New Australian electric truck company signs delivery deal with Who Gives A Crap

A new Australian electric truck company has signed a deal with the COVID-famous toilet paper purveyor who heard the call of nature to deliver zero-emissions bog roll.

New Energy Transport, which is using heavy Volvo electric trucks, says its first delivery deal with Who Gives A Crap will  prove that electric heavy freight and fast-charging can be cheaper on a per kilometre basis that conventional diesel.

Who Gives A Crap will use the electric trucks for half of its freight requirements from Port Botany in Sydney. It follows a demonstration where New Energy Transport delivered a container from Port Botany to the loo paper warehouse in Yennora and back again. 

“One of the hardest to decarbonise sectors for us is road freight, so we wanted to be part of this to show that Who Gives a Crap can be a leader in that area,” the company’s director of sustainability Bernard Wiley said in a statement.

“We want to be able to show other companies in Australia that decarbonisation in the road transport sector is real, and that it can be done right now.

“As a small to medium sized business, we can really push this.”

New Energy Transport bills itself as Australia’s first zero-emission truck company, and says it will launch its first commercial route between Sydney and Wollongong in early 2026. It is building charging depots along the east coast which it says are vertically integrated with renewable energy sources. 

“We’re all coming together now to prove that it’s actually possible to have the same productivity as diesel trucks but without any emissions,” said New Energy Transport co-CEO Fredrik Pehrsson, who was involved in several major electric pilots during a career with Swedish truck manufacturer Scania.

“With its high-density road freight corridors and abundant low-cost renewable energy, Australia is actually one of the best places in the world for heavy electric trucking.”

The company says it has signed MoUs with five major road freight buyers. One of its directors is former The Driven chief writer Daniel Bleakley, who says that transport is one of the trickiest, but solvable, emissions areas in Australia.

He says NET is putting together a consortium of transport buyers to commit to its initial zero-emission freight capacity at its first site.

Road freight was estimated to make up nearly 40 per cent of all emissions from transport in 2023, according to a Climateworks study. 

Of that total, approximately medium-duty trucks account for 29 per cent of road freight emissions and heavy-duty trucks account for 38 per cent, the study found.

“Climateworks’ analysis estimates that road freight emissions are about five times those from rail and domestic shipping put together, despite accounting for only a third of freight activity. The high share of emissions is linked to road freight consuming more energy than any other mode,” it said.