Earlier this month, Scania CV AB and sennder announced a new joint venture focused on promoting electric solutions for road logistics across Europe.
Named JUNA Technologies, the joint venture comprises a pay-per-use model for electric trucks. Additionally, the platform provides access to spot and contract premium-paying green loads via sennder’s digital infrastructure.
According to sennder and Scania, the joint venture will empower road transport companies to begin electric-powered transports much earlier than planned. As both parties note, the cost of brand-new electric vehicles is significant and there are many players in the market without the financial clout or cash flow to purchase new electric trucks.
JUNA stresses its aim is to empower carriers to embrace electric trucks now, and then be prepared for future advancements in charging infrastructure and technology.
What is the exact value proposition of this service though? And what external factors and developments will we need to see for JUNA Technologies to achieve its goal of deploying 5,000 electric trucks by 2030?
To get answers to these questions and more, we took the opportunity to speak to Matteo Oberto, the Managing Director and CEO at JUNA Technologies.
Why was JUNA Technologies created
Oberto naturally began our discussion by explaining what sparked the creation of this new joint venture.
In his view, there are two predominant trends in the industry at this moment in time; electrification and autonomy.
While autonomous technology is anticipated in the next three to five years, the immediate focus is on electrification, Oberto told trans.iNFO.
According to the JUNA Technologies CEO, the joint venture aims to lead an industry shift by making electric trucks accessible to the majority of carriers. In particular, the company is targeting the 70% of the European haulage market that’s made up of companies with 10 or fewer trucks.
As we referred to earlier, this segment often lacks the resources to transition to electric vehicles using traditional models. Hence why JUNA believes its service provides a real value proposition for small and medium haulage firms.
How the pay-per-use model works
Oberto told trans.iNFO that the economics of electric trucks differs significantly from diesel trucks, making a pay-per-use service a viable and attractive option.
The JUNA CEO also pointed out that purchasing electric HGVs involves higher upfront costs, operational expenses, and residual value risks.
“I think it’s quite obvious that the economics are very different compared to a diesel truck. They cost 2-3 times more. Moreover, that’s just the capital expenditure, then you also have the operational expenditure. It’s also unclear today how much exactly the trucks will cost to be operated. A 3rd point, which is a little bit linked to the first one, is the residual value risk. Most haven’t run an electric truck for more than perhaps a couple of months. So there is little information on residual value,” Oberto told trans.iNFO.
As Oberto put it, the pay-per-use model eliminates the need for upfront investment, and converts capital expenses into operational costs. The concept also sees carriers pay for the truck based on its utilisation, which JUNA says ensures transparency and financial predictability.
“It removes the upfront investment to access the electric truck ,” stressed the JUNA Technologies CEO. “It basically turns a capital expenditure into an operational expenditure. It allows the carrier to pay for the truck as it utilises the truck itself. It also allows the carrier to return the truck to JUNA at the end of the contract. So we remove the capital expenditure barrier, we remove the residual value risk, and then by having a straightforward and transparent fee, we remove the uncertainty on the operational cost”
Will the cost be the same for everybody? According to Oberto, a one-size-fits-all approach cannot be applied here:
“We need to take into account how every truck will be utilised. Together with each carrier we analyse where the electric truck would be deployed, we understand what the utilisation is going to be, as well as the costs, and then we build the pay-per-use on the basis of a per-kilometre fee.”
JUNA believes that in doing this, they have created a business case for its pay-per-use service, as hauliers will be able to determine their utilisation costs and see how much they can earn from each truck. Moreover, the company adds that it does the same with sennder to make sure everything make sense from a shipper’s perspective.
Access to utilisation capacity guarantee
JUNA Technologies says its utilisation capacity guarantee is designed to address the uncertainty carriers face regarding the monetisation potential of electric trucks.
By offering priority access to sennder’s loads, it is said that carriers can clearly understand where and how they will use each truck. According to Oberto, this provides peace of mind and removes uncertainties related to cost and monetisation.
“We see a lot of ‘wait and see’ attitude in the market. Having access to the utilisation guarantee means that we remove uncertainty. We basically give priority access to a load so that the carrier can clearly know where and how they will be using their electric truck,” Oberto told trans.iNFO.
Oberto added:
“So via access to the utilisation guarantee, we can talk to carriers and have them running on a certain route for a certain period of time. It doesn’t need to be 4-8 years, it could be a much shorter period. Then, if the shipper doesn’t need these sorts of transports anymore, together with sennder and the shipper, we move the truck onto another route.”
