Nebraska Will Fight the Radical Campaign for Electric Trucks

Unelected regulators and oligopolists try to force a change that will leave rural Americans high and dry

By Mike Hilgers. Excerpts:

"More than 70% of the nation’s freight is moved by truck, and 80% of U.S. communities rely exclusively on trucking to receive goods. The infrastructure for a diesel-powered logistics industry is robust and predictable—millions of such trucks are already in service, fuel stations are plentiful, and the roads are designed to meet the payload capacity and vehicle weight of trucks powered by an internal-combustion engine. 

Diesel-powered trucks are tried and true. Electric-powered ones aren’t. Charging stations for heavy-duty trucks, which draw significant amounts of power, hardly exist anywhere in the country. Nebraska, with the country’s longest stretch of Interstate 80, doesn’t have a single charging station that could charge an electric semi truck."

"charging a semi is a slow process that wastes precious time. A full charge will take an electric truck only about one-fourth as far as a full tank will take a diesel one, and cold weather makes the electric truck’s range even shorter. Good luck moving freight long distances in severe Midwestern winter. 

Electric semis are also heavier than their internal-combustion counterparts, meaning they have less carrying capacity and will cause more damage to roads. And it’s unclear that the country’s stressed electric grid can handle an electric trucking fleet. It’s also an open question whether or not the battery components could be sourced at scale to make an electric shipping fleet. Even if that proves possible, it would make the U.S. more dependent on hostile foreign powers, which control the vast majority of the needed minerals."

"Today, less than 0.001% of all heavy-duty vehicles are battery powered. The Biden administration projects that its EV rule would require 45% of all heavy-duty vehicles sold nationwide to be electric in seven years."

"the private companies that make semi trucks are using their market power to force this change. The country’s largest truck manufacturers agreed not to push back against California’s electric-truck mandates and to abide by them even if they are struck down in court. This effectively operates as a restriction on output, a classic antitrust concern, which will increase prices for consumers of internal-combustion engine vehicles."