NIE 2023 | SKYC Automotive's Superior Performance: New Energy Heavy Commercial Vehicles, Leaders in Intelligent Logistics

Gao Chao introduced that currently, China has approximately 7.5 million heavy-duty trucks in stock, while the global total is about 20 million. The huge market scale of heavy commercial vehicles both globally and in China indicates that the new energy heavy-duty truck market has a high ceiling and great development potential. At the same time, the carbon emissions per fuel commercial vehicle are much higher than those of fuel passenger vehicles. Therefore, developing new energy commercial vehicles is of great significance for achieving the country's 'dual carbon' goals. New energy commercial vehicles have a wide range of application scenarios, including enclosed environments such as ports and mines, as well as open-road transportation like logistics. These scenarios can all develop new energy commercial vehicles.

However, the current scale of mainstream pure electric heavy-duty trucks is still relatively small. One main reason is that using pure electric heavy-duty trucks often reduces the transport capacity of a single truck, thereby increasing the demand for more vehicles, drivers, and management costs, which to some extent hinders the further promotion of pure electric heavy-duty trucks. To address this issue, Scania has customized development based on different scenarios. For example, pure electric heavy-duty trucks are promoted in short-distance scenarios such as ports. At the same time, by reducing the number of truck batteries, the overall cost is lowered, and high-voltage fast charging equipment is equipped to charge vehicles during the rest time of port staff. For long-distance scenarios, Scania promotes plug-in hybrid models. Vehicles can use the fuel mode on highways to support long-distance driving and switch to the pure electric mode in scenarios such as highways (urban areas, parks, ports).

Gao Chao stated that the development of new energy heavy trucks faces three difficulties: significant differences in energy structures among different regions, a potential energy gap between the fully competitive state of the commercial vehicle industry and the 'dual carbon' strategy, and the need for multi-industry integration for the development of new energy heavy trucks.

Firstly, due to the different energy structures in various regions of China and the complexity of new energy types available for use, including wind, solar, electricity, heat, water, hydrogen, methanol, etc. Secondly, unlike passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles, as production tools, have superior economy and reliability over comfort. After years of development, China's logistics industry has entered a state of full competition, where industry participants and customers focus on the cost throughout the product lifecycle. The advancement of the 'dual carbon' strategy requires high demands on technology research and development and capital investment. How to eliminate the potential energy gap between the two and provide logistics customers with affordable new energy heavy trucks while reducing emissions has become a difficult problem that industry enterprises need to solve. Finally, the development process of new energy heavy trucks faces challenges involving cross-industry intersections, with vehicle design and promotion requiring collaboration among different industries such as energy, transportation, logistics, finance, etc.

Gao Chao believes that adapting measures to local conditions, energy conservation and emission reduction, and cost reduction and efficiency improvement are key elements for the development of new energy heavy trucks. Firstly, when promoting new energy heavy trucks, it is necessary to comprehensively consider the issue of energy structure, combine it with local energy structure characteristics, and develop and promote different types of new energy heavy trucks according to local conditions. Secondly, under the background of the 'dual carbon' strategy, to achieve the goal of energy conservation and emission reduction, new energy heavy trucks need to develop step by step, starting with carbon reduction and then moving towards zero carbon to adapt to the development of the logistics industry. Thirdly, cost reduction and efficiency improvement have always been an eternal proposition in the automotive industry. While promoting new energy heavy trucks, intensive management and the selection of appropriate energy types can improve vehicle transportation efficiency, reduce carbon emissions, and lower transportation costs.

Gao Chao stated that customized development for energy and usage scenarios is the real demand for new energy heavy trucks. At the same time, he proposed that E-fuel is expected to become the mainstream fuel route for new energy heavy trucks within 10 to 15 years. In the future, E-fuel will include a variety of automotive fuels artificially synthesized from renewable energy sources, such as hydrogen, methanol, ammonia, etc.

Gao Chao stated that Scania has entered some misunderstandings on the exploration path of developing new energy heavy trucks, such as the positioning of 'high-end' trucks, the 'excessive' pursuit of low wind resistance, the 'direct' pursuit of zero carbon, 'pure' driverless technology, and the 'off-track' Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). In the continuous practice process, the company has been adjusting strategies and providing a series of corresponding solutions for different 'pain points', mainly including: emphasizing the practicality and reliability of vehicles, appropriately reducing wind resistance and leveraging the advantages of flatbed trucks, choosing a strategy of reducing carbon first and then zeroing it out, developing different driverless modes in both enclosed and non-enclosed scenarios, and taking not reducing capacity as a prerequisite for the development of new energy heavy trucks.

Finally, Gao Chao stated that in the future, Sikeqi will gradually develop its own development path through continuous iteration, aiming to create a transportation method based entirely on a hydrogen energy ecosystem and contribute to the entire logistics industry.