Truck Electrification in Brazil: from the perspective of socio-technical players

Perspectivas sobre a Eletrificação de Caminhões no Brasil: uma visão dos atores do regime sociotécnico

Abstracts

Abstract

The automotive market worldwide is experiencing unprecedented growth, driven by the adoption of electric passenger and light commercial vehicles, and more recently, by the introduction of electric trucks - in Europe, the United States and Asia – in an attempt to cut greenhouse gas emissions and achieve carbon neutrality, promoting social, environmental, and economic sustainability. This study aims at understanding the perspective of diesel-truck players, regarding the transition to electric engines, from a qualitative, exploratory, and descriptive point of view, using a multilevel and co-evolutionary approach, with a longitudinal temporal perspective, from 2016 to 2022, in Brazil. Among factors identified for the adoption of electric trucks in Brazil are some technological, economic and regulatory elements, consistent with the theory: (a) to increase the availability of public and commercial charging stations; (b) to adapt clean-energy production, transmission and distribution to meet new charge demands; (c) to make hydrogen production cheaper by increasing production; and (d) fuel-cell regulation and standardization. Our evidence-gathering expands the list and adds two resistance factors: (e) business models used to guarantee sales development; and (f) lack of qualified personnel, at the automaker and service network, in terms of electrotechnical expertise and skillset.

Keywords:
Electric trucks in Brazil; Sociotechnical transition; Multilevel perspective (MLP); Coevolution; Sustainability

Resumo

O mercado automobilístico global vem experimentando a adoção dos veículos elétricos de passeio e comerciais leves e, mais recentemente, a introdução de caminhões elétricos na Europa, Estados Unidos e Ásia como forma de reduzir as emissões de gases de efeito estufa, em direção à neutralidade de carbono e promovendo a sustentabilidade social, ambiental e econômica. O objetivo deste estudo é compreender a perspectiva de atores do regime dominante de caminhões movidos a motores a diesel quanto à transição para motores elétricos, a partir de uma abordagem qualitativa, exploratória e descritiva, utilizando-se de uma abordagem multinível e coevolucionária, com uma perspectiva temporal longitudinal do período de 2016 a 2022 no Brasil. Os fatores identificados para a adoção do Caminhão Elétrico, no Brasil, incluem alguns fatores coerentes com a teoria, de ordem tecnológica, econômica e regulatória: (a) aumento de disponibilidade de infraestrutura pública e comercial de recarga; (b) adequação da infraestrutura de produção, transmissão e distribuição de energia limpa, para atender um novo nível de demanda de carga; (c) o barateamento da produção de hidrogênio pelo aumento da escala de produção; e (d) a regulamentação e normatização de células de combustível. Nossas evidências ampliam esta lista dois fatores de resistência do regime: (e) os modelos de negócio praticados para garantir capilaridade de venda; e (f) a falta de qualificação eletrotécnica dos quadros da montadora e da rede de serviços disponível.

Palavras-chave:
Caminhões elétricos no Brasil; Transição sociotécnica; Perspectiva multinível (MLP); Coevolução; Sustentabilidade

1 Introduction

In 1987, the Brundtland report coined the term ‘sustainable development’, defining the term as ‘a development that aims at meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’, which highlights Earth’s finite stocks at mankind’s disposal for its consumption needs (Alhaddi, 2015).

The Stockholm Conference, in 1972, was the first conference to make the environment a major issue, in which it was recognized the human right to a healthy and sustainable environment, of quality. In 2015, one hundred and ninety-five countries joined the Paris Agreement whose central aim is to pursue efforts to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), achieving a long-term global goal, and adequately respond to climate changes, holding global temperature increase to well below 2 °Celsius (3.6 °F) (2DS scenario) in relation to pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit the increase in 1.5 °Celsius in relation to pre-industrial levels (Delgado et al., 2017; Brasil, 2021). The annual 2023 Emissions Gap Report, UN Environment Programme (UNEP) states the world is witnessing a disturbing acceleration in the number, speed, and scale of broken climate records. Humankind exceeded the previous records in terms of climate changes in several different aspects: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and average global temperature, reaching new peaks and, at the same time, experiencing increasingly intense and frequent climate phenomena, all over the planet. The Paris Agreement sets goals to guide all nations to substantially limit global temperature increase between 2.5 and 2.9°C above pre-industrial levels in this century, however, in 2023, temperature increase is within the limits of this possibility, that is, to reach a 1.5 °C increase (UNEP, 2023).

Thus, the Paris Agreement’s message is that the world is willing to tackle climate change and its negative impacts by transforming the way it generates and consumes energy, investing in renewable energy sources and new technologies with a view to more sustainable energy generation and consumption (Delgado et al., 2017). It is a broad consensus that the dominant energy generation and consumption in 2015 was unacceptable.

Figures from that time show that transportation is a priority for energy transition. The sector was responsible for a quarter (23%) of GHG Global Emissions (van der Laak, 2018; United Nations, 2015). Any economic decarbonization effort should also take into consideration the transportation sector. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global CO₂ (carbon dioxide) emissions between 1990 and 2015 were 155 million tons. Nevertheless, the analysis of such data evolution shows transportation contributed with 36 million tons and was quickly increasing, like no other sector, in terms of energy final use (Accenture, 2017; Eshraghi et al., 2018;). Despite reduction, which has been significant (from 2015 to this day) owing to the adoption of electric vehicles (EV), the transportation sector’s participation in GHG emissions is still relevant (IEA, 2023).

