The answer generally is no. You will see a bunch of information about how the total average power of the grid can support commercial vehicle electrification, but for many operations you don't get to choose when to charge due to better proving or off-peak demand. This is especially true as the amount of electric trucks leaves applications where the truck returns to base every day and only works a single shift.
Its a significant concern for the OEMs but the approach seems to be we will crank out vehicles to meet the regulations until we are asked to stop
. When some areas can't handle any more, other areas will still have capacity, so I think it is good to just keep upping the numbers of EV trucks until we find the limit the infrastructure cannot support. Hopefully as more vehicles deploy, the infrastructure grows as well but its hard to show we need to increase infrastructure if people don't see the need. I think its one of those things you can show using data analysis until you are blue in the face, but no one believes you until it becomes common knowledge it is the holdup. Even then, maybe it won't be an issue and a lot of analysts and the OEMs were wrong. No one wants to wait and find out.
A lot of the analysis I have seen and the analysis in the Greenhouse Gas Phase 3 regulation which essentially mandates a certain overall nationwide fleet sales includes trucks using 200kW chargers, only charging at night, and having batteries similar to the size of the product offerings we have had for years. I think this is where the biggest issue is between studies that say we are going to be fine, and studies that say we will not be. The information showing we will not be able to support use more realistic charging options such as a megawatt charger (can go down to a low power similar to current CCS1 DC fast chargers and up to ~1MW in the near future, most are at about 0.75MW available now) and use trucks that have around a 1MW of onboard storage which will be necessary for many applications.
Just my take on it.
You can't even guess how many times I hear "when will you build EVs like the Tesla Semi?" and I am like we have been for a few years.... Its just aggravating a bit to the people who work on them as the media and hype machine are all around Tesla's Semi which is not even a real production vehicle (despite what it may be titled as, its still in customer test phase and they don't have a volume production line). On the other hand its good that there is so much publicity and people are excited for elerctric trucks and know its possible that it is what it is and you take the good with the bad. I just wish instead of saying "when will Telsa sell the Semi so we can have electric trucks?" the media might tip the hat to the people who are actually doing it and give credit to there are options out there, and the Tesla when/if sold at scale will be a step forward in the evolution.
When comparing to the current offerings, remember that these are the products being sold right now and produced in quantity. There is a lot more stacked in the pipeline to come from everyone that utilizes the newest technology and not what was available when the existing version in production now had at the time it was designed.
Electric pretty much is the most efficient way power the vehicles. Keep in mind the wide variety of use cases a semi truck model has and the remote locations they are used in. Not every application can be covered by electric, especially with the lack of charging infrastructure, so there will have to be more than a single solution.
CNG trucks have been around for a long time. Westport has been making injection equipment for Cummins engines since at least 2013. Yes it burns fossil fuel, but it does not create NOx in large quantity like diesel and power plants burn it to generate power so althoguht not the best, its not bad, and much better than diesel for emissions.
For H2 there are applications where it makes sense. Fuel cells are pretty finicky and they need really clean air and are pretty expensive, so time will tell if they catch on in vehicles or are more used for stationary power generation. H2 ICE is an application for hydrogen that uses a traditional diesel engine design for the most part and can be either port or direct injected (much better). The cost here is significantly less than electric trucks and fuel cell trucks, but its nearly emissions free and can be fueled quickly. In Europe this will be an option as they are gearing up to support it with fueling stations, in the US its not as clear, but DOE is funding more investigations into it which shows there may be more ability to use it from a regulatory perspective.
The joke hydrogen is the fuel of the future and always will be is mostly true, but I think there is a place for it depending on application. Electric will be much less hassle, so if possible it would be the better choice. Electric trucks are still mega expensive though, even with the vouchers so the cost aspect may put hydrogen in favor in the near term.