A Garbage Truck That Would Make Elon Musk Proud

curtwoodward writes: Ian Wright knows how to build high-performance electric cars: he was a co-founder at Tesla Motors and built the X1, a street-legal all-electric car that can go from zero to 60 in 2.9 seconds. But he only cares about trucks now — in fact, boring old garbage trucks and delivery trucks are his favorite. Why? To disrupt the auto industry with electrification, EV makers should target the biggest gas (and diesel) guzzlers. His new powertrain is very high tech, combining advanced electric motors with an onboard turbine that acts as a generator when batteries run low.

Comments

General Moters

[Frosty Piss]

There where plenty of electric vehicles prior to General Moters buying all the street-car companies and replacing the cars with diesel buses.

Re:General Moters

[Anonymous Coward]

Wanna tell me what wizardry your employing to make that article route back to this one?

Re:General Moters

[Anonymous Coward]

A complete LACK of HTTP skills. He meant this

Re:General Moters

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like somebody fatfingered the link

Re:General Moters

[Anonymous Coward]

Or perhaps it was ironically insightful. Why would one expect anything different from a motor company?

Re:General Moters

[Anonymous Coward]

I would expect the opposite from a motor company.

Electric motor
Internal combustion engine

Re:General Moters

[rmdingler]

In a sense, it's the citation equivalent of telling your children, Because I said so.

Re:General Moters

[steelfood]

It's NIH (not invented here, not the national institute of health) and protectionism at its worst. Rail is invented in Europe and the technology is dominated by European companies. Obviously, we should double down on cars.

Taking this attitude to the extreme yields Detroit. Not suburban Detroit, but inner city Detroit. On the complete opposite side of the spectrum is New York City. I know where I'd rather live in and around.

Of course, it takes a country much, much longer to go bankrupt, but even at that level, it's inevitable (and some may argue has already happened).

Re:General Moters

[mirix]

Which both happen to be types of motors.

Hence, General Motors.

Re:General Moters

[Anonymous Coward]

Street car companies Also, worth reading is zacks comment on the same page.

Also the Wikipedia page on the street car conspiracy is also pretty fair. Basically, GM and it's automotive partners bought the street car companies and made money scrapping them because they where on the way out. Actually, there is some evidence that GM attempted to make money running this street car companies at first but found it unprofitable. Government regulation and picking winners is what lead the end of the street car along with the fact that they were a hated by the people because of their monopoly status.

Re: General Moters

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't feed the trolls.

Re:General Moters

[Anonymous Coward]

A complete LACK of HTTP skills. He meant this

You, AC, have a complete lack of web standards knowledge. You meant HTML

Re:General Moters

[westlake]

There where plenty of electric vehicles prior to General Moters buying all the street-car companies and replacing the cars with diesel buses.

The truth is that the street car and interurban rail (suburban commuter lines) were dead on their feet before World War I.

The street car ticket cost five cents.

It was an expensive business, maintaining tracks, cars and overheads.

The Ford car cost about a penny a mile, portal-to-portal, for a family of four plus dog and cargo.

You could shop the big downtown department stores, the new self-service supermarkets, and not pay a dime extra for merchant home delivery.

This photograph suggests the big-city reality of 1920, fifteen years earlier, you would be dodging horses and wagons, bicycles, and push carts to reach the cars. It could be quite a challenge, particularly for a woman.

Some of this is happening at PACCAR

[WillAffleckUW]

They make trucks, they're near Seattle, and there are some UW engineering projects in doing stuff like that there.

They already have a number of hybrid trucks, and I know that fuel cell powerplants scale well in truck form.

Re:Some of this is happening at PACCAR

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, not to mention that turbine generators driving electric motor have been used in trucks and trains for many years now. This is old tech.

Re:Some of this is happening at PACCAR

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, not to mention that turbine generators driving electric motor have been used in trucks and trains for many years now.

As I remember, the only turbine-powered locomotives in wide use were Union Pacific's GTELs, which were in service for less than 20 years, and they've been retired for almost 45 years now. Too many issues for not enough gain. Practically all heavy freight locomotives use plain old diesel engines to drive the generators.

