The road to sustainable HGV fuels

Rewind the clock to 1905, and Commercial Motor magazine has just started publishing. We have one aim, and that’s to persuade the UK’s hauliers that the time is right to take their sustainable hay-powered transport to the glue factory and invest in fossil fuel-powered trucks instead. And I think it’s fair to say that we were rather successful in our mission!

But then it wasn’t exactly hard to convince them. I mean the argument for switching from horses to steam and petrol made a lot of sense from a productivity and operational point of view. They were quicker, they could cover greater distances, they were capable of carrying more weight, they took up less road space, and they were arguably cleaner too. Well, at least the emissions disappeared into the atmosphere somewhere rather than onto the tarmac.

Anyway, fast forward 116 years, and it seems Commercial Motor is at it again. Only this time, we’re trying to persuade hauliers to swap their perfectly clean, efficient, practical and relatively cheap Euro-6 diesel-powered trucks for vehicles that are more expensive, potentially less productive, on occasions more complex, and in some cases don’t even exist yet! I think we’re facing something of an uphill struggle, don’t you?

The only difference is - this time hauliers won’t have a choice, thanks to legislation and public pressure.

So what does the road to sustainable HGV fuels look like? Well I imagine there’ll be a few potholes, sharp bends and diversions on the way, but hopefully I’m wrong.

You’ll be able to get a better idea at 2pm next Wednesday (26 May), by tuning into a Freight in the City webinar that I’m chairing on this very subject. I’ll be chatting to three industry experts - one that manufacturers the vehicles (John Comer, product manager at Volvo Trucks), one that operates them (Jonathan Chadburn, vice president of asset management at DHL Supply Chain), and one that charges them (Adrian Felton, national strategic account manager at Swarco).

To register for this FREE event go to freightinthecity.com