Electric cars and charging stations are fairly common around here. Electric school buses are in use already also, along with electric and hybrid delivery trucks. It’s only a matter of time…Carriers and manufacturers are under ever more pressure to run cleaner and cheaper… It’s only a matter of time.
BTW… who among us had an internet connnection back in 1990? Exactly…
Well, let’s look at that little “exactly”. Why was it, then, that Bill Gates completely missed the early “Internet” craze because he understood that broadband access would be necessary for anything practical… and the capital cost of that far too high even for Microsoft at the peak of its financial influence in the computer industry? Where is the analogue in the trucking industry for thousands and thousands of first adopters to share the capital costs of the development and then rollout and then debugging of broadband provision? Did you think in your innocence that Class 8 trucks will have the same order of magnitude of charging infrastructure that cars do, or that the time will scale in parallel with the number of taps into the battery structure without having large additional numbers of high-amperage feeds?
Electric vehicles were popular for the sorts of thing you mention in the era before gas motors were even particularly practical for trucks. You have not seen them penetrate too far, and something I have noticed is that people keep trying them with some fanfare and then quietly let them go when the economics fail to work out (often when the hidden costs of the inherent battery maintenance become clear).
This is not at all analogous to Internet provision, or to make the thing a bit clearer, it’s like selling satellite broadband in a world where alternatives like Internet 2 backbone taps are available cheaper except for nanny regulation. Gee, Iridium was such a howling success. And commercialization of that IP has probably been tried more times than for the Great Eastern by now … with comparable “success”.
When anyone can make an actual case for a straight-BEV Class 8 truck that’s better than a hybrid, I’ll be paying close attention. It will require some form of
I wonder if Henry Ford knew much about horseless carriages before he gave it a go? Or the Wright Brothers before they cobbled together their ideas for an airplane in the back of their bicycle shop?
Many if not most of the technological break throughs have come from outliers who were not hobbled by the contraints of being insiders.
The thing is 70% of this industry that Musk wants to sell his trucks to is people with fleets less than 20 trucks in size. Yes while everyone sees JB Hunt Schiender Swift England Prime and others on the rails and on the highways all the time. The real backbone of this industry is the small carrier that has less than 20 units in their fleet. The Mega carriers are about 10% of the industry people like my boss who have under a thousand trucks but over 50 are maybe 15%. Grand Island Express out of Nebraska the carrier that constantly wins the Best carrier to work for in the industry is 130 trucks in size.
The main issue this industry is going to have with the Tesla truck is the lack of range and the Recharging time. These things sure as hell are not going to work for a Team fleet are going to be useless in the mountains and useless in cold weather. So where can a fleet run them and still get the use out of them. Linehaul and local use only in warm areas. But they are way to freaking heavy to do both.
Technological advances don’t get a very warm reception on this forum. Nor does change.
I took a week long road trip from western Los Angeles up to Yosemite a year ago. In west la, 1 in 20 cars seems to be a Tesla. Once, I got out of west la, I saw one Tesla on the road the entire trip.
The internal combustion engine replaced the horse carriage and the steam engine because it was more convenient. The BEV needs to do the same.
I plan on taking another road trip soon.
And yet, traffic on nearly every highway is almost overflowing with trucks running relatively inefficient motors, autos crawl along at a few m.p.h. Meanwhile, locomotives, which are the most efficient form of land transportation, are being targeted to reduce their already minimal emissions at the railroads own cost.
California is getting their wish by 2025 they’re getting a further reduction in OTR exhaust emissions. They’re demands are 90 percent more in NOX and CO2. They’re in for a wake-up call .
Gee, let’s have the USDOT run a wire down the centerline of every highway so electric vehicles (cars and trucks) can charge wirelessly as they cruise down the road. EV taxes would pay for the juice. Of course, it will take 40 years or more to roll out, just like the “all-weather roads” of the early 1900s. Will anyone born after 1980 wait that long? A side benefit would be to use the wire as part of a self-guiding system for “hands-off” driving.
(deleted)
But as noted these are supercaps, not batteries – I don’t think the cost advantages for the required supercap provision even as ‘charge management’ for an associated chemical battery are “there” yet, and supercaps to my knowledge remain exquisitely sensitive to consequences of even very short overvoltage.
Switzerland (?) years ago had a similar system to recharge a flywheel-generation KERS system, but that is only useful for loads with repeated cycling within a short time, like buses or delivery/garbage trucks. By the time you get significant buildout of the ‘recharge points’ you’re into the same economic issues as for incremental catenary or inductive-loop charging … and you still have the problems of steady-state range and weather/climate conditions to address.
Deleted. Posted in wrong spot.
Not a Tesla - VW Pikes Peak record setter.
Well, the Portland, OR to Boise, ID route won’t be seeing these replace the conventional Diesel powered Tractor any time soon. Approximately 450 miles with many grades of 2-7 Miles of near continuous 6% climbs, even with regenerative braking, it will be a LOOONG time before a 100% electric power replaces internal combustion there.
Add in the effects of single digit temps, that on occasion go negative, and frequent road closures that have vehicles stopped for many hours, while the Driver still needs heat, I don’t see Electric tractors being realistic replacements outside of short haul in temperate climates, in the Blue Mountains during the winter, I see electric tractors as a Safety Liability, not a Business advantage. How many compannies will justify two separate fleets for seasonal useage?
Doug
30+ years, 3,000,000 miles of moving America’s Freight from “Point A” to “Point B”
BaltACD is exactly right with that question.
The Tesla Truck’s charged battery should be able to outlast the current window, for legal operationl hours for the truck’s driver.
That ‘fail’ would be a tremendous stumbling block for Tesla; to be able to market their truck to the using Industry. The (possibly(?) inability of the Tesla’s batteries to support an operationally, functional demand within the ‘normal’ drivers scheduling; makes all questions [economics] about use of the Tesla Truck moot, and turns it into not much more than an academic exercise.
I looked at some of my boys logs this week. Tesla better be able to have a range of over 700 miles without needing a charge for a normal day. That’s right most of my drivers if they are not at a customers drive 700 miles or more in a day. We have a team running 6 rounds every 2 weeks between SLC and Peru on a daily delivery schedule. Yeah thats how hard a good team can run legally. After they run those rounds they take 3 days off and start their next 6 rounds. I highly doubt Tesla can ever come up with a battery pack that can stand up to that schedule.
The TOW companies stand to make a Fortune though, towing all the stranded trucks, with dead batteries to charging stations.
Doug
Yes they’re going to make a fortune. Can you imagine the chaos if one of Tesla’s wonderful trucks has a load of hazmat on and gets into an accident where the battery catches fire. I don’t want to be Tesla after that one. The carnage if hydrochloric acid and burning lithium batteries combined. God forbid he’s hauling flammable goods. Tesla is clueless on what his truck is going to face. Certain things you want to keep as far away from lithium ion batteries as possible and he puts hundreds in a package under the truck and it’s made from aluminum.
Oh the Electric trucks and Driverless trucks, heck maybe even Driverless Electric Trucks may some day be on the Highways, but I’m not concerned about having to deal with any of them in the 12-15 years that I have left in MY driving career.
The Gadget Geeks and Techno Nerds Love to predict how they will put drivers out of work in the next 5 years, after 30 years in the business, I don’t see it happening, any more than the Flying “Jetson’s Cars” that we were supposed to see by the magical year 2000, that hasn’t happened yet, and I don’t expect to see driverless trucks replace my job while I’m still working.
But this is still America, so anyone is still welcome to whatever Delusion excites them.
Doug