This is partially explained by the fact that transport electrification is still concentrated in light vehicles. Only a few years ago, 98% of the transportation sector, considering all modals, depended on fossil fuels as their energy source, (Nanaki et al., 2022), but even with a bigger EV fleet, which jumped from 10 million to 26 million worldwide (IEA, 2023), there was no significant reduction in this concentration. The heavy dependence on fossil fuels is mainly due to the diesel used in cargo transportation, usually in trucks and aviation kerosene-based fuel, used in air transportation. Decarbonization in the transportation sector depends, consequently, on artifacts that provide less GHG emissions and reduced dependence on fossil fuels, especially in commercial applications. People have been talking about truck electrification for years, and it is the key to shift away from fossil fuels, along transportation evolution (IEA, 2019, 2020; Pevec et al., 2019) and manufacturers tend to make increasingly bigger EVs, which indicates that the adoption in mass scale of electric buses and trucks is even nearer, although markets, at this time, represent only 4.5% and 1.2% of sales, respectively (IEA, 2023).

Light electric trucks (up to 10 tons and that run in urban areas) corner these statistics, but it is still modest if compared to traditional diesel trucks. Semi-heavy electric trucks (up to 40 tons) and heavy trucks (exceeding 40 tons) with regional operations (from 150 km to 300 km) and hauls (more than 500 km) are still pilot or demonstration projects (IEA, 2018, 2020, 2023).

This is particularly relevant in Brazil. Data introduced by the National Confederation of Transportation (CNT) show that 65% of cargo transportation and 90% of passenger transportation use roads (Brasil, 2022). Spreading the idea of electric trucks nationwide would have considerable impact on the national transportation system’s GHG emission. Although there are several studies on the destabilization of transport/mobility sociotechnical systems, it is important to highlight that the Brazilian case presents unique characteristics, beyond the environmental impact caused by truck transportation: the same CNT data indicate that Brazilian road infrastructure, to reach paving standards seen in US and China, would have to increase the number of paved-road kilometers in up to 18 and 17 times, respectively. In other words, obstacles for cargo-transportation electrification in Brazil may be less linked to the infrastructure regime than to cultural aspects, if compared to other regions - that is, it is more susceptible to solutions related to the existing road infrastructure, which the transition studies call technological lock-ins. The lack of studies on resistance to change to electric trucks, from Brazilian agents’ point of view, leaves this hypothesis without confirmation and the transition literature has, more and more, understood that transition challenges in southern underdeveloped and emerging economies, which are different from the challenges faced by developed economies (Randolph & Storper, 2023; Ghosh et al., 2021). For instance, precarious infrastructure, access to technology or financing, and the recognition of such differences is of paramount importance for the formulation of policies that respect the global south’s particularities.

The change from diesel trucks to electric trucks involves a sociotechnical transition. As in any transition, manufacturers that do not keep up with the transformation put their future market share at risk and, to the limit, their own survival. Economic, environmental, and social sustainability worries suggest it is necessary to adapt current products, based on internal combustion (diesel) engines, to electrified models (in case of already established manufacturers), in terms of modern technology development that favors transition to electromobility. Such changes, however, exert impact on current business models and face resistances in the dominant regime.

Vehicle electrification is already a relevant topic in literature. Nonetheless, the electrification of trucks is not as much debated as the electrification of light vehicles. Searching the Web of Science using the keyworks Decarbonization (US English) OR Decarbonisation (British English) AND Electric Truck, 80 articles were found, published since 2015, and it was obvious the consistent growth, especially after 2021 and most of these works were published in 2023 (22 papers). During the same period, the search engine was able to find 1035 papers on light-vehicle electrification, using the keyword Decarbonization OR Decarbonisation AND Electric Vehicle, and 2023 was also the year with the highest number of published articles (281 papers). It is important to highlight that cargo electrification is the least discussed topic and even more incipient, with the first publication posted in 2018. The Science Direct database shows the same growing interest for truck electrification, with 1951 hits in the period. Similarly, the number for light vehicle electrification is far higher and prior to the others, with 7419 hits in the Science Direct database.

Another interesting aspect is the search for truck electrification works in the specific Brazilian context. The search for ((Decarbonization OR Decarbonisation) AND Electric Vehicle) AND (Brazil) shows 23 papers – ranging from 2018 to 2024 whereas ((Decarbonization OR Decarbonisation) AND Electric Truck) AND (Brazil) shows only one paper dated 2023. The same happens in Science Direct, with 1627 texts discussing vehicle electrification in Brazil and only 523 discussing truck electrification, in the period.

Based on such data, it is possible to conclude that research on truck electrification, despite being opened for discussion for almost a decade, shows the lack of studies in this specific field as well as the need for further details about necessary paths for the full adoption of such technology in Brazil.

