The rollout of fully electric trucks to replace Australia’s fleet of diesel-guzzling, carbon-belching rigs is being held up by out-of-date federal regulations, with Australia’s largest vehicle manufacturer, Volvo, warning new vehicles can’t even leave the showroom let alone hit the road.
As the Albanese government tries to throttle-up electric vehicle sales as a key election promise, the reality on the ground for fleet operators more than happy to dump surging diesel costs for solar-charged batteries is they can’t get locally made trucks on the road because of federal red tape.
After years of quiet engagement with Canberra over vehicle standards, Volvo this week went public with concerns over Canberra’s lack of pace on the regulatory reform front, warning “the lack of a regulatory framework for heavy transport” is stalling decarbonisation, future investment, local job creation through electric truck manufacturing in Australia.
The main issue is weight gain. Electric trucks just weigh more because they need very big batteries to cope with long distances and far bigger power output to haul loads over hills.
The issue Volvo has is that current federal regulation — national heavy vehicle policy and standards are run out of Canberra rather than the states — is that front-axle load limits are just too low to make current rigs street and highway legal.
“It is a reality that the safer and cleaner our trucks get, the heavier they get. As it stands today, the front-axle weight limit in Australia -= 6.5 tonnes — will keep Volvo’s heavy-duty electric trucks off the road. We need this limit lifted to 7.5 tonnes at the very least to accommodate the safety features and battery weight built into these trucks,” executive vice president of Volvo Group and president of Volvo Trucks Roger Alm said.
“Also, logistics companies looking to transition their fleets currently receive no financial support to do so. This is very different to other countries like Germany and Norway that are actively encouraging the adoption of electric trucks by reimbursing part of the capital cost.”
Alms’ comments come as Volvo, which also manufactures the Mack truck brand in Australia, prepares to start marketing its long-haul heavy rigs into the Australian market with a launch at the Brisbane Truck Show starting today.
The new models, designated as FM Electric and FH Electric, are in high demand because logistics firms and their customers are facing record fuel costs, ageing fleets and policy settings that were largely geared towards placating petroleum industry interests over the switch to electric.
In the main, government policy has usually focused on the availability, cost and infrastructure of small private electric vehicles rather than logistics workhorses like trucks and other plants where the economics of electric add up far more quickly.
Car manufacturers have entirely quit Australia after the government stopped subsidising them, though the Albanese government has hopes and has stated its intention for Australia to become an electrical vehicle manufacturing hub.
Ironically, Volvo is already doing that with manufacturing facilities in Queensland that turn out thousands of trucks and busses. The Swedish company has also committed to building electric vehicles locally by 2027 — assuming it can get its big rigs registered with Federal Interstate plates.
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