There is nonetheless a limit to this flexibility. Oberto admits that such changes cannot yet be made on a daily basis due to the enormous amount of operational complexity involved.
“What we do today is we try to look for stable flow over a minimum time period with a shipper together with sennder. In this way we can create the utilisation guarantee by granting priority access to the carriers who drive JUNA’s trucks,” Oberto told trans.iNFO.
What kind of routes lend themselves to electric-powered transportation?
Many electric transports are currently taking place in urban environments over short distances.
JUNA Technologies believes these types of operations to be traditionally “fertile ground” for such vehicles, which can simply operate as normal during the day and be charged overnight.
However, Oberto also told trans.iNFO that there are definitely circumstances in which medium-distance regional transports can work well:
“We have launched a pilot in the south of Germany on what you can call a medium-distance regional route. It involves 200-kilometre runs in which the truck does 2 loops per day, 2 loads per day and is charged twice per day. The truck completes a loop, recharges and then transports another load.”
Oberto added that the new Scania trucks due to launch in January will soon open up even longer routes.
However, long-haul is not quite there yet in the opinion of the JUNA Technologies CEO:
“Within the range of 300-350 kilometres we can operate an electric truck and optimise it so we are very close to diesel parity, taking into account subsidies and road tolls in Germany. On long distances, it’s more difficult to achieve that parity though. You need to optimise driving time and charging time, a driver’s time could potentially be wasted while charging the truck, and then you’d need a 2nd driver, making the business case for electric less interesting.”
Milestones on the path to 2030 company and climate goals
Oberto also discussed the phased approach to deploying electric trucks, with phase one concerning the present-day situation and the next 2-3 years. During the phase, the focus shall be on fixed routes where operational patterns are well-defined.
“This doesn’t mean that you need to do the same operation every day,” Oberto told trans.iNFO. There’s much more flexibility than this. We only need to know the potential routes an electric truck can take every day, addressing factors like how the truck can be charged.”
In the next phase envisaged by JUNA Technology’s CEO, ‘free roaming’ will become the norm.
“At this point, electric trucks will be able to go everywhere and change routes overnight,” explained Oberto. On top of this, we won’t need to know everything about the route before a truck is deployed. The trucks will be able to adapt with absolute flexibility according to need.”
How do we get from Phase 1 to Phase 2 though? According to JUNA Technologies’ CEO, one key factor is range, with the others being infrastructure and charging.
As regards range, Scania is on course to launch an electric truck next summer that will have a range of 370km, while the company is also currently working on a model that will do 400km.
Looking forward, Oberto points to a popular opinion among analysts, which is that history has shown battery technology evolution is roughly doubling capacity every 3-5 years.
When it comes to charging infrastructure, Oberto told trans.iNFO that JUNA Technologies already has plans in place to be able to meet the charging needs of its customers:
“The way we’re tackling it today is via a lot of partnerships with charging players, both public and private. We support the carrier with our solution by setting up the right charging strategy, regardless of whether that’s best done via a public network or a private one.”
Learning from data
Another component of the JUNA Technologies offer is the opportunity to learn from data and untap new efficiencies from this information.
A case in point is data regarding driving styles. Through this data, the parties who formed JUNA Technologies learned that correct driving style can engage the re-gen system in an electric truck’s battery enough to provide a 10% boost.
“JUNA is taking all the data and analysing in accordance with privacy policy, then using it to understand where the application of the electric truck is more efficient,” Oberto emphasised. “There’s a huge opportunity to learn things now that will be extremely important in the future when the ecosystem is ready for significant uptake.”
The importance of grid evolution and green energy
As sennder recently pointed out during a webinar, charging an electric vehicle in Poland actually generates more emissions than via a conventional diesel truck.
This is of course due to the fact that Poland predominantly gets its energy from coal.
The eye-opening example reinforces the importance of grid evolution, which will be key going forward in some areas of Europe that are lagging behind as far as green energy is concerned.
The situation hasn’t gone unnoticed at JUNA, who are already looking into optimal solutions for green transports in and out of Poland. One idea is to charge just before the border in order to take advantage of Germany’s greener grid.
“As the industry evolves, I’m hopeful we’ll also see an evolution of the grid. That’s not only for Poland, but also several other countries. It’s going to be fundamental to achieve the emissions savings that we want,” concluded Oberto.”