Economic Analysis of Freight Transport Electrification Technologies: Electrified Highway vs. Battery Swapping

To support the achievement of the "3060" dual carbon goals and to reduce fossil energy consumption and pollutant emissions in the transportation sector, the Chinese government has issued relevant policies to encourage the development of new energy vehicles in recent years. As heavy-duty trucks are recognized as high-energy-consuming equipment and a major source of carbon emissions in China's transportation industry, promoting their electrification transformation is considered an essential part of advancing new energy vehicles. This paper primarily introduces the electrified highway and battery swapping solutions for the electrification of heavy-duty trucks, focusing on a comparative economic analysis of the two based on a transport route. The analysis results show that, with increasing transport volume, the unit transport cost of the battery swapping solution remains largely unchanged, while that of the electrified highway solution gradually decreases. For an annual transport volume of less than 16.67 million tons, the total cost of adopting the battery swapping solution is lower. However, when the annual transport volume exceeds 16.67 million tons, the electrified highway solution becomes more economical.