ANAHEIM, Calif. — If enough chargers were available along U.S. roads, a single-digit order for the Freightliner eCascadia electric Class 8 tractor could have multiplied to hundreds.
"We've had people say, 'Hey, we love the five that we took delivery of, and if we had a way to charge them, we would take 200 more,' " John O'Leary, CEO of Daimler Truck North America, which owns Freightliner, told Automotive News at the ACT Expo here. ACT stands for Advanced Clean Transportation.
Freightliner is one of many trucking companies confronting a lack of charging and hydrogen fueling infrastructure as they integrate green trucks into their fleets.
The pandemic-era supply chain tangles have loosened, skeptical freight owners have growing confidence in the technology, and manufacturing plants are operating at full speed. But the big truck manufacturers displaying their vehicles at the expo articulated a frustrating bottleneck: Customers want to install chargers in their depots and lots, but the wait for electrical service for charger installation is in some cases multiple years. That can discourage potential vehicle buyers.
The process of getting power to depots and other sites for commercial fleets differs by state, but usually it requires site inspection, design, permitting and construction. O'Leary also described a two- to three-year back order for the switch gear required for utilities to extend power.
Components shortages are a lingering effect of COVID-19 supply chain issues but also the result of mergers and acquisitions in the sector, said Jackie Piero, U.S. head of policy at Mobility House, a company that has created software and hardware used to limit energy use for electric vehicle chargers, a way of getting around grid constraints.
There's "been industrial consolidation that just resulted in a little more rigid supply chain system, and now we're having a huge rise in demand, and we're just not necessarily ready to meet it," said Piero.