Electric trucks

[Oliver90owner]

I wonder how good the range is when fully loaded going uphill?

Might that depend on whether the destination or origin is at the higher/lower point? See the thread on gravity ropeways?

Do all trucks use main roads? I expect that multiple charger charging stations are not far from a main route.

[Mart]

I don't know if anyone had heard about this, I hadn't, but according to Tesla's 2020 Impact Statement, page 24, the EU and US will allow electric trucks to be heavier, which will help offset any weight gain due to the batteries.

2020 Impact Report

Very few combination trucks are on the road, but account for 17% of total vehicle emissions

Combination trucks - of which the vast majority are semi trucks - in the U.S. account for just 1.1% of the total fleet of vehicles on
the road. That said, because combination trucks have high fuel consumption due to their weight and heavily utilization, they
account for approximately 17% of all U.S. vehicle emissions. Electrifying the heavy-duty truck segment is an essential part of
transitioning the world to sustainable energy.

Payload equal to a diesel truck

With both the U.S. and E.U. having approved higher weight allowances for electric heavy-duty trucks, we expect the payload to
be at least as high as it would be for a diesel truck. In the E.U., electric semi trucks are allowed to be 2 tons (~4,400 pounds)
heavier than diesel equivalents, and in the U.S. the allowance is 0.9 tons (2,000 pounds). When fully loaded, the Tesla Semi
should be able to achieve over 500 miles of range, achieved through aerodynamics and highly efficient motors. This truck will
be able to reach an efficiency of over 0.5 miles per kWh.

That sounds like a good idea. I wonder if the tyres on the tractor will have to be wider, so as to maintain the same weight to contact ratio of a lighter diesel tractor? Alternatively, I suppose, if the BEV tractor has a small battery and range, will it be allowed to increase the weight of the trailer?

Nice to see some solutions to future problems.

[AE-NMidlands]

A better solution to our problems now would be some action from government to reduce the 40% of UK energy consumption that goes on transport. What "future problems" are you talking about?
My response to Boris' waffle after the latest statement was "Those objectives are all decades away. What are you going to do TOMORROW?"
Electric trucks will be good for the last (few) miles as long as we have a fully electrified railway and thousands of small goods transfer stations reopened.
Putting wires up along the whole motorway and trunk road network just so that road haulage can continue unfettered is mad, and shows that they haven't really paid any attention to what they have been told about the scale of the problem...
A

[Mart]

Talking of trucks, big trucks, gigantic trucks, here's some news from Caterpillar:


Caterpillar And BHP Plan To Create Battery-Powered Mining Trucks

Caterpillar and BHP are partnering up to develop battery-powered mining trucks to support customers’ climate-related goals. BHP, which is one of Caterpillar’s largest customers, announced the agreement with Caterpillar to develop zero-emission battery-powered large mining trucks. The brand new trucks will be designed and built by Caterpillar. The company hopes to lead the way to zero-emissions mining worldwide by using the new battery-electric mining trucks.

As an aside, it's been noticeable the last couple of years, that many remote mines, especially in Australia, have been rolling out RE generation to meet their needs, due to the high cost and hassle of transporting diesel. Perhaps we could see more large mines becoming a bit greener ..... and yes I appreciate how ridiculous that sounds, but every little gain, is still a gain.

[Stinsy]

Talking of trucks, big trucks, gigantic trucks, here's some news from Caterpillar:


Caterpillar And BHP Plan To Create Battery-Powered Mining Trucks

Caterpillar and BHP are partnering up to develop battery-powered mining trucks to support customers’ climate-related goals. BHP, which is one of Caterpillar’s largest customers, announced the agreement with Caterpillar to develop zero-emission battery-powered large mining trucks. The brand new trucks will be designed and built by Caterpillar. The company hopes to lead the way to zero-emissions mining worldwide by using the new battery-electric mining trucks.

As an aside, it's been noticeable the last couple of years, that many remote mines, especially in Australia, have been rolling out RE generation to meet their needs, due to the high cost and hassle of transporting diesel. Perhaps we could see more large mines becoming a bit greener ..... and yes I appreciate how ridiculous that sounds, but every little gain, is still a gain.

A lot of mining vehicles are diesel-electric already. This saves the need for expensive, difficult to engineer, and failure-prone, multispeed transmissions. I read that some are fitted with batteries and operate similarly to BEV cars. Some operators found these vehicles never needed refuelling because when they where loaded with 100tonnes of ore and driven down a mountain their regen brakes filled the battery enough that it could drive back up the mountain (unloaded) for nothing! (Obviously if you're moving payload uphill and driving back down empty the same doesn't apply).

[dan_b]

Volvo's electric excavators excite

https://electrek.co/2021/09/22/volvo-sh ... t-in-2022/

[dan_b]

TeslaBjorn on the new Mercedes e-Actros fully electric truck - lots of information about battery pack size/capacity/weight and impact on payload (or not!). Also interesting seeing it pull 200kW at 60% SoC!

[Mr Gus]

Considering the "pant wetting panic" prevalent in society over Lorry drivers / lorries in general it was interesting to read an EX HGV driver stating the difference in attitude to the lorry, where it could park up, priority queueing, discounts etc..

Which made me think how much less noise / aggro will there be (perceived or actual) from E-trucks which will be more or less silent pulling up, drawing away, idling etc. ..time to fix things now.

It was a piece on LBC if you care to dig around.
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/you-couldnt- ... ve-trucks/

[Mart]

Hiya Gus, noise is something I've been pondering too a lot more since getting our first BEV (the old Leaf) and of course Covid almost eliminating traffic for a while on the busy 4 land road I cross to get to the cattery. Once you start to ponder noise, you'll notice just how much is given off by some vehicles, simply going about their business (I'm not knocking them because they do a valuable service). The 'bin trucks' with all their stop and go noise, or the engine revving from skip trucks, cement trucks and building supply trucks to run their mechanical equipment.

I'm not expecting Nirvana, but things should improve quite a lot over time.



Just a fun aside, but a long time ago I worked in a Government Environment Division. Chatting with colleagues who dealt with pollution, they pointed out something really interesting about noise pollution / complaints, and that's that complaints seem to go up, as the World gets quieter, since in a really noisy environment you just put up with it, but when things are quiet, you are far more likely to complain about the loud neighbours, or the noisy kids etc etc.. Fun bit of psychology there, and number one domestic complaint was, if I remember correctly, drums!

[Mr Gus]

In theory mart we will be getting rid of revs, lots of gear change db frequency associated with that, air brakes.. not the necessary piercing alert noises obviously, crunch of gravel in heavy tread will ping but in terms of noise reduction I have yet to see any data.

Sound is of course bouncy depending on what it comes up against, here in the countryside we hear festivals & lose 4+ nights sleep annually, which is 4-7 miles away crow / road.

I have high hopes for E-lorries, which if they've paid attention to the whole framework, might be dampened for empty trucks also (less resonant frequency, just bad roads to crash through.

PS, you also found that people treat night as day nowadays? it used to be you were quiet & whispered on the way home from the pub, no more the case.