Urgent action is needed by federal and state governments to promote innovations likely to reduce diesel fuel usage per tonne-kilometre carried.
Industry cannot do this innovation without changes to rules and schemes. I outlined my plan in the May 2024 ARTSA-iarticle. It was about reducing greenhouse emissions. Now I can rebrand the plan, so it is about reducing diesel fuel usage.
In a previous article about CO2 emissions in February 2022, I noted that the real cost of diesel fuel to operators was about $1.20/l. Now it is about $3.00/l. This is an annual rate of increase of about 24 per cent.
Whilst the price might fluctuate, the price trend is very clear. The near total reliance on diesel fuel in Australian heavy road transport is an obvious existential threat to many operators and thereby to costs of goods in our community.
I want to focus on two aspects of the ARTSA-i plan to reduce CO2 emissions and thereby improve diesel fuel economy. Both these aspects need government action. In the first instance, our industry needs leadership from the National Transport Commission.
- Establish a new National Heavy Vehicle Accreditation Scheme (NHVAS) module called PRODUCTIVITY. The purpose is to provide operator guidance and recognition of good practice to improve tonne-kilometre fuel economy.
- Promote electrically driven trailer use in Australia by establishing regulatory and technical standards.
The new NHVAS module is needed to provide a pathway for operators to benchmark, measure and improve fuel economy. The module could be based upon the USA EPA SmartWay scheme, which is world leading. Operators in the Smartway scheme can expect to achieve fuel economy improvements of 5 – 10 per cent, if best-practice recommendations are followed.
All operators in the US Smartway scheme are ranked. The ranking is publicly available. It is based upon the benchmarked performance and improvement of fuel economy by individual operators. The ranking provides a significant marketing advantage for high performing operators. It is trusted because the Smartway scheme has strict and verifiable processes that are overseen by the US EPA.
The Australian PRODUCTIVITY module should also benchmark freight carried by the vehicles in the scheme. Best practice freight-carrying productivity should also be identified. Australia needs a government-supervised fuel efficiency and freight-productivity scheme to provide guidance and leadership to the operator community.
Operators with high ratings will have the benefit of reduced fuel costs and public recognition. They might reasonably expect a reduction in the Road User Charge as community recognition of proven efforts to reduce CO2 gas emissions. The scheme would also establish the fuel economy and productivity performance of different types of multi-combination vehicles. That is, establish productivity benchmarks for different vehicle configurations. This benchmarking is important to inform the community and its regulators about the productivity improvements that are possible.
It could help provide a justification for better road access for non-standard vehicles and for ‘normalisation’ in the access rules for innovative vehicles and configurations. The community would benefit from another step in our industry’s impressive productivity improvements over the past 20 years.
The proposal for the new NHVAS PRODUCTIVITY module should be developed by the National Transport Commission (NTC) and presented to the Australian state and territory transport ministers through their consultative meetings (which are called ITMM). The NTC should design the scheme, in conjunction with operator associations, while the government’s $20M ‘fuel efficiency roof-rack’ adverts could have paid to set up the module.
My second priority is for government to sort out the ‘electrically driven trailer’ situation. By historical convention, a trailer has no driven axle. This definition is based on past technology. It did not recognize the possibility of electrically driven axles and trailers that carry a battery.
There have been several trials of electrically driven trailers over the past two years. The Heavy Vehicle Industry Association (HVIA) has taken the lead here in marshalling industry interest and investigating technical standards that need to be developed. Now the NTC should step-up and develop a plan to have Australian governments remove the regulatory barriers and define technical standards.
Australia has more trailers per prime mover than any other country on earth. We are world leaders with community acceptance of long and heavy trucks travelling on city roads and freeways. Australia manufactures more than 90 per cent of its trailers. The use of multicombinations involving trailers with an electrically driven axle has potential to improve diesel fuel economy by 25 per cent.
The fuel saving can come from the trailers supplying the ‘peaking’ force that avoids gear changes. In time the selected size and mass of the diesel engine could be reduced. I am talking about a diesel-electric hybrid combination.
Operators may well say that the electrically driven trailer has additional technology and weight. Both these aspects must be paid for by operators. I call on Australian governments to do the following:
- Introduce a new ADR category, which is ‘Electrically Driven Trailer (TED)’.
- Introduce a new Australian Design Rule applicable to a TED trailer,
Define a technical standard for CAN communication between the motor vehicle (traction controller) and a driven trailer (TED). The control signals for the driven axle can probably go via the Brake CAN. Put the standard into a new ADR. - Develop a national battery swap mechanical standard to facilitate 5-minute battery swaps on trailers.
- Develop a registration code for heavy TED trailers.
- State governments should commit to zero or nominal registration fee costs for the first ten years of the TED trailer life.
Readers might ask, why bother? Australia currently has an indigenous trailer manufacturing industry. It is under threat from Asian manufacturers. It should not have gone unnoticed that the country that supplied the most cars to the Australian market in March 2026 was China. A large proportion were electrically driven.
China works to a long-term plan and Australia would do well to also plan ten years ahead. Electrically driven trailer axles are now available from multiple suppliers in multiple countries. There will be significant electrification of heavy trucks over the next decade. Australia’s long and heavy fleet of motor trucks will be the last to have electric drive axles because of the engine size required and the range that a battery truck can achieve. Alternative fuel sources such as LNG and LPG have come and gone from Australian heavy-duty prime movers. I predict that new diesel trucks will still be predominant in 2036. Driven trailers could provide up to about 20-30 per cent of the energy needed to move a long combination truck. Additionally, trailer battery swaps could be done at Tarcutta, Dubbo, Albury etc. which would further reduce diesel fuel use.
Australia has the advantage of an indigenous trailer manufacturing industry that is a proven innovator. Other countries also manufacture trailers, but not as many per truck as does Australia. Relatively, this multiplies the size of the Australian market. Australia will probably not build the electric axles or the battery that will be used on a TED trailer. It can build control systems for electric drives on multicombination trailers.
Our task is innovation and integration! Without the electric trailer development, I see the Australian trailer-building industry declining over the next decade as new technology trailers from Asia start to buffet the Australian marketplace. I also see new international markets becoming available in Europe and Asia as other countries liberalize access rules for long trucks. There will be new opportunities.
I call on NTC to work on a national electrically-driven (TED) trailer plan and to present it to transport ministers. The widespread adoption of electrically driven trailers will provide a new energy source for road transport that will be significantly cheaper than diesel fuel.
The use of regeneration on a trailer is inherently safer than relying on endurance brakes on a prime mover to control downhill speed. The ability to swap a battery on a trailer in under say 5 minutes would create a new industry in refuelling trailers. There is plenty of space! The ability to use the batteries in depots as energy sources is another likely innovation. Our great road transport industry needs to get moving with TED trailers!
