Have you seen this one? Germany’s eHighway can charge hybrid trucks as they drive! It’s important because trucks make long journeys and can’t be stopping to recharge constantly. Germany’s Environment Ministry partnered with engineering company Siemens to develop overhead power lines that charge trucks as they drive down the highway. The program was in development from 2012, and it publicly opened in May this year on a 10-kilometer stretch (about 6.2 miles) of the Autobahn. This is just the first stretch testing it. We don’t really talk about trucks a lot but transport is obviously a huge source of emissions and large freight trucks are responsible for a lot of this.
Moving products with trains instead reduces a significant portion of the emissions. In fact, UK supermarket Tesco is moving from trucks to trains for many of its products, aiming to save 26 million truck miles every year, which would cut its freight emissions up to 80%.
Of course, cutting our consumption is even more key. The less we consume, the less we need to freight around everywhere. The circular economy is important here too so our products can stop going through the standard take-make-waste cycle.
