By Shawn Horsewill, VP Customer Success, Work Truck Solutions

The Green Truck Summit (GTS) is an annual day-long event which kicks off the Work Truck Week in Indianapolis and features intensive programs led by industry experts, OEMs and government representatives. It typically begins with a few keynotes, and they then break out into sessions that focus on more specific subjects. This year, they did a great job of covering the clean energy trends that affect commercial vehicles, plus provided operational insights for vocational truck fleets. They also offered perspective on the direction of evolution that work trucks are taking in numerous areas of advanced fuels and technology development. They covered:

• Electric vehicle (EV) trends and innovations
• How industry segments are driving toward zero emissions
• Global clean technology updates
• Government programs and data initiatives

An attendee favorite was the second general session, presented by Andrew Wrobel, Director, Auto and Mobility at Escalent (a data and research company based in Detroit). Andrew led The Electric Vehicle Balancing Act session. While EV interest and consideration are strong, the ability to meet these objectives remains murky. Andrew discussed what the commercial vehicle market is capable of deploying, what challenges we’ll face and what will affect real change in adoption based on a bottom-up approach to forecasting. He stated that it is much more likely that there will be only 20% zero emission vehicle share in 2030, rather than the publicly announced 40%. Andrew walked through his Ecosystem of Adoption – six key environmental constraints, of which anyone falling behind would slow or halt adoption. Andrew also shared charts showing vocational trends and predicted EV adoption by class using Work Truck Solutions’ comprehensive use case vocational data. Other key takeaways:

• 62% of all fleets in the US are 5 or fewer vehicles – the larger the fleet, the more opportunity they have to test EV adoption
• Geography is a big predictor of EV adoption 
• Use case is the biggest influence on the adoption
• Other Alternative Fuels will still be important

Selling a customer a green fleet is more than just running their vehicles on alternative fuels or energy sources. As an industry professional, you may want to consider joining NTEA’s Green Truck Association, which is dedicated to improving work truck efficiency and productivity. Your increased depth of knowledge will help you be the best commercial vehicle buyer consultant you can be. Learn more at greentruckassociation.com and see you next year at the Green Truck Summit on March 5 in Indianapolis.