A fundamental aspect to understand a transition is to realize how a sociotechnical scheme interprets social pressures in order to transform its operation. In this context, this paper tries to understand the resistances in a sociotechnical regime’s transition, within the Brazilian cargo-transportation sector, to change to electric trucks, instead of using diesel trucks. In this analysis, it is discussed how socio-technical elements are intertwined, from a multilevel perspective as well as the coevolution of such elements. It was adopted a longitudinal time frame, based on 2016-2022 market data. This approach led to the outlining of two electrification technologies for cargo vehicles, which fight for space with an electrification solution to move cargo – the battery electric truck (BET) and the fuel-cell electric truck (FCET) – in response to the demand for a better environmental performance in the sector. The regime-agents’ perspective is that the to-be-adopted technology will depend on how solutions - to the problems associated with each technology - will be developed.

Besides this introduction, this study is divided into other five sections: the next one presents sociotechnical transition and coevolution theories, used to understand the dissemination of BET and FCET technologies; next, the method adopted to understand the opposition (of the cargo-transport sociotechnical scheme to the electric trucks) is described, relating the substitution of diesel trucks by electric trucks, in Brazil, from the regime-agents’ perspective; the results are introduced in the fourth section, followed by the closing remarks.

2 Theoretical reference

This section gives the theoretical basis for the sociotechnical transition, from a multilevel perspective, and the coevolution used in the analysis.

Geels (2002) proposes a vision, deriving from technology sociology, in which technological transitions involve changes of technological paths associated with the user’s practices (user’s habits), regulation, industrial networks, infrastructure and symbolic meaning and, thus, there is no single cause for its development. As such factors are anchored in profound social systems and structures, the technology per se has no power to promote the change and demands human, social and organization action to observe its social functions (Geels, 2002; Rip & Kemp, 1998).

A socio-technical change is described as a change process of a set of associations, replacements, and reconfigurations of elements. Changes in a network element may result in changes in other elements. Such reconfigurations do not easily occur as elements in a sociotechnical configuration and are strongly interconnected and aligned among themselves (Geels, 2002; Geels & Schot, 2007).

This may hinder the paths of recent technologies – to be accepted by the socio-technical environment – because the user’s practices (user’s habits), regulations, infrastructure and maintenance networks are aligned with the existing technology (path dependence). However, sociotechnical configurations are not frozen in time forever and, when a technological path is changed, other social changes, aligned with the new technological path, occur, causing a transition from one regime to another (Lara, 2019; Strauch, 2020). One of the main approaches, which describes and analyses such complex transformation processes, is the multilevel perspective (MLP – Multilevel perspective) (Geels, 2005; Geels & Schot, 2007; Whitmarsh, 2012), which will be detailed below.

2.1 Sociotechnical transition from a multilevel perspective (MLP)

A MLP has three analytical levels for the technology development environment: (i) niche (locus for radical innovations), which is the micro level; (ii) regime (locus for established practices and associated rules that stabilize the existing systems), encompassing dominant technologies and institutions, which is the meso level; and (iii) landscape, an exogenous socio-technical scenario (contextual motivators and obstacles to change) that represents macro level tendencies (Geels, 2002, 2005; Rip & Kemp, 1998; Whitmarsh, 2012).

The relation between the three analytical levels may be understood as a nested hierarchy, in which several niches form the regimes, which in their turn form a landscape (Carstens & Cunha, 2019; Geels, 2002, 2005, 2012). The MLP’s key point is that transitions occur through interaction among processes at distinct levels (Geels, 2005).

And at the technological niches’ level, radical innovations occur and emerge in the transition to a new regime. Such innovations are socio-technical configurations that have an unstable and low-performance start. Joel Mokyr coined the expression ‘Hopeful Monstrosities’ to describe radical innovations; ‘monstrosities’ in the sense that they cost dear and do not work well and ‘hopeful’ because is something new that the existing technology or innovation cannot do from their start (Mokyr, 1990).

At the socio-technical regime level, there are dominant practices, rules, shared concepts that serve as guidelines for private actions and public policies, problem-solving agents, research heuristics, relevant governmental rules, and representations of users’ preferences. Players include socio-technical groups, scientists, consumers, and policy makers. Although such players have relative autonomy, they interact with the others, creating an interdependent network and generating alignment among socio-technical groups (Carstens & Cunha, 2019; Geels, 2005; Whitmarsh, 2012).

The regime is influenced by external pressures, from the landscape (such as social, cognitive and climate changes). With that, a convergence movement is generated, boosting the change, setting out an agreement on the to-be-taken road, through learning by use, cost performance improvement, and by the action of powerful players acting as innovation supporters. There are tensions and dissent in the dominant socio-technical regime, which leads to misalignment of social groups’ activities: preferences of users and markets, technology, industry, politics, science, and culture (Geels, 2005; Geels & Schot, 2007). A significant pressure can destabilize the regime to such an extent an opportunity is created for the emergence of socio-technical configurations of alternative niche (Geels et al., 2004; Geels & Schot, 2007; Tongur & Engwall, 2017).

The landscape is the background that keeps the society, which comprises social values, and environmental, macroeconomic, political, and demographic aspects. Changes in the landscape are slow and tend to take several years. Niche and regime players cannot influence the landscape in the short term and, consequently, changes at this level are of long duration, and may last for decades. This makes the landscape more stable, but not immutable (Geels, 2011; Rip & Kemp, 1998). Socio-technical transitions, from a multilevel perspective, occur in four steps, as shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1
Transitions from a multilevel perspective. Source: Adapted from Geels et al. (2004, p. 915).

