Promote green transportation, electric trucks are indispensable

Recently, the "Work Plan for Promoting the Development of Multimodal Transport, Optimizing and Adjusting the Transport Structure" proposes to further optimize and adjust the transport structure. On the mainland, trucks, which bear more than 70% of the freight volume, are one of the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions, and how to promote their low-carbon cleanliness is becoming a new development issue. Our reporter conducted an exclusive interview with Fu Lu, director of the China region of the Asia Clean Air Center, on related issues.

Carbon reduction in trucks is of great significance to achieving the goal of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality

ask

With the introduction of important documents related to carbon peaking, carbon neutrality and atmospheric governance, what do you think is the significance of preventing truck emission pollution to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals?

Fu Lu: Solving the problem of air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions from trucks is the key to reducing pollution and carbon in the transportation industry.

From the perspective of the three landmark battles of air pollution control in the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, diesel trucks are currently facing the problem of mobile source emissions in Chinese cities. In order to achieve coordinated control of PM2.5 and ozone during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, diesel trucks are an important precursor contribution source of these two pollutants. According to the "China Mobile Source Environmental Management Annual Report (2021)", in 2020, the proportion of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter emissions from diesel trucks in the country will reach 78.5% and 90.6% of the total vehicle emissions, respectively.

From the perspective of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, the task of the mainland in the field of transportation is to build a low-carbon transportation system, and the current road transport structure dominated by diesel trucks is obviously incompatible with it. At present, road transport accounts for about 80% of the country's transportation CO2 emissions, of which trucks account for only 10% of the ownership of CO2 emissions account for more than 30%. Therefore, truck carbon reduction is of great significance for the realization of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals.

In recent years, some truck manufacturers have begun to lay out the electric truck market. What challenges do you think need to be overcome when electric truck distance becomes mainstream? What is the current proportion of zero-emission electric vehicles?

Fu Lu: First of all, the main problems that need to be overcome in the promotion of electric trucks are as follows:

The penetration rate of electric trucks as a whole is currently low. In various practical application scenarios, fuel trucks are more favored by the market. To change this situation, from the perspective of impressing users, the first thing is to improve the competitiveness of electric trucks in terms of price, that is, to reduce the cost of electric trucks, including acquisition costs and operating costs.

Secondly, it is necessary to meet the functional needs of users on the user side. Truck is a production tool, users care about how much goods can be pulled, how often to charge, how far to run each charge, etc., which has requirements for the technical performance and supporting facilities construction of the vehicle.

In fact, many other factors such as failure rate and safety also affect the promotion of electric trucks. Electric trucks are currently in the early stages of the market and need to be jointly promoted by policies and enterprises.

Third, the penetration rate of zero-emission electric trucks is still relatively low. The green card list evaluates the main models and companies on the market, and from the truck sales data in 2019 and 2020, the proportion of electric truck sales in the green card evaluation range is 1.02% and 0.78%, respectively.

On the vehicle emissions side alone, an increase in the proportion of electric vehicles means a reduction in pollutants and CO2 emissions, which is important for achieving carbon neutrality in the transportation industry. However, from the perspective of the whole society, the degree of electrification of the transportation sector has been increasing, and the pressure of carbon reduction has shifted to the power production end. At present, the mainland is still dominated by thermal power generation, and the proportion of thermal power generation in 2020 is still nearly 70%.

Therefore, only by simultaneously promoting the electrification of the transportation sector and the green transformation of the energy structure can the carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals be achieved as soon as possible.

Companies should focus on reducing the level of exhaust emissions from heavy-duty trucks

Recently, the Asian Clean Air Center and a number of institutions released the "2020 Green Card List: Green Ranking of Chinese Trucks and Manufacturers". Compared with the previous list, what are the characteristics of mainland truck emission control in this stage?

Fu Lu: 2020 is the year of the end of the battle against diesel truck pollution. Our study found that the level of NOx and particulate matter emissions from diesel trucks improved significantly in 2020. Compared with 2019, the emissions of NOx and smoke levels of China V diesel trucks in 2020 decreased on average. Taking heavy tractors as an example, the NOx levels measured annually in 2020 decreased by an average of 8.5% compared with 2019, and the smoke level decreased by 12.8%. Selecting vehicles of the same age for comparison, the annual inspection performance in 2020 is still better than that in 2019. At the same time, in areas with stricter regulatory policies, such as Beijing, Guangdong, Hainan, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the level of exhaust control, especially the smoke level, is relatively better. The smoke and nitrogen oxides of vehicles inspected in Beijing were 62.1% and 21.1% lower than the average, respectively.

