Reach Stackers, Straddle Carriers & Other Port Vehicles Will All Be Electric
Container terminals are a microcosm of transportation with roughly 120,000 unique vehicles managing steel boxes weighing tens of tons
As we electrify everything everywhere all at once, it’s time to consider what will happen with The Box. Since the 1950s, containers have transformed logistics globally, taking bigger and bigger pieces of the growing maritime shipping pie. Containers can be 60 feet long, weigh tens of tons, be pulled dozens of meters upwards out of ships and moved kilometers inside ports. What’s going to happen with all of the machinery that moves those loaded boxes of steel?
Why The Box? That’s the name of a strongly recommended book by Marc Levinson. The subtitle is more informative: “How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger”.
In this series on transportation decarbonization, we’ve already stepped through urban densification, buses, light vehicles, trucks, railroads, pipelines and mining equipment. Empirical evidence from around the world, announcements from mining majors, total cost of ownership studies and the markets are making it clear that ground transportation is all electrifying, whether it’s grid-tied, operating on…