At the first step, there are radical innovations in the niches, in general - outside, or aside the existing regime’s margin and landscape developments, in a scenario of great uncertainty. At the second step, the innovation is used in small market niches, the socio-technical regime starts to incorporate innovations, which provides resources for technical specialization, without threatening the system ‘s stability, living together with the regime in force, gaining momentum through an increasing number of players. The third step is characterized by a new technology advance, full dissemination, and competition with the established regime. In the fourth step, innovations set out a new socio-technical regime, many times gradually replacing technologies in force because the creation of a new socio-technical regime takes time to establish itself, to overcome the resistance of already-established groups that tend not to easily abandon old technologies as there are interests involved and investments done.

Furthermore, each element’s action, in an evolution system, has some effect on other elements (Nikolić, 2009). Each transition encompasses co-evolution movements involving alterations in the needs, desires, institutions, culture, and practices (Kemp et al., 2007). It is crucial to understand motives, interests, and perspectives of involved players, in a socio-technical system, in order to outline interventional actions applicable to the transitions in their different steps (Kanger et al., 2020).

2.2 Sociotechnical transition from the perspective of coevolution

Coevolution may be seen as an evolutive process for two or more components-subsystems-systems boosted by reciprocal and selective pressures and adaptations among them. So, a coevolutive system may be defined by all components-subsystems in interaction. Coevolutionary dynamics reflect different time, space and social frames, nested hierarchies, inevitable uncertainties, multidimensional interactions and have emerging properties (Rammel et al., 2007).

Gaziulusoy & Brezet (2015) confirm the dynamics of coevolutive-influence standards between society and technology that conform themselves in a continuous and bilateral base. The elements of the socio-technical system are organized in a matrix with two dimensions: (i) Type of socio-technical system’s element, gathered in four kinds of sociotechnical system’s components - institutional, social/cultural, organizational and technological; (ii) social-technical system’s element scale, which may have three complexity levels: small, medium and large, which means the complexity increases to the extent the scale becomes larger.

This way, to the extent the scale becomes larger, it is more difficult to manage the change and its pace becomes slower, which is characteristic of a MLP landscape. Moreover, smaller scales of a certain kind of socio-technical system’s component are hierarchically dependent on bigger scales of the same kind. In a like manner, a large scale change, of a certain kind of socio-technical system’s component, may demand small-scale changes of the same kind. However, small-scale socio-technical system’s component may (or not) induce/influence changes in larger scales of the same component, which is characteristic of the niches’ level (Gaziulusoy & Brezet, 2015).

According to Gaziulusoy & Brezet (2015), institutional and social/cultural changes are more fundamental and powerful than organizational and technological changes in terms of radical transformations in socio-technical systems. Nevertheless, it is not a law: it is possible, for instance, to have change motivated by infrastructure, as a support technologic basis to society - because changes are continuous, and the technological/organizational changes influence institutional and social/cultural changes.

2.3 Coevolutive analysis within socio-technical systems

Analysis by means of coevolutionary dynamics may help when planning a system innovation, at any level of the social organization.

In Figure 2, the co-evolutionary dynamics’ horizontal axis and socio-technical system’s element scale have the characteristics described by MLP, in which the dimension of extensive changes is typical of the landscape-level and macro-level tendencies (Whitmarsh, 2012). Medium changes have the same regime characteristics and the small has niche characteristics. The horizontal axis, according to MLP, represents the dimension of the multilevel approach. By allowing the analysis of socio-technical system’s elements, and respective connections and interdependencies, in a transversal way, and in a multilevel approach, help to understand the movements at each socio-technical level and respective unfolding in institutions, society and their habits. And how organizations respond to that, directing their attention to projects that may improve the current technological systems or implement new technological paths, in case the already-established technologies no longer meet the social-technical system’s requirements.

Figure 2
Transition dynamics using the coevolution of the socio-technical system. Source: Elaborated by the author, based on Gaziulusoy & Brezet (2015, p. 562) and Geels (2002, p.1262).

Empiric research development, under the coevolutionary approach, demands longitudinal analysis methods and time serial data (Scherer & Madruga, 2012).

3 Method

Research on truck electrification in the country is a yet under explored topic and we still do not adequately understand the Brazilian transportation agents’ perspective in relation to the adoption of electric trucks, especially the obstacles that prevent the adoption of this new possibility, under the dominant regime’s view. Based on a qualitative, exploratory, and descriptive approach, nine interviews were carried out in depth with representatives working for strategic players, within the sociotechnical regime, as well as the identification of secondary sources (documents, artifacts, interviews, and observations), in order to achieve the proposed goal. Research time perspective is longitudinal, encompassing the years between 2016 and 2022.

The first interview was a pre-field screening with a strategic planning professional that works for a heavy and semi-heavy duty truck manufacturer, in the city of Curitiba, South Brazil. Besides confirming the field of study, this interview contributed to the identification of relevant topics and players. The company was chosen by its relevance, it has been present in Brazil for almost 47 years, as an automaker, after 30 years in the country through imported vehicle dealers. Currently, the company has a 20% market share, and its position qualifies the company as a national truck-market representative. The company’s presence in the domestic market is evident and it has one of the largest heavy/semi-heavy truck dealer network in the country.

