Mathieu Flonneau is a historian specializing in mobility, lecturer at the University of Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne and author of In all directions. Circulate, share, secure. A history of road equipment (Loubatières, 2022)
Trucks are speeding up the road to decarbonization. Are they catching up?
As in air transport, it is a question of finding technological solutions that have the capacity to adapt quickly to the scale of the sector. Sometimes attractive innovative ideas could, in the long term, prove to be anecdotal and, for the moment, the question of heavy goods vehicles is not resolved, especially since the term covers a wide variety of vehicles.
Isn’t the battery winning the game?
Electrification is presented as the best solution by energy producers, by charging station manufacturers, by motorway network operators, etc. It remains to be seen whether it can be scaled up to an industrial scale, taking into consideration the issue of land, in order to be able to install charging stations. Decarbonising mobile objects is not decarbonising mobility.
Have trucks ever experienced such a revolution in their history?
Road mobility has always been growing, only military conflicts have been able to interrupt its expansion. We are living in an unprecedented moment, with an extremely strong virtuous demand for decarbonization from civil society and the question of a possible shift to other modes of transport. Never has such a complex equation arisen in the past.
This historical transition, long abstract, is now becoming very concrete. What is new is that we are experiencing the transition with the tools and data to understand it. We are aware of the environmental consequences of the decisions that are made, which does not prevent us from being in conflict with countries experiencing industrial growth. Decarbonization is socially difficult to accept for countries that were once dominated and are still today relegated to the second division in terms of development.
Have land transport players taken the measure of the issues?
The profession is very dynamic and truck and coach manufacturers are launching a new generation of modern vehicles onto the market. This will lead to a real change in usage that needs to be coordinated, as with individual vehicles.
What consequences can we expect for our territories?
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