Source: United States Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
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WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) at a Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee hearing questioned Andrew Boyle, First Vice Chair of the American Trucking Association, about impacts of the Biden administration’s unprecedented push for widespread electric vehicle (EV) adoption, including its ever-stringent proposed vehicle emissions standards. Excerpts and full video are below.
Senator Cramer discussed the financial and infrastructural unfeasibility of scaling heavy-duty electric trucks across the entire trucking industry.
“We acknowledge they’re heavier, we acknowledge they’re more expensive. Maybe the incentives don’t even cover the excise tax. What does it cost to insure a vehicle like a large truck that has these extra costs and weights, and an infrastructure frankly not designed for 5,000 more pounds per axle?” asked Senator Cramer.
“Each electric vehicle battery for a heavy-duty truck weighs 8,000 pounds, and you need at least two of them. So, we’re talking the weight of four or five cars,” responded Boyle. “One friend tried to put in Illinois a facility teed up for 30 trucks’ electrification. The city came back and said, ‘This is some kind of joke. You’re asking for more draw than the entire city requires.’ To give you an idea of 30, 50 trucks, that’s like a five- or six-megawatt application. The factory that makes the trucks is a two-megawatt factory.”
Further, they emphasized the unreliability of EV batteries in cold weather conditions.
“The performance in cold weather… it’s not just unproven, it’s proven to be horrible. I just can’t imagine pushing this standard on North Dakota,” said Senator Cramer.
“That’s right, sir,” responded Boyle. “The battery degrades in cold conditions up to about a third. That range I talked about – 180, to 150, to 330 – it’s degraded by 30%.”
Senator Cramer also raised concerns about offshoring mineral supply chains to foreign nations with inadequate labor standards: “With regard to the supply chain in Congo, Indonesia, China, and the human rights violations, and the workforce challenges — certainly standards that don’t meet ours. To me, those are of greater importance than some of the other issues we’re trying to solve.”
Finally, Boyle provided an analogy for lawmakers’ premature efforts to accelerate a transition from oil, gas, and diesel when key capabilities are not yet available: “You’re right, the cart is before the horse,” agreed Senator Cramer. “Let’s build the horse and find the supply chain that can produce some of these things before we start incentivizing things.”