Soon after, to-be-interviewed players were chosen, to represent three relevant groups: Industry, Public Authorities and Educational Institutions. These groups were selected because they represent the practical, regulatory, and academic dimensions in truck electrification, whose triangulation has contributed to a complementary and interdependent view of this article’s object. There were eight interviews: three individuals working for the truck manufacturer in Curitiba-PR, a Commercial Strategy Planner, a Product Launch Planner (for the Brazilian market) and a Governmental Relations Manager; four public servants working for public authorities related to the automotive industry, a Treasury Department coordinator (‘Ministério da Economia - Subsecretaria de Indústria da Coordenação da Indústria Automotiva’) and three energetic research analysts working for the Superintendency of Petroleum Byproducts, Gas and Biofuels, in charge of the analysis of transportation, with EPE energetic focus (‘EPE – Empresa de Pesquisa Energética’), that works under the guidance of the Ministry of Mines and Energy (‘MME - Ministério de Minas e Energia’) studying and researching to provided information for the energetic sector’s planning, covering electric energy, petroleum and natural gas as well as their byproducts and biofuels. As for representatives of educational institutions, it was interviewed a Post-Graduate Program Professor (Scientific and Technological Policy, at UNICAMP Geosciences Institute), who has been pursuing electromobility studies since 2013, in the capacity of specialist. Table 1 summarizes the interviewed individuals, who are the corpus of primary data in this study.

Table 1
Description of interviewed individuals.

Category	Interviewees	Institution
Industry	Strategic Planner	IND 1
	Strategic Area Planner	IND 2
	Product Launching Planner	IND 3
	Governmental Relations Manager	IND 4
Public Authorities	Public Authority representative, at Coordination level, expert in automotive industry development	GOV
Public Authorities	Three representatives working as Energetic Research Analysts, at the petroleum, gas, biofuels, and byproducts superintendency, in charge of transportation analysis, with energetic focus	EPE 1
		EPE 2
		EPE 3
Educational Institution	Post-graduate Program Professor - Scientific and Technological Policy, at UNICAMP Geosciences Institute, who has been studying electromobility since 2013	UNI

• Source: The author.

Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with key players that understand the matter and its mechanics in Brazil, and they helped to understand the dominant regime’s point of view, in the field of domestic cargo mobility, as it was possible to see the matching of the pieces of information provided by such individuals. It was noticed, nevertheless, field saturation, as new interviews brought no new revealing elements of such points of view and the collection of other information was not necessary (Stake, 2010).

The interviews were later triangulated with secondary data, with the Atlas ti software, version 9, organizing data in four groups of documents: the interviews, seminars/webinars, academic papers, and news clippings. Evidence treatment, analysis and interpretation were carried out in accordance with content-analysis techniques, documental analysis, and triangulation of different data sources. And to be valid, they had to observe homogeneity, avoid topic mixing and exclusivity, the same topic did not take part in different categories (Bardin, 2016).

It was created a network between categories, identifying the contact points and distant points, generating a transversal view. From this overall picture, it was possible to concatenate fragments of texts, within a line of thought, to provide support to factors that influence the transition from diesel trucks to electric trucks, arranging the factors in such a way it facilitated the behavior analysis, present in the discourse and the understanding of how one factor influences the other, that is, the interdependencies.

4 Results and discussions

Since the dawn of our civilization, humankind has experimented climate changes. But no phenomenon equals, in magnitude, the widescale changes currently being observed, given the robust growth of the planet’s population and, consequently, the impact on human activities. Humans are able to shift Earth’s weather patterns now, in large-scale, comparable to dramatic natural climate changes (WMO, 1979) at a faster pace, faster enough to exceed the bounds of natural variability (Karl & Trenberth, 2003), in a period that has been called anthropogenic. This period is defined as the period where humans are causing most of the current changes to climate, which are intense and occur everywhere, and match the big forces of nature in terms of reconfiguration of the planet’s surface (Steffen et al., 2007). As a global challenge, it must be investigated in different contexts – and not only in developed countries.

As for deleterious effects on the planet’s surface, significant changes in the way humankind obtains energy for its activities (housewarming, locomotion, goods manufacturing, and respective transportation) are necessary, which can reduce GHG emissions to sustainable levels. A turn in this direction will demand a long transition period, to adapt the entire socio-technical system, which is currently configured around solutions that involve the transition from fuel fossils to renewable energy sources (Lutsey, 2015; Ramos et al., 2003; Shu, 2019).

The automotive industry and its production chain have been continuously working to improve techniques in order to achieve pollutant reduction, which will be increasingly restrictive. Fuel refineries also need to develop more sustainable products. The research results show that the industry’s perception is to improve diesel engine technology, having in mind all pollutant-emissions reduction standards, in motor vehicles, which is not enough to achieve GHG reduction goals, set forth in the 2015 Paris Agreement. This is clear from the perception of the industry’s strategic planning individual (IND 1). This perception is also confirmed by the motor-vehicle sector’s recent data. In particular, it highlights such insufficiency in relation to the emission of carbon dioxide by engines: the aim of such gas emissions, as set out by the Air Pollution Control for Motor Vehicles, from P6 standard, of 1.5 g/kWh in 2009 to 1.0 g/kWh with the P8/Euro VI standard in 2023. This significant normative reduction also represented a significant reduction in the number of measurements performed by the Environmental Company of the State of São Paulo (‘Companhia Ambiental do Estado de São Paulo’), which points to a reduction, between 2010 and 2022, of 34.16% in the heavy-duty vehicles’ emissions. Nonetheless, considering only years between 2018 and 2022, CO₂ reduction was of only 4.92% and tending to stabilization. The same perception was mentioned by players representing public authorities: they say it is not enough to increase engine efficiency and reduce emissions to achieve reduction goals, as set out in the Paris Agreement. This perception corroborates data provided by the transportation sector that, despite all efforts to adopt more efficient engines, has been failing in its attempt to reduce GHG emissions. As provided in scientific literature, efforts to additionally reduce GHG emissions, using combustion engines, need more digital technologies to monitor the equipment (Ragon & Rodríguez, 2021). Thus, it is clear, from all data sources, that we are at a point where all efforts to increase combustion-engine efficiency tend to result in modest reduction – if relevant – in the opinion of system’s players.

