tankers use five times more fuel than the most efficient ships. 

What technologies are already available?

Diesel-electric drive: 

Diesel generators generate electricity and the electricity then drives the electric engine, which moves the ship’s propeller.

Hybrid drive: 

Just like your Prius, the ICE kicks-in when a power peak is needed, meanwhile the battery stores surplus energy from the diesel generator, allowing the ship to sail using nothing but electricity for some time. 

Fully electric drive: 

All energy comes from batteries.

Some inland vessels already sail using nothing but electricity, mainly ferries and pleasure boats (shorter distances & smaller batteries). But for large cargo ships that sail the world’s oceans electric drives are still a long way away. The batteries are still not efficient enough and are too heavy for ships that sail long distances on the high seas. Sounds like high-time on the high-seas for some Elon ingenuity!

The case is strong as taking full advantage could save shipping companies more than $30 billion in fuel costs each year. What's more, the International Maritime Organization has issued efficiency standards for the design of new ships, which should save an additional $200bn by 2030. 

4. Aviation

Well I guess not really the best time to talk about investing in new programs!? But thankfully most industry players, research organizations and entrepreneurs are working on several possible paths to make commercial electric flying a reality within a few years. 

Here are some of the most promising initiatives in the field:

Airbus

Airbus has series of partnerships underway. 

The Vahana is an unmanned electrical aircraft designed to move a passenger or small cargo within the confines of a city. 

Its appearance is straight out of a science-fiction film. Its vertical take-off and landing capabilities make it possible to fly from building to building, which may turn into an alternative to land-based urban transportation. 

The CityAirbus is self-piloted and will be able to take off and land vertically, making it ideally suited for urban use. The difference is that CityAirbus will be able to carry up to four passengers, unlike the single passenger Vahana

In parallel to these projects, Airbus continues to work towards its longer-term aim of developing a fully electric airliner. The next major goal will be to develop an aircraft that crosses the megawatt threshold. 

Airbus has plans underway for a 2MW (two-megawatt) aircraft.  

Zunum Aero

Boeing and JetBlue Technologies started Zunum. 

The initial concept will be able to carry 12 passengers up to 700 miles, but it's been designed with scalability in mind. The idea is to develop a family of aircraft of increasingly larger size and longer range. 

Although it starts as a hybrid, its design allows for a smooth transition to full electrical propulsion when new battery technology becomes available. 

Eviation

A sleek nine-passenger, self-piloted, all-electric aircraft to operate primarily in the 100 to 600 mile range (although the aircraft will have a longer maximum range). 

It’s taking on a dominant sector occupied by land transport, but the Eviation intends to change this. Through the use of small local airports, Eviation Aircraft is looking at the same market as Zunum Aero.

Other “light” aircraft 

NASA’s A-57 Maxwell is an example of out-of-the-box thinking when it comes to electrical aircraft design. 

This awkward-looking experimental plane uses the distributed propulsion provided by 14 electrical motors, all of them integrated into a specially designed high wing.This unusual configuration, where the two larger motors at the wingtips reduce drag associated with wingtip vortices, is designed to bring about a 500% efficiency increase when cruising at higher speeds.

Pipistrel Alpha Electro the modest Slovenian-made two-seater has already reached production stage and is market-ready.

Powered by a 60-kilowatt electric engine it can stay airborne for about an hour.

Now we’re talking…

US startup Wright Electric has partnered with European low-cost airline EasyJet in order to develop an all-electric airliner.

Wright Electric's truly ambitious project is to create an airliner in the 120-186 seat range capable of flying distances of up to 335 miles. 

Although this isn't a particularly long range, it would be enough to cover many busy short-haul routes, such as London to Paris or New York to Boston.

The longest flight all electric Cessna 208

And then in May of this year, the specially fitted Cessna 208B Grand Caravan took off for an expected 20- to 30-minute test flight. The aircraft seats up to nine people, and a chase plane—one designated to assist and document the flight—followed along for what ended up being a 30-minute flight. 

 The transition to electric flight is likely to be gradual and it’s opening up new ways to think about aircraft design.

Unlike jet engines, the efficiency of electric motors doesn't benefit from size, so instead of two or more large engines under the wings you can have many smaller motors distributed along the fuselage.

This would lead not only to quieter, cleaner aircraft, but also ones that look radically different to those in the air today.

so many more

Well there you have it, a cursory look at what’s to come. I’m looking forward to my conversation with the EvoLectric guys to explore what’s to come, be that trains, alternate transport, industrial usage and agricultural equipment.

For me the challenges remain of course at a macro-level in changing our electricity supply backbone of power generation, right through to the materials used in our batteries and their locations around the world. 

See you at the XDI Experience LIVE Show and look forward to chatting more. If you can’t attend, please shoot me over your questions and it’ll be my pleasure to ask and have them answered and get back to you.

Please register here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/events/6691812999725887488/?showShareByPost=true

Andrew Sparrow

I blog, vlog & podcast passionately about our need to innovate & thrive, about managing the product lifecycle (PLM) & ever improving smarter manufacturing (MES/MOM/Digital Manufacturing). I love working with the solution vendors, the large consultancies & system integrators & helping them promote themselves & best practice, while at the same time helping deliver great projects through my networks 

I love & thrive in working with some of the world's largest companies such as Airbus, Capgemini, Dassault Systemes, Ericsson, JLR, TOTAL, Siemens, Sony, Subsea7 & Unilever, to name a few

I'm a big people-person & have spent my life meeting as many people & cultures as I can. At my last count, I am lucky enough to have visited & done business in over 55 countries

So far my community is 20,000+ strong & continues to grow, as I try to bring value to that audience through my vlogs, blogs & podcasts