Research Group: Massive Investment Needed to Electrify Vehicles in California

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Written by Paul Wiseman for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Fully electrifying the vehicle fleet in California could require 57.2% more electricity than the state currently produces, in a time when it already imports more electricity than the state of Massachusetts consumes, according to a new report. Supplying California vehicles with enough batteries to electrify all of them would take 407% of the annual global production of cobalt, 379.5% of its production of graphite, and 92.8% of the total current world production of its storage metal, lithium.

All of that data, along with other findings, is part of the American Transportation Research Institute's (ATRI) December 2023 report, "Is California Ready for an Electric Vehicle Future?" The ATRI says its primary mission is to conduct transportation research, with an emphasis on the trucking industry.

With a legendary air pollution issue and with the country's largest population, California is understandably the state perhaps most committed to the energy transition. But its very size makes for some obstacles seemingly taller than Mount Whitney's 14,505 feet above sea level.

More Power to You
As stated, California would need 57.2% more electricity than it uses now. To put that in perspective, the ATRI says California is the second largest consumer of electricity among U.S. states, the fourth-largest producer and the largest importer of electricity, needing more than 50,000 gigawatt hours (GWh) than it can produce every year.

All that demand has pushed the costs very high, the second-greatest (22.33 cents) per kilowatt hours (KWh) in the U.S. That's almost double the nation's overall average of 12.36 cents per KWh. Urban areas like San Diego (47.5 cents) and San Francisco (35.0 cents) are much higher than even the California average. This could be daunting for drivers and haulers.

Then there's the dilemma of how to get that power out of the grid and into the truck. The report estimates that truck parking is already in short supply, with less than 10% of the spaces the nation needs. And, "Adding a charger at each of California's 12,144 truck parking spaces would cost between $1.472 billion and $2.878 billion for just the purchase and installation of the charging units."

Buddy, Can You Spare--About $425,000?
Then there's the expense of the trucks themselves. Currently, battery-electric trucks bring about $425,000, which is more than double the cost of a comparable diesel truck, according to the report.

It Ain't Heavy, It's My Battery
How to drag that all that supercharged lithium around is another challenge. Crossover vehicles and minivans are one thing when it comes to battery weights and sizes--and 18-wheelers are very much another. According to the ATRI report, the batteries required for 18-wheelers would greatly increase those trucks' weights, to the point that "one-third of the truckload sector would suddenly be too heavy for U.S. roads. The result--additional trucks would be needed to move the same amount of freight as a diesel truck. For every 1,000 trucks, an additional 343 trucks would be required to haul the same amount of freight."

Plus, to build those batteries, the resources required would outstrip entire world supplies, as noted in the first paragraph.

On the Lighter Side
One issue with the report is that it assumes all alternative-energy trucks would be battery-electrics (BEVs), which may or may not be the case. Other alternatives are getting much focus, including the use of hydrogen either in internal-combustion engines or for fuel cells. Both of these would require a certain amount of additional weight to safely store the hydrogen, but not nearly as much as lithium-ion batteries would need.

And, like BEVs, they would require new infrastructure to supply the hydrogen to refueling stations. This would indeed be highly costly but would not tax the power grid at anywhere near the same level as would the former.

There is also a scenario in which some diesels would remain on the road, burning greener forms such as renewable diesel. While there is not likely to be enough feedstock to make this a significant option, it at least would not require new delivery infrastructure, although new production facilities would need to be built. Unlike biodiesel, which cannot be mixed more than about 20% with the original petroleum, renewable diesel is close enough to being identical for use as a 100% replacement.

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