The desired carbon neutrality, as set forth in the Paris Agreement, places the signatories under institutional pressure. News from the sector shows the authorities’ response comes in the form of more restrictive domestic regulations. Some countries have set out dates to the definitive ban of internal combustion engines, so that they can reach carbon neutrality until 2050 (IPCC, 2018), Brazil is not among them. However, the interviewees that work in the industry (IND 1, IND 2, IND 3 and IND 4), government (GOV) and academia (UNI) agree that the automotive industry has already started to develop projects with new technological paths – carbon neutral in its use – in a defensive perspective. In this sense, it is also a consensus among members of the three groups that two technologies are gaining visibility and interest: BET and FCET. As socio-technical alternative configurations, both are being tested in niches, and need to be developed up to a certain level where their incorporation by the regime is possible, so that they continue to participate in the market, in this futuristic scenario. It is, indeed, safe to assume that the regime’s perspective is to incorporate such technologies.

Especially in the opinion of the players representing the industry (IND 1, IND 2 and IND 3), the use of BET is quite similar to the diesel truck. Sector’s news presents this perspective for the use within the current limits of the batteries: between 100 and 300 km (Automotive Business, 2020b). The use of this kind of vehicle to deliver goods in urban areas is a path the industry foresees as a development direction because BET does not offer the autonomy offered by the diesel truck, which will remain in use in long-distance transport of cargo (more than 500 km) mainly because it is fast: a 700 km trip, for example, with BET takes 24 hours (12 hours to recharge the batteries and 12 hours on the road) against 12 hours with a diesel truck, which needs no refueling in such distance.

Said data was triangulated with the interviews, and the industry acknowledges that a key factor when customers decide which technology to use to transport goods, is the delivery time: BET is not feasible in long-distance deliveries because it clashes with such need. Its use is limited to urban areas or support operations, in a closed environment, such as agriculture and mining activities, when BET operated within the limits of the batteries. This is compatible with electric-truck (1.2% of the truck global market) and electric-bus (4.5% of the bus market) market participations, as a considerable number of electric buses are vehicles used in urban public transportation (IEA, 2023). The industry’s point of view, based on the validation carried out by pioneering companies in the niches and that show disposition to purchase BET, is to incorporate such vehicle in its product portfolio, making it available but having in mind the small sales volumes, which will not hinder the domineering internal-combustion engine. The sociotechnical transition, from combustion engines to BET is, therefore, in MPL step 2, as seen in the crossover of information from different databases.

In regard to the other technology, which caught the regime’s attention, FCET - using hydrogen as an energy source - generates electricity through a chemical reaction and feeds the batteries, in an electric truck. This configuration allows the truck to run long distances, and the refueling time is similar to a diesel truck. The industry is testing the concept in protected environments, and this is shown by the triangulation of information obtained in the interviews with individuals working for the industry (IND 1, and IND 3) and market news related to automakers’ initiatives. However, in contrast to BET, the industry does not intend to incorporate this technology in its product portfolio. From a theoretical standpoint, different data sources show FCET in MLP step 1. Public authorities and the academia believe, however, there is a clear tendency to enter step 2 soon – so far industry’s tests show more positive results. This trajectory still seems a substantial challenge, despite its compatibility with diesel cargo-transportation infrastructure. In literature, the Korea case – a region with the highest number of fuel-cell vehicles – shows this market’s growth only occurs due to the offer of vehicles by the local automaker Hyundai whereas in China and the US difficulties are considerable in the attempt to substitute diesel for FCET. Results indicates the industry’s interest to incorporate the product in its sales portfolio is a key point to spread the technology, but it does not yet appear in the cargo mobility development in the country.

It is understandable why the industry’s less positive about FCET commercial feasibility. The interviews with individuals that work for the industry (IND 1, IND 2 and IND 3) revealed aspects that demand solutions from product-engineering scope, but include social aspects related to the artifact’s dissemination. Especially hydrogen as fuel, used in FCET, which depends on its production’s normatization (IND 4), regulatory improvement in connection with quality, safety, transportation infrastructure, storage, and distribution (EPE 1, EPE 2, EPE 3, EPE, 2021). Thus, in order to have an ‘electric truck’, the industry needs clear signs of other socio-technical elements: recharging/refueling infrastructure, in sufficient number and distributed wherever necessary; public electric infrastructure, adapted to cater for such new need, to recharge battery electric trucks, ensuring energetic safety (IND 4).