In 2020, some cities began to implement the National VI standard, and the National VI diesel vehicles have significant advantages over the National V in nitrogen oxide control. The analysis of environmental protection annual inspection data found that the smoke and nitrogen oxide emissions of China VI diesel trucks decreased by 25.4% and 61.4% respectively compared with China V.

In addition, we have found that heavy-duty trucks will be a difficult point for pollution reduction in the future. The results of the 2020 annual inspection show that the NOx emission levels of heavy vehicles are significantly higher than those of light and medium vehicles, especially tractors and heavy dump trucks. Companies should focus on how to reduce the exhaust emission level of such vehicles. The ecological environment department should also increase the supervision of such vehicles.

With the upgrading of emission standards, there is limited room for the decline in smoke levels of mainland diesel trucks, and combined with the PM2.5 and ozone problems currently faced by Chinese cities, nitrogen oxides are the focus of the next stage of control.

Our analysis found that the current diesel emission standard load deceleration method NOx limit a (1500ppm) is not enough to screen high-emission vehicles. The data shows that 99.2% and 99.9% of China V and China VI diesel trucks can meet the limit a requirements of the "Diesel Vehicle Pollutant Emission Limit and Measurement Method (Free Acceleration Method and Loading Deceleration Method)" (GB3847-2018) respectively, and the emission level of the vehicles that meet the standard is far below the limit. If the limit value b (900ppm) in the standard is adopted, 83.6% of the National V vehicles can reach the NOx limit b, which is more in line with the goal of "controlling 10% to 20% of highly polluting vehicles" of the standard. In order to further strengthen the regulatory effectiveness of diesel vehicles in use, it is recommended to implement stricter regulatory limits in a timely manner.

A new force of electric trucks is emerging

At present, which truck manufacturers have made attempts to reduce pollution and carbon?

Fu Lu: Truck manufacturers can help reduce pollution and carbon at the production end and product side. At present, a number of car companies have publicly released carbon peaking, carbon neutrality targets and plans, involving "zero carbon" factories, new energy truck sales targets, and commitments to discontinued fuel vehicles.

The green card list pays attention to the performance of manufacturers' brands in reducing pollution and carbon on the product side. For diesel trucks, the core evaluation indicators of the green card list are emissions and fuel consumption. For electric trucks, the core evaluation index of the green card list is power consumption, Foton, Dongfeng and FAW have achieved outstanding results in the green diesel truck list, and new electric truck forces such as Changhe Automobile and Jihai New Energy have emerged on the green electric truck list.

The layout of new energy is one of the important paths for truck manufacturers to reduce pollution and reduce carbon. The current product structure of veteran truck manufacturers is still dominated by fuel vehicles, and zero-emission electric vehicles account for a relatively low proportion. Among the top ten truck manufacturers in the truck market in 2019-2020, Dongfeng and SAIC's electric truck sales accounted for a relatively leading proportion, exceeding 4% and 2% respectively, while most of the other companies were less than 0.5%. At the same time, new electric vehicle forces such as BYD, Geely New Energy, and Changhe Automobile have emerged in the electric truck market. Although the overall truck sales of these companies are still inferior to those of traditional fuel truck giants, the proportion of truck electrification has reached 30%-100%.

What efforts has the Asian Clean Air Centre (CAA) made in recent years to promote green mobility?

Fu Lu: CAA has been working to promote green transportation in China for more than a decade. We can say that we have witnessed the process of China's green transportation from toddler to lead Asia.

In the first few years, our work was mainly to bring the technical, governance and management experience of developed countries in the environmental protection of mobile sources to China. In recent years, with China's technological and management progress in air pollution control, CAA has shared China's experience with other Asian countries through its own channels in the form of regional training and experience exchanges, research and analysis reports, etc. Many developing Asian countries are very interested in China's experience in improving air quality while maintaining economic growth, including the environmental management experience of China Mobile Sources.

We have noticed that some Chinese truck manufacturers have been actively laying out the international market, striving for excellence in green vehicles and creating green competitiveness. We believe that we can help Chinese brands to be better accepted by the markets of various countries, and we can also help the transportation sector around the world to reduce pollution and carbon.

Original topic: Promote green transportation Electric trucks are indispensable We should focus on reducing the exhaust emission level of heavy trucks and actively promote the layout of new energy by truck manufacturers

Source: China Environment News

Edit: Qin Chao