Technical Feasibility of Heavy-Duty Battery-Electric Trucks for Urban and Regional Delivery in Germany—A Real-World Case Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

I have reviewed the manuscript entitled "Technical feasibility of heavy-duty battery electric trucks for urban and regional delivery - A real-world case study". In this work the technical feasibility of trucks for urban and regional operation is analyzed on vehicle-specific, real world data. A vehicle energy simulation is combined with Monte Carlo simulations. The potential of fully electrifying trucks of different classes is presented.

From my perspective the study presented in this paper is suitable for publication. I have a few comments that may help to improve the paper's quality:

• How is recuperation related to downhill driving considered? Eqn. 1 considers recuperation only in combination with a_av.
• The energy analysis on page 3 contains a rather large number of simplifications that, in part, have been mentioned in the text (lines 21-29), in particular all mean or average values over the vehicles' duty cycle. A validation of simulation results is recommended.
• Further parameters that might deserve consideration are: inertia of rotating masses (in particular during acceleration from 0 km/h), transmission losses,
• More consideration should be given to: (i) the recuperation/braking system: recuperation might be too high and braking losses too low in return (due to limited power rating of electric powertrain and battery as well as machine, inverter and battery losses at high power rates); (ii) power requirements for battery conditioning (cooling/heating); (iii) mechanical transmission losses
• Page 6, line 23: Please explain: t_Loading * t_Stopp gives s^2. What is the r_NCP fraction, then?
• Page 8, line 17: I didn't quite get the "story" of this variation, please explain.
• Page 9, line 18-23, Intermediate depot charging: going beyond Fig. 3, to what share of the fleets does this apply (assuming that not all trucks return to depot during the day)? A visualization of the number and duration of intermediate depot stops, disaggregated by depot and truck class would be interesting.
• Page 10, lines 13-16: do these statements refer to truck trailers only? The question came up with "…of the whole fleet…" (line 15)
• Page 11, line 11: the information that the work related to food retail should be provided earlier in the paper.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments on “Technical feasibility of heavy-duty battery electric trucks for urban and regional delivery - A real-world case study”

Dear Authors,

The paper must be significantly improved. Please consider the following remarks:

Major comments:

(1) Line 9. Please explain “data from commercial tour scheduling software”. You can also show part of data.

(2) Please improve abstract part. Please answer the following questions:

a) What problem did you study and why is it important?
b) What methods did you use?
c) What were your main results?
d) What conclusions can you draw from your results?
Please make your abstract with more specific and quantitative results while it suits broader audiences.

(3) Please add algorithm of calculation method.

(4) Keywords. Please expand list / please improve - Authors should make better use of this section to allow the article to be found on search engines. Please add, for example, name of country.

(5) Figure 8. Please explain: how the results were obtained

Minor comments (please do not answer):

(1) Line 17: From the SI Brochure, §5.3. 3: "The numerical value always precedes the unit, and a space is always used to separate the unit from the number.".

(2) Line 44: Please avoid of using “we “. The same approach I suggest applying also in the rest of the manuscript.

(3) Equation 1, 2. Please add source

(4) Line 25 – 28. Please explain.

(5) Please add the List of Nomenclature/abbreviation. It should be given at the end of the aticle (before References, see journal template). Please use alphabetical order.

(6) Manuscript title: Please consider change: “A real-world case study” - > “Germany case study”

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Page 1, Title of the paper: My suggestion is to change the existing title “Technical feasibility of heavy-duty battery electric trucks for urban and regional delivery - A real-world case study” to “Technical feasibility of heavy-duty battery electric trucks for urban and regional delivery - A case study in Germany” so to better reflect the content of the paper.

Page 1, Keywords: Please include “Monte-Carlo simulation” in the Keywords.

Section 1. Introduction: My suggestion is to clearly state the research question(s) of your work, if possible.

Subsection 2.1. Operational vehicle data: Could you please provide (within the manuscript) an estimation concerning the percentage of the statistics of the two depots compared to the statistics of Germany in general. You can enhance the respective text on page 11, Section 4. Discussion, point (2), if possible.

Subsection 2.2 Methodology: My suggestion is to include a Data Flow Chart describing all your methodological steps for the benefit of the reader, if possible.

Page 8, line 8, “...If we aggregate both depots,…” and page 9, subsection 3.3. Scenario 1: Technical feasibility with intermediate depot charging: I appreciate and understand your idea (scenario) to aggregate both depots. However, in my opinion it may lead to results which will be rather more difficult to be explained.

Page 12, line 2, “…However, our results are consistent with other studies [2, 3, 7, 10]…”: My suggestion is to provide (within the manuscript) some more details on this aspect (how consistent and why ?).

Section 5. Conclusion: My suggestion is to change the title of the specific Section to “Section 5. Conclusion and recommendations”.

Section 5. Conclusion: Is it possible to provide (within the manuscript) some broad cost estimates concerning the implementation of your recommendation in Germany, lines 50-51, “..we recommend that all fleet owners and shippers start examining their transition to cli mate-friendly commercial vehicles.” ?

My suggestion is that the text included in Appendix A (page 13, lines 16-37) must be incorporated within the main body of your manuscript since it is valuable for the reader.

Reference [24] appears on page 11, line 14. It should be on page 5, before reference [25]. Please correct accordingly.

Reference list at the end of the paper: Please note that you have included both the names and surnames of the authors in reference [9] (Youngeun Bae, Suman Kumar Mitra, Craig R. Rindt, and Stephen G. Ritchie,.). Please correct accordingly. The same comment applies in the case of reference [13] (Lukas Mauler, Laureen Dahrendorf, Fabian Duffner, Martin Winter, and Jens Leker,).

Reference list at the end of the paper: Please delete the punctuation mark comma at the end of the title of the paper (“Battery electric propulsion: An option for 25 heavy-duty vehicles? Results from a Swiss case-study,”).

Reference list at the end of the paper: [17] H. Löbberding et al.,. Please include the names of all the authors (instead of “et al.”). The same comment applies in the case of reference [26] M. Wermuth et al.,.

Please carefully check all your references.

Page 13, CRediT author statement, line 8: Writing - Review & Editing..: Please delete the second dot.

Page 13, Funding: line 10, “…under grant number 03XP0362C..”: Please delete the second dot.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Section 2.1 you can add Figure, with some data, for example, number route per each day, average distance per each day, Mg load ...

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf