Road transport in the Netherlands will not achieve the cabinet’s climate targets without government support. That is what two major trade associations for freight transport have written to the House of Representatives. It will meet on Thursday about sustainable transport.
Electric trucks are now three times more expensive than diesel trucks. The new subsidy scheme for such trucks is much less generous in the Netherlands than abroad. And above all, transport companies that purchase electric trucks have no guarantee whatsoever that they can charge them on their own site.
Branch organisations Transport & Logistics Netherlands (TLN) and RAI Association want the government to help transporters who want to electrify, among other things with a ‘electricity guarantee’. Companies should know where in the Netherlands they can have enough charging capacity built to charge electric trucks. According to TLN and RAI, it now happens that entrepreneurs first invest in more sustainable transport, while later it turns out that not enough electricity is available in their municipality.
With a diesel truck you will no longer enter the city center from 2030
It has been agreed in both Europe and the Netherlands that road transport must become more sustainable in the coming decades. In the Netherlands, 82 percent of freight transport takes place by road.
By 2050, road transport will have to produce CO . throughout the EU2– be neutral. The national climate agreement (2019) states that transport by trucks and vans in larger cities will be emission-free from 2030. You can no longer enter the city center with a diesel truck. The Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management has also determined that from 2030 at least 30 percent of new trucks will be emission-free. By 2040, that should be 100 percent.
67 new electric trucks
However, the number of electric trucks in the Netherlands is still low. At the end of 2021, there were 214 trucks out of 157,000 registered in the Netherlands. Last year, 67 new electric trucks were registered. According to TLN and RAI, the number of trucks should grow by four thousand to five thousand trucks per year to achieve the climate targets for road transport.
“Transport operators are very eager to realize their climate ambitions,” says Elisabeth Post of TLN. “But there are still big problems that we have to solve. I’m worried because I have no control over the issues that need to be addressed. Entrepreneurs want certainty that there are enough electric trucks available, that there is sufficient green energy – and not gray – and that the underground and above-ground charging infrastructure is in order.” According to Post, electric driving in urban distribution is by far preferable to road transport on hydrogen or biodiesel.
According to Post, carriers prefer to charge their trucks on their own site (at night or during loading and unloading) and not at public charging stations. They are not everywhere, it takes a long time and drivers can do nothing but wait until they can continue driving. This leads to high labor costs.
An electric truck costs at least 300,000 euros compared to 100,000 euros for a diesel truck. This is because electric trucks are not yet being built on a large scale and because the batteries required are relatively expensive. Post: “And if you have to leave a new electric truck because you can’t charge, you don’t earn that expensive investment back either.”
Also read: Postponement of the truck tax is a ‘sledgehammer blow for achieving the climate goals’
Post is asking the government to pay the expected revenues that the truck tax will generate earlier to transport companies. From 2025, every truck will have to pay a kilometer charge. That would yield 800 million euros annually; after deducting the costs and promised tax reductions, in principle 250 to 300 million euros per year is available for the transport sector. “If the government makes pre-financing possible, it helps entrepreneurs to become more sustainable more quickly,” says Post.
In the Netherlands, a subsidy will come into effect in the spring to help freight transport companies purchase electric trucks (AanZET scheme). They get 40 percent back of the difference in the purchase price of a truck on fossil fuel and electric fuel. That is an average of 80,000 euros. In Germany, entrepreneurs receive double that, including the internationally operating competitors of Dutch carriers.
According to Michiel Kuijs, chairman of the heavy trucks section of the RAI Association and director of truck manufacturer DAF Nederland, transport companies are currently very interested in making their fleet more sustainable. According to him, dozens of entrepreneurs are encountering restrictions when charging. “In several places, the electricity grid cannot meet the demand. We ask the government to map out in which regions entrepreneurs have a guarantee of sufficient green energy. This way they know where they can expand their business sustainably.”
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of March 31, 2022