His statement comes in response to the findings of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which hit the headlines back in October concluding that global temperatures could rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels as soon as 2030. To give this figure some context, any small rise beyond that level would have critical consequences, severely increasing the risk of major natural disasters.
This hefty and hard-hitting body of research provided a major contribution to the Katowice Climate Change Conference in Poland this month, where international governments reviewed their positions on the Paris Agreement, a mission to keep the global temperature rise to under 1.5°C. Their responses will inevitably vary, but one thing is globally recognised – the transportation sector is the biggest source of carbon emissions, having overtaken the power generation sector back in 2017.
Of this sector, freight trucks currently account for less than 10 per cent of all traffic on the roads, but consume well over 25 per cent of all fuel. So it is no wonder that the race to successfully deliver a sustainable, emission-free, all-electric trucking infrastructure is fast becoming the most hotly-contested battleground of the industry.
While Tesla has just announced it has received another substantial customer order for its electric truck, the Tesla Semi, which is slated to go into production in 2019, Daimler is holding its corner with the flagship eCascadia. And, on a more compact level, the radical electric truck start-up Arrival is making waves with its UPS and Royal Mail collaborations in the UK and France. Other contenders include Mercedes, Scania, BMW and eForce, however, by far the most pioneering company to be imminently bringing a viable, cost-effective solution to European roads is Einride, with Falck in the driving seat. In metaphor only, however, as his trucks are not only all-electric, they are also driverless.