Saturday 30 April 2022 The Guardian •Financial^53
The electric roads system proposal
would cover two-thirds of the UK's
freight milesSource: The Centre for Sustainable Road FreightM1A1M6M4M8A303 M25 M20A55M1A roads MotorwaysTotal distance 3,914 miles
HGV coverage 65%Charging ahead
How to make lorries
cleaner and greener
Jasper Jolly‘J
ust be careful where your
back end is going,” says
the instructor as this
reporter nervously steers
a 44-tonne articulated
Volvo lorry. It is good
advice at roundabouts, as in life.
The trailer rolls past the safety
barrier with a barely visible gap, to
the relief of everyone involved.
It is a manoeuvre played out
across the world countless times
each day as lorries lug the goods
required for modern life from
factory to consumer. However, this
truck is slightly diff erent: instead
of a diesel engine, it is running on
natural gas.The fuel is one of the products
of a series of gambles by
manufacturers on how to reduce
the carbon footprint of road
transport, a key contributor to
global carbon emissions : 16% of
the UK’s carbon emissions in 2019
were from heavy goods vehicles,
which carried 1.4bn tonnes across
11m miles in the year to June 2021,
according to the Department
for Transport. Lorry makers are
vying to produce gas, electric
and hydrogen variants to try to
decarbonise those journeys – but
no one has yet succeeded at scale.
At the same test-drive event,
held this week at the Millbrook
Proving Ground by the Society
of Motor Manufacturers and
Traders , there was the chance to
try out the LF Electric, made bythe Dutch fi rm DAF Trucks at its
Leyland subsidiary in Lancashire.
Compared with the noise and
judder of a diesel engine it is a
serene experience on a sunny day
in the rolling Bedfordshire hills. So
serene, in fact, that another good-
natured instructor has to intervene
to prevent another roundabout
mishap.
The problems are range and
cost. The LF Electric, of which 25
have been built so far, has a 140-
mile range and 19-tonne capacity,
which prevents it from taking on
the trucking routes that serve as the
backbone of modern economies.
And the sticker price is currently
three times that of a diesel.
Even Elon Musk has been unable
to crack the problem, judging by
the Tesla Semi, which is now years
overdue. Nikola this week began
production of electric trucks at its
new Arizona plant, but only after
its founder, Trevor Milton , was
charged with allegedly rolling a
prototype down a hill to pretend it
was working. Some experts think
it will be 2025 before larger electric
trucks hit the mainstream.
David Cebon , a professor of
mechanical engineering at the
University of Cambridge , has
just completed the fi rst stage of
a government-funded feasibilityJohnson Matthey shares soar
after US group buys 5% stake
Jasper JollyShares in the chemicals producer
Johnson Matthey soared after a US
industrial conglomerate bought a
stake in the struggling British com-
pany, in a move that immediately
prompted takeover speculation.
Shares in the company, listed onthe FTSE 250 index, rose by as much as
30% yesterday after New York-based
Standard Industries took a 5% stake.
Shares later retreated to an 18% gain.
Johnson Matthey has a 205 -year
history in Britain’s chemicals sector,
but it has struggled in recent years.
In November it abandoned an
eff ort to become a leading producer
of batteries for electric vehicles , dis-
maying the UK automotive industry.The company’s roots go back to
testing precious metals in 1817. It
later became a main supplier to the
automotive industry as rising aware-
ness of pollution risks prompted the
introduction of catalytic converters.
The catalytic converters business
made it into one of Britain’s biggest
companies, but it was demoted from
the FTSE 100 index in December after
investors questioned what it would
do when internal combustion engine
vehicles were replaced by electric
cars with no exhaust emissions.
Its share price hit a high of £25 yes-
terday, its highest since November,
but still well below the £30 to £35levels reached regularly since 2013,
leaving it vulnerable to a takeover.
Standard Industries is a privately
held group with interests in chemi-
cals , building mat er ials, property and
investments. L ast year it bought the
US chemicals business Grace.
The Johnson Matthey investment
is likely to increase scrutiny of its chief
executive, Liam Condon, who took
the role in March after the retirement
of Robert MacLeod. He is reviewing
company strategy, and is scheduled
to update investors on 26 May, but
has said Johnson Matthey will in
future focus on the chemicals needed
for “decarbonisation, hydrogentechnologies and circularity”. He is
also selling the company’s business
providing specialist chemicals for
pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Charles Bentley , an equity analyst
at Jeff eries , a US investment bank,
said Standard would be “something
like an ideal owner for the JM busi-
ness”. A deal would off er “operational
overlap” on the business providing
chemical catalysts to other manu-
facturers, and “an ability to take a
long-term view” on what to do with
the money from continued sales of
catalytic converters for cars.
Johnson Matthey and Standard
were approached for comment. A Volta
electric lorry
demonstrator in
central London.
The fi rm plans
to build 5,000
trucks next year
PHOTOGRAPH: JASPER
JOLLY/THE GUARDIANas many as 5,000 7.5-tonne and
12-tonne all-electric lorries in 2023,
and a target of 14,000 the year
after. Another start-up, Tevva , is
planning to make 9,000 7.5-tonne
battery and hydrogen fuel cell
trucks by 2025, in part at a site in
Tilbury, Essex.
The natural gas option is, of
course, still a fossil fuel, so its
combustion has a signifi cant
carbon footprint, and Russia’s
war on Ukraine has added to the
impetus to shift away from reliance
on it. A cleaner alternative is
methane produced by anaerobic
digestion of food waste, known as
biogas or bio-LNG (liquefi ed natural
gas). Gasrec, a company working on
gas refuelling stations , says a bio-
LNG lorry reduces CO2 emissions by
90% compared with a diesel.
Even Sweden’s Volvo and Iveco,
an Italian-listed manufacturer
whose S-Way is also available in
natural gas version, are open about
the fact that methane combustion
is a transition technology.
Lars Stenqvist , the head of trucks
technology at Volvo Group, said :
“It’s clear to us that we need more
than one solution to decarbonise
transport. We currently see three
technologies in parallel that will
decarbonise the heavy vehicle
industry. We are investing more
than ever into combustion engines,
battery electric vehicles and fuel
cell electric vehicles.”
One big question is hydrogen’s
role. Hydrogen is energy dense and
off ers very quick refuelling. Fuel
cells can power electric motors
with water as t he only exhaust
emission. However, there are big
questions over the amount of
electricity needed to make green,
high-purity hydrogen to power
a large proportion of the world’s
lorries. “The potential future
market for hydrogen vehicles is
shrinking daily,” said Gniewomir
Flis , who scouts electrochemical
technologies at Energy Revolution
Ventures. “I believe the majority of
trucks will be battery electric.”▲ UK road
hauliers carried
1.4bn tonnes
across 11m miles
in the year to
June 2021
PHOTOGRAPH: HENRY
NICHOLLS/REUTERSstudy into a novel solution to
batteries’ lower-energy density. An
electric roads system (see below)
would install train-style overhead
charging cables on main roads.
The s tartup Volta Trucks
is developing its products in
Warwick , with the aim of building