This CoP collaborates on challenges related to the public procurement of vehicles for environmental services, particularly street cleansing and waste collection.
Electric vehicles are cheaper and more sustainable than hydrogen ones. Hydrogen fuel costs 15.25 Euro per kilogram; the market can only accept it if the price gets reduced to 5 Euro per kilo. Moreover, where one windmill is needed for an electric truck, three are needed to produce enough hydrogen.
16% of Lisbon’s heavy duty vehicles currently run on compressed natural gas, while 22% of its light commercial vehicles are electric. The city seeks to have all its light commercial vehicles be electric by 2035.
The Swedish company Volta is currently developing electric trucks in Austria’s Steyr Automotive factory. The first trucks developed are aimed for city distribution and can go up to 300 kilometres. However, Volta is currently also working on developing batteries for longer-distance trips.
Gothenburg (Sweden) will have new electric trucks by Spring 2025; Oslo (Norway) is developing a new fleet management system for the entire municipality; Helsinki (Finland) will not allow anymore combustion engine vehicles.
Hydrogen may not be the best source of fuel to make municipal fleets more sustainable. That was one of the key conclusions of the latest meeting of the Community of Practice (CoP) on Heavy Duty Electric Vehicles, organised in the context of the Big Buyers Working Together (BBWT) project.
Last January, the Big Buyers Working Together project kicked off its Community of Practice focusing on the public procurement of vehicles used for the delivery of environmental services, particularly street cleansing and waste collection.
