I work in equipment manufacturing for construction so can comment on excavators. Other construction equipment (loaders, dumpers) have a similar story although excavators have more gently duty cycles and require smaller batteries so make sense to electrify first. Diesel-Hydraulic Excavators are also less efficient giving more potential advantage for electric equipment.
Agree that payback period is relatively low but possibly a bit longer than here—I’ve seen 3-5 years. The ruggedised batteries required for instance can be expensive.
Purchasers of new machines will generally keep them for 5-7 years which is enough to justify the payback but not to make it an obvious easy win.
If you have to use a diesel generator you immediately lose a lot of your cost saving. It is surprising how many construction sites lack mains electricity.
Many machines go to the rental market. In this case the equipment buyers do not get the benefit of the reduced operating costs. In that case the rental company has to sell the increased rental cost to their customers who are happy with what they are currently using.
Total cost of ownership just isn’t the main driver of buyer decisions. This is already a problem with diesel-hydraulic machines—there are many ways to make these more efficient which would have a decent payback period but don’t get implemented because efficiency isn’t a key purchasing driver.
What buyers really need is performance and reliability (plus low up front cost). The advantage of electric is more difficult to sell for reliability because of a lack of track record so going electric is a risk. Users are also rightly concerned that battery range will not be sufficient on high usage days—batteries in current machines often claim a full day but not necessarily with high usage.
Most likely route for electric in short term is for them to get used in environments where emissions are important (due to regulations or low ventilation such as mines) plus companies wanting to be/look green. This will allow a track record to build up which will give more confidence to buyers.
I suspect the most useful thing a government could do (assuming carbon tax is politically infeasible) would be to legislate for low emissions in cities which would build the track record faster.
I work in equipment manufacturing for construction so can comment on excavators. Other construction equipment (loaders, dumpers) have a similar story although excavators have more gently duty cycles and require smaller batteries so make sense to electrify first. Diesel-Hydraulic Excavators are also less efficient giving more potential advantage for electric equipment.
Agree that payback period is relatively low but possibly a bit longer than here—I’ve seen 3-5 years. The ruggedised batteries required for instance can be expensive.
Purchasers of new machines will generally keep them for 5-7 years which is enough to justify the payback but not to make it an obvious easy win.
If you have to use a diesel generator you immediately lose a lot of your cost saving. It is surprising how many construction sites lack mains electricity.
Many machines go to the rental market. In this case the equipment buyers do not get the benefit of the reduced operating costs. In that case the rental company has to sell the increased rental cost to their customers who are happy with what they are currently using.
Total cost of ownership just isn’t the main driver of buyer decisions. This is already a problem with diesel-hydraulic machines—there are many ways to make these more efficient which would have a decent payback period but don’t get implemented because efficiency isn’t a key purchasing driver.
What buyers really need is performance and reliability (plus low up front cost). The advantage of electric is more difficult to sell for reliability because of a lack of track record so going electric is a risk. Users are also rightly concerned that battery range will not be sufficient on high usage days—batteries in current machines often claim a full day but not necessarily with high usage.
Most likely route for electric in short term is for them to get used in environments where emissions are important (due to regulations or low ventilation such as mines) plus companies wanting to be/look green. This will allow a track record to build up which will give more confidence to buyers.
I suspect the most useful thing a government could do (assuming carbon tax is politically infeasible) would be to legislate for low emissions in cities which would build the track record faster.