Weighing Your Options
Choosing the right fuel for a pick-up truck isn’t as easy as it used to be.
It wasn’t all that long ago when fleet managers had two fuel choices when adding pick-up trucks to their fleets: gasoline or diesel. Today, there’s a lot more to choose from, including various levels of electrification, as well as alternative fuels. The choices can be even more complex once sustainability goals are added to the equation.
“A fleet manager’s decision starts with understanding the primary goals,” explains Charlotte Argue, Senior Manager, Sustainable Mobility at Geotab. “Beyond core operational objectives (like payload and route demands), the initial step is to clearly identify the fleet’s emissions reduction or sustainability goals. These high-level objectives are critical for setting the strategy and creating the business case needed to compare different fuelling and powertrain options, with operational feasibility being a pre-requisite.”
Calculating TCO
While sustainability goals and targets play into an organization’s fuel choices, no fleet can afford to ignore the total cost of ownership (TCO). For starters, acquisition costs can vary significantly, and could be a deal-breaker.
“The higher upfront investment required for alternative fuel or electric vehicles (EVs) must be offset by lower operating costs over the vehicle’s intended life,” explains Argue. “Fuel cost is the most significant variable expense. While telematics provides crucial visibility into current fuel usage trends and charge history for accurate Cost-per-Mile (CpM) calculations, for TCO comparisons, the focus shifts to predicting future costs.”
To conduct a full TCO comparison, Argue says that a fleet must estimate the fuel/energy economy of the various fuel and powertrain options, and then apply the respective fuel prices (gasoline, diesel, CNG, electricity, etc.) to those economy estimates to predict future expenses.
The next factor to consider is the cost of maintenance. “To make an informed TCO comparison between vehicle and fuel options, fleets first need to estimate the maintenance and repair costs for each vehicle/fuel type,” Argue explains. “For example, Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) tend to have fewer repairs, but parts may be harder to access.”
Vehicle lifecycles and annual mileage demands vary from fleet to fleet, and according the Argue, “longer retention periods and higher annual mileage favour vehicles with a strong long-term TCO case, typically due to cumulative fuel and maintenance savings. The economic viability of an EV, for example, is highly dependent on achieving the necessary mileage to offset the higher initial battery cost.”
The next question to consider is how much will your pick-ups need to haul and/or tow? “The requirements for hauling and towing must be aligned with the vehicle's capabilities,” Argue explains. “For BEVs, it's also important to consider range reduction with heavy loads.”
If you’re looking at trucks that run on anything other than readily-available gasoline or diesel, then refuelling options become a key consideration. “Fleet managers must consider fuel availability and whether fuelling will occur on-route or at a depot,” Argue says. “This must be matched against the fleet’s dwell patterns (e.g., confirming if EV charging can occur at the depot when the vehicles are parked). Telematics helps confirm that the required charging or refuelling infrastructure can reliably support the intended vehicle acquisition.”
Canadian climate
Here in Canada, fleets have another factor to consider—our weather extremes. “Some fuel options are more significantly impacted by temperature than others,” Argue explains. “Telematics can track factors like engine coolant temperature and battery degradation in EVs, providing data to understand how local climate impacts vehicle performance and range, which is especially critical when assessing new fuel types.”
Temperature is especially critical for BEVs, because their energy source is entirely dependent on battery chemistry, which is far more sensitive to heat and cold than internal combustion engines or hybrids, Argue adds.
“In cold weather, chemical reactions inside the battery slow down, reducing power output and driving range; in hot weather, the battery’s thermal management system must work harder, increasing energy consumption and accelerating long-term degradation,” Argue says. “Unlike ICE or hybrid vehicles, BEVs have no alternate energy source to offset these losses—so temperature directly affects both EV range and operational planning.”
Finally, when it comes to remarketing, resale values can be tough to predict. “Residual values may be harder to estimate for a newer vehicle technology, like electric trucks,” says Argue. “Crucially, battery health will impact residual value. Although degradation rates have been relatively low for light-duty EVs so far, it is still early to know how heavy truck batteries will fare.”
Natural gas
Joe Korn, Sustainability Consultant with Holman is a big fan of natural gas, but less so when it comes to pick-up trucks. “I’m a big proponent of natural gas, especially in Class 7 or 8 trucks,” he says. “Not as much in the light-duty segment because the ROI simply isn’t there.”
CNG systems in the light-duty segment, according to Korn, are more complex since these trucks need to run two systems—one gasoline and one CNG. Drivability can be an issue, as can access to maintenance providers, which is why he usually doesn’t recommend natural gas as an option for pick-ups.
Korn says that the whole premise of a gaseous conversion, whether that’s natural gas or propane, is that it’s worth it because of the lover cost of fuel. If that’s a winning ROI case for your fleet, then it might make sense for you, he says.
Cost of sustainability
While some fleets are looking at alternative fuels as a way of saving money, others are focusing on a bigger picture: sustainability. If your fleet falls into the latter category, then Korn recommends looking at fuel from a different angle.
“You have to put a value on your sustainability goal,” he says. “What’s that emission reduction worth to your organization? Are you going to potentially lose business because customers expect your business to be more environmentally responsible?”
So, part of the fuel question has to do with that bigger picture, Korn explains. “It’s not just about what you’re going to do, but why you’re doing it,” he says. “If you’re simply thinking about saving money, then there might be better fuel/powertrain options to look at.”
Switching to alternative fuels, or embracing electrification can be a challenge, Korn says. “It’s a change, and it can be difficult for some,” he says. “So unless you’re in it for the right reasons, and you have support from stakeholders across your organization, you may be in for an uphill battle. On the other hand, if your goal is sustainability, and you have the support you need to make a change, then the effort will be well worth it.”