Analysis of the sociotechnical transition, from diesel truck to electric truck, in the light of coevolution may deepen such analysis. With a multilevel approach it is easier to better understand the phases and how they are connected (multiphases), interaction among players that are part of the sociotechnical system during the transition (multiplayers) and different factors that are working the artifact that, on its term, influences all other elements of the socio-technical system, defining new habits, and starting with such new habits and customs, the artifact’s technological development are influenced, in a coevolution dynamics (multifactor), through time (Figure 3).

Figure 3
Transition dynamics- from diesel truck to electric truck – using socio-technical system’s coevolution. Source: Elaborated by the author, based on Gaziulusoy & Brezet (2015, p. 562) and Geels (2002, p. 1262).

Institutional pressure, at landscape level, realized by worries about global warning that causes climate changes and how it may be mitigate is evident in global agreements such as the Paris Agreement. The treaty was negotiated by more than 190 countries as well as a global agenda to keep the rise in global temperature well below 2 °C (3.6 °F) above pre-industrial levels and continue the efforts to limit the increase, which should be of only 1.5 °C (Delgado et al., 2017; Brasil, 2021). This is the background for vehicle decarbonization and is an argument of regime’s agents to invest in EV technologies.

This way, an important drive, considered by the industry and public authorities, is cargo-vehicle consumers’ behavior. For instance, some companies have logistics operations and, regardless of any pressure by the State, they devise their Strategic Planning considering environmental goals based on a commitment with society (which is part of the company’s market at the regime level). The target is to restrict environmental and public health’s impacts in the company’s operations and show commitment with Environmental Responsibility, even if it means the company needs to invest in more expensive products and services, necessary for its operations, delivering a superior environmental aggregated value (Cortes et al., 2020). For the industry, a stronger sign to justify the investment in EV is the disposition, in the company/logistics operators’ strategic plans, to purchase products and services that are ‘environmentally correct.’ So, pressure is seen in organization’s strategic plans devised by the top management, based on technical recommendations of specialists, with the inclusion of BET and FCET technologies (Automotive Business, 2020a) in their portfolio promises.

Such technologies are under development in socio-technical niches, that is, in protected environments, where they are tested and improved before market selection, which was seen by research results. Financed by the automakers or as part of a public technological development program, BET technology is, in consensus, allowed to a certain superior maturity grade, if compared to FCET. Evidence – presented by socio-technical regime’s players, in different databases – shows que first one is already being tested in real conditions whereas the fuel-cell technology is still under experimentation; BET’s feasible application profile is already known: short-distance operations (up to 300 km), ideal for urban areas and interconnection among nearby cities whereas FCET has no set market as there is no adequate infrastructure in place for its operation; taking into consideration battery recharging and maintenance costs, it is evident operational costs are lower, if compared to diesel trucks and, consequently, the first purchases, in small volumes, have already begun. Nevertheless, BET’s operational limitation means the technology is not a threat to the dominant diesel-truck regime.

In fact, results show that public authorities and academia agree that even pioneering companies that currently use BET, cannot count on public/private recharging infrastructure, in sufficient number to keep their logistics at the same level of diesel-truck logistics. For certain operations, it is unavoidable the installation of an own recharging infrastructure, taking the company to a self-sufficient level and enabling its logistics operations (Andrade, 2017). The recharging infrastructure is given its first steps, with an incipient geographic distribution, when compared to the network of traditional gas/fuel stations. However, the industry is alert to the movements of other players, within the socio-technical regime, such as the considerable public and private investments in electric recharging infrastructure. Big fuel distribution agents, in the domestic electricity-supply market, have devised initiatives such as the bold plan to reach two thousand electric-charging stations, all over the country, by Vibra Energia (ex BR Distribuidora) (Infomoney, 2022) proving the regime is ready to absorb BET as part of its operational possibilities.

The already sold (and in operation) diesel-truck fleet demands servicing at workshops, lubricants, and spare parts, which are an additional challenge for diesel-truck manufacturers, if compared to truck manufacturers that start their operations with electric-engine truck projects. What’s more, staff at these companies have in general an electro-mechanical profile. Their business models are based on traditional premises, such as full-truck sales or leasing through a dealer network or independent workshops that fill in the gaps of the circulating fleet’s maintenance network. In these cases, migration to electric-engine truck would be a major task, if compared to the development of a new vehicle and give follow-up to the development of the necessary infrastructure, as it involves a systemic change at the three levels (niche, regime, and landscape). The regime’s agents indicated four steps for technologies, like BET – ready to be incorporated – to be spread: a) to change or adapt their diesel-truck manufacturing projects to the manufacturing of electric-truck; b) to re-train the workforce, from electro-mechanical profile to electro-technical profile; c) to adapt the diesel-truck assembling line to electric-trucks; and d) to change the commercial model, identifying a business model that can ensure economic sustainability to the dealers that, nowadays, count on spare parts and lubricant oils sales and also services at workshops as primary invoicing sources.

Manufacturers that start with electric-engine trucks are established without such liabilities as their business model starts from product sales – in the traditional form – as well as services. There are hybrid forms, which sell the entire motor/engine set, and battery rental. Despite this competitive difference that favors new electric-truck manufacturers, all of them face the same sustainability dilemma, based on economic, social, and environmental dimensions (Rodrigues & Ribeiro, 2019).

