ABF Freight Tests Electric Versus Diesel
The current presidential administration may have rolled back some regulations that were intended to give electric and alternative trucking fuels a bit of a boost in the industry, but with those gone, how does electric stand on its own?
Can it compare to diesel in 2025? To that end, a company called ABF Freight decided to do a little bit of an experiment to see if electric trucks could match or exceed their traditional diesel brethren.
Details
The company used Tesla Semis, in part because they are the easiest heavy-duty electric trucks to acquire and because they boast good specifications to make the comparison fair rather than rigged.
“We’re not looking for a truck that performs well for an EV,” said ABF Freight President Matt Godfrey. “It must meet or exceed the performance and total cost of ownership targets of our most efficient diesel units.
This pilot gives us great insight into the potential of EV semis in our operations.”
The test involved driving from Reno, Nevada to Sacramento, California by way of Donner Pass. It also had some experience traveling within the Bay Area.
Over two weeks, the electric truck traveled 4494 miles. What they found was an energy consumption of about 1.55 kilowatt-hours per mile.
Using the Environmental Protection Agency’s metric of comparing both forms of fuel to British Thermal Units, the Tesla Semi has a miles per gallon equivalent of about 26.
Combining this number with 9 cents per kilowatt-hour and $4 per gallon, the Tesla Semi costs ABF Freight about 25% the same amount as a comparable diesel.
Add in the reduced maintenance (electric motors have fewer moving parts than combustion engines), and electric vehicles have a plethora of advantages for fleets.
Conclusion
The technology, initial purchase price, and charging infrastructure are not quite there yet to make electric trucks replace diesel as the king of the road, but if the numbers from ABF Freight are any indication, the government will not need to step in to push the technology further along.
Should the initial purchase price of an EV truck drop low enough to justify the purchase, it is possible that diesel trucks may go the way of the horse and buggy.
It just may take three decades for us to get there; after all, the diesel refueling stations we have across the nation now did not just sprout overnight!
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