[giantrobot]

I think your friend is making their judgement with a bit of myopia. EVs with batteries open a lot of opportunities that can't really work for any sort of liquid fuel vehicle, hydrogen included.

Batteries can be charged basically anywhere hooked to the electrical grid. They can also be charged in places with their own islanded power generation (renewable or not). So they can effectively be recharged anywhere they can stop for a while.

They can also be charged while in motion with electrified roads. A bus in a downtown area can be charged/run off overhead lines but then drive around outlying areas on their batteries. General utility overhead lines could also be used by any cargo vehicle with a pantograph for inner city driving.

Long haul EVs and construction vehicles are more likely to electrify as diesel-electric hybrids rather than pure battery or fuel cells. Their "recharge" profile is very different from passenger vehicles. Construction vehicles need to power their actual tools so they need super high density power they can really only get from diesel fuel.

[tdy721]

Many construction vehicles use hydraulic motivation. The Diesel engine is only there to pressurize the hydraulic system. There’s no reason you can’t use an electric motor to motivate (The pumps inside) those vehicles, they don’t directly use the diesel output as they are built today.

[giantrobot]

You can use an electric motor to run the hydraulics but batteries are a poor way to power those motors. A diesel generator has far better energy density for a given volume. So I'm saying a diesel hybrid power train is better suited for construction vehicles than a straight battery electric.