For the dominant truck regime, the interviews show that the adoption of carbon neutral solutions, in the truck engines, extrapolates the technological, market or infrastructure difficulties. BET is seen as a mature technology whereas FCET depends more on regulatory advances than on technical solutions. Moreover, FCETs are capable of complementing situations where BETs, in operational terms, are inefficient. It is also safe to conclude that evidence says it is not a commercial difficulty – because the inclusion of EV in the automakers’ portfolio is a response to carriers (and other customers) strategic plans, which indicated the perception that there is a market for electric trucks. Infrastructure, especially for BETs, is an obstacle considered as efficiently removed, especially in relation to battery recharging.

Another challenge is related to automaker’s own operational paths, that is, current business models related to equipment sales and maintenance and the availability of knowledge to automakers after-sales services network. So, the electric-truck path also encompasses actions to overcome business and training challenges so that the solution achieves market participation.

5 Conclusion

Climate changes, caused by global warning, have been attracting the attention of the global society. Several technical, organizational, social, cultural and institutional organizations, which are part of the socio-technical scheme, have been discussing, in a multidisciplinary way, possible solutions for such harmful effects, crisscrossing several topics, from renewable energy sources, raw-material conversion into renewable energy, and production normatization to fuel use with energetic safety.

From more restrictive regulations related to GHG emissions to full carbon neutrality in 2050, they are all socio-technical elements that must be aligned in order to implement feasible mitigation actions, especially related to the main cause of global warming. Current GHG emissions levels would potentially lead to a social and economic rupture. The consumer market hopes companies will be able to supply goods and services and, at the same time, behave in a socially and environmentally responsible manner. But such social pressure, by the consumers, is disguised and subtle. Companies that neglect such pressure may lose their credibility and, consequently, revenues. Automakers are aware of the global scenario and ready to ensure the observation of all ‘zero-emissions vehicle’ dates, which are already set forth in some countries.

Vehicles using internal combustion engines are GHG-emissions products. So, in practical terms, to set a ‘zero-emissions vehicle’ date means to set, in the near future, an ‘internal-combustion engine’ sales prohibition date. With that, automakers are forced to devise a plan in order to survive such change, so that they can continue to participate in the market, in the long run. Changing its products and services is a sine qua non condition to its corporate survival.

BET adoption is highly likely in urban environments and to support specific operations, like the ones performed in closed environments (e.g. agriculture and mining), which are limited by the current battery-capacity. For trips of more than 300 km, the recharging may hinder the operation’s efficiency. FCET, which may overcome this limitation, is currently being tested, with a few relevant application cases, in Korea, China and the US. In the domestic market (and in the international market), its adoption depends on production normalization and hydrogen sales to the user.

The truck industry understands that the adoption of electric trucks is a way with no return. GHG reduction goals are becoming more restrictive, and the effects of new efficiency technologies are each time smaller in the effective reduction of GHG. This is clear for the industry’s agents that know such limitations and includes the electrification of trucks in the strategic planning of their most relevant customers. In the opinion of the dominant cargo-transportation industry, in almost no time the global and domestic goals will be no longer reachable with internal combustion engines and the matter is not seen as how the electric-truck’s future will be, but when electric-trucks will be. This is more than enough to justify investments in this technology and the search for alternative business models to distribute and provide maintenance services to such equipment. This is a vision shared by governmental offices and the scientific community, a consensus around the need to electrify heavy-duty vehicles.

The future agenda, that is, the dissemination of electric trucks – battery or fuel-cell trucks – goes through important transport system’s alterations. A group of these transformations logically come out of the theory of diffusion of technologies and sociotechnical transition. The infrastructural aspects involve the diffusion of BET and FCET: the (a) increased availability of public and commercial charging stations; (b) adaptation of clean energy production and transmission lines and the respective distribution, to cater for a new charging demand. Other two aspects of economic and regulatory natures, related to the diffusion of FCET are: (c) to make hydrogen production cheaper by increasing production scale; and (d) fuel-cells regulation and normatization.

However, studies’ results point to two additional aspects, as indicated by the regime’s players, which configure their resistances to the two new technologies: (e) business models to ensure sales coverage; and (f) lack of electro-technical skilled staff at the automakers and service/maintenance network. Such conclusions are limited to the analyzed case, only individuals working for a particular domestic truck manufacturer were interviewed. Nevertheless, it is a large company with almost five decades of operations in the country and that holds almost 20% of the domestic market, thus, its position is relevant to characterize the sociotechnical regime’s perspective for the country. Other studies may contribute with different perspectives, from different domestic and relevant companies, rejecting or supporting the aspects herein identified.

We recommend, in the case of future studies, the analysis of the transportation system, from the expansion of new business models, involving cargo transportation, in addition to emerging technologies such as BET and FCET. Electric trucks as a service, that is, with monthly payment, as a way to promote circulating truck-fleet modernization is a potential model to take from circulation old trucks, responsible for a significant share of GHG emissions. From the perspectives we have identified – and others to be identified in specific contexts – it is relevant to present public-policy proposals to expand electric-truck’s local production as evidence points to a new scenario in which the regime will incorporate this new cargo-transportation alternatives.

Statement on Data Availability

Data are available upon request from reviewers.

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  04 Oct 2024
• Date of issue
  2024

History

• Received
  18 June 2024
• Accepted
  03 July 2024