[Article publié le 30 novembre et mis à jour le 1er décembre à 07H00]
The video, posted in English and French in mid-October on social media, went viral. We see the general manager of Renault Trucks, Christophe Martin, whistling the Marseillaise at the wheel of an electric truck of his brand in front of an poster extolling the merits of the future Tesla Semi. A banner bars the film at the end. ” There are those who make big announcements and those who already go for miles » or « Some talk the talk. Some walk the walk » in its Anglo-Saxon version. A message in the form of a snub to Elon Musk, whose electric heavyweight which was to be released in 2019 took a long time to show its grille and the first models have only just been delivered this Thursday. ” By comparison, our trucks already have more than two million kilometers on the clock. “, we boast at the headquarters of the Volvo subsidiary.
In reality, the trucks referred to are not really competitors of the more powerful semi-trailers of the American. But it is true that their marketing is earlier. They have been manufactured for two years in the Renault Trucks factory in Blainville-sur-Orne (1,450 employees) near Caen. A pioneer in Europe, the site, historically specialized in the assembly of medium-tonnage thermal trucks, was redesigned in March 2020 to also be able to assemble their electric-powered equivalents for urban and peri-urban transport. The activity there is picking up speed, the establishment crossed the bar of a thousand copies produced under the E-Tech acronym a few days ago.
« Today, half of the electric trucks sold in Europe are manufactured in this factory, which is sized to produce at least 2,000 per year. says Olivier Metzger, Director of Alternative Energies at Renault Trucks.
Towards an acceleration
The French manufacturer, which expects half of its production to run on electrons in 2030, wants to believe in the promises of this market, although it remains embryonic. As proof, only a hundred new e-trucks should be registered in France this year out of a total that will probably reach 50,000, all categories combined as of December 31, according to the Observatory of Industrial Vehicles. Suffice to say that the step is high. The deployment of EPZs which block the way to the most polluting vehicles in metropolitan areas and the generous public subsidies put in place by several European States, however, suggest an acceleration.
In France, Renault Trucks is thus awaiting with some impatience the results of a call for projects from Ademe, which should allocate aid to buyers of electric trucks of up to 100,000 euros: double what was granted. previously by the Ministry of Transport. ” The information coming back to us shows a considerable number of requests “, welcomes Olivier Metzger in advance. The interested party also forecasts a draft on the zero-emission household waste dumpsters. ” The park is aging and anyway renewed regularly “, he recalls. Current events seem to prove him right. The day after our interview, the Normandy plant reported an order for 73 electric trucks for maintenance and waste collection from the City of Barcelona.
The road is straight but the slope is steep
However, the road promises to be long before the democratization of electrical technology. At Renault Trucks, we also admit that many hauliers remain reluctant to convert their fleet. ” It is difficult when you have been working for 30 or 50 years with the same trucks to switch to a new engine “. Aware of what is at stake, the manufacturer is developing ” a 360° offer “which includes comprehensive support” from the acquisition project to the follow-up of the operation ». « We study all their tours to see which ones pass and which ones don’t, but they are relatively rare in urban and peri-urban areas. “, specifies the director of alternative energies.
The assertion is validated by the consulting firm Carbone 4 founded by Jean-Marc Jancovici. ” From 2023, up to 40% of daily rounds could be covered by electric trucks with little adaptation of logistics plans “, assure its experts in a recent study. However, the problem of still too few charging infrastructures remains to be resolved. For its part, Tesla intends to overcome this drawback thanks to the capacity of its trucks to drive long distances without having to stop at the charging station. The boss of the American company, Elon Musk, thus claimed in a tweet on Saturday that one of these trucks had traveled 500 miles, or 805 kilometers without recharging, with a total weight of nearly 37 tons, when the vehicles already on the markets offer a range of 250 to 300 miles, that is to say 400 to 480 kilometers.
But this feat raises another issue. Witness this alert launched recently by the National Grid, the manager of the British electricity network, for which a single charging area for Tesla semi-trailers (data for 800 kilometers in a single charge) will consume “ as much as a small American town “. The warning may also be valid in the future for Renault Trucks. The manufacturer is preparing to launch the marketing of two new 44-tonne models which will be manufactured, this time, in its factory in Bourg-en-Bresse.