For owners of delivery truck fleets who may be trying to decide between electric or diesel vehicles, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are offering some advice: comparisons of the energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and total cost of ownership for the medium-duty vehicles.

The advantages of electric vs. diesel depend largely on how the trucks will be used—the frequency of stops and average speeds—and the source of electricity for charging batteries. In city driving with frequent stops, the electric trucks clearly outperform diesel vehicles.

“On average in the United States, electric urban delivery trucks use about 30-percent less total energy and emit about 40-percent less greenhouse gases than diesel trucks, for about the same total cost, taking into account both the purchase price and the operating costs,” says Dong-Yeon Lee, a Ph.D. student in the Georgia Tech School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “However, costs and emissions depend on how and where the truck will be used.”

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