Re:Some of this is happening at PACCAR

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, not to mention that turbine generators driving electric motor have been used in trucks and trains for many years now. As I remember, the only turbine-powered locomotives in wide use were Union Pacific's GTELs, which were in service for less than 20 years, and they've been retired for almost 45 years now. Too many issues for not enough gain. Practically all heavy freight locomotives use plain old diesel engines to drive the generators.

Well then how is today's Tom Sawyer gonna hop the turbine freight to far outside the wire where his white-haired uncle waits?

Re:Some of this is happening at PACCAR

[Anonymous Coward]

And M1 Abrams Tank.

Re:Some of this is happening at PACCAR

[wagnerrp]

Except the turbine drives a slushbox that drives the pulleys directly. No electrics involved.

Distance and Charge Time

[mythosaz]

The two major factors for electric usefulness are the distance you can go on a charge, and the time it takes to recharge.

You could cut out the middleman on this vehicle's charging turbine by removing the electrical system altogether and running it on gas, or diesel or propane.

I'm a Leaf owner (and soon to be a Fusion Energi owner), but the duration driving necessary by a fleet of garbage trucks isn't there unless you have a bunch of "tender" vehicles running them fresh batteries all day long.

Aside: I believe all curbside trash pickup is a conspiracy to generate HOA fines.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[NoKaOi]

but the duration driving necessary by a fleet of garbage trucks isn't there unless you have a bunch of "tender" vehicles running them fresh batteries all day long.

Except garbage trucks don't actually drive that many miles. Time, yes, miles, no. That makes them perfect candidates for electric. As far as the "tender" vehicles, it mentions having an onboard turbine so this is essentially a plug-in hybrid, where the key is efficiency.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes and no. Garbage trucks stop and go a LOT, so any kind of hybrid/electric garbage truck will need a VERY efficient battery or turbine system to recharge said battery.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[peragrin]

As the other poster size garbage trucks drive a lot but so far. . They get their high milage over time. A garbage truck wouldn't have to run all day long. In fact it idles most of the day. An electric vehicle doesn't have to idle. A leaf is perfect for round trips to an office job.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[Adriax]

An electric drive train weighs a fraction of what an axle drive train does for those monsters, and an electric motor is MUCH better for a stop&go traffic pattern due to resting torque differences and regenerative braking.
Plus the generator can be tuned for a singular operating RPM since the battery bank will be buffering the energy. That right there simplifies the engine and boosts efficiency.

I'm a fan of the electric + generator hybrid setup. It can take advantage of the existing fuel infrastructure for distance, while giving efficiency gains and allowing designers to use a wider range of engine designs for the generator. I would guess there are a couple engine designs out there that are more efficient/powerful for the mass and/or volume but can't do the variable RPM a 4-12 piston IC does.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[Anonymous Coward]

The micro turbine inside of this thing costs $100k and has a 10,000 hour life
it is going to take a lot of justification to get companies to pay for this

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[MichaelSmith]

Its just like a British milk float. It spends a lot of its time stopped, so an engine which doesn't need to idle is more efficient.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[MichaelSmith]

I can't wait for to be woken at 5 AM when the turbine generator fires up outside my bedroom window ;(

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[Letophoro]

I can't wait for to be woken at 5 AM when the turbine generator fires up outside my bedroom window ;(

As opposed to being woken at 5 AM by a loud internal combustion engine and the sound of banging trash cans?

Seriously though, there is no reason that the turbine has to be louder than the current engine in the garbage truck.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[mlts]

That is exactly where electric motors shine. When a vehicle is stopped, an electric motor requires zero energy to function except for cab climate control and computer devices. If one drives a hybrid or EV, stop and go traffic sucks a lot less with one of those than a gas or diesel engine which is chugging away at idle burning fuel. (Yes, one can start/stop the engine, but that may be more trouble than its worth, especially if it is very hot or cold outside.)

It only will get better. Once we get battery technology within 1/10 of energy by volume as gasoline, the Otto engine is history.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Or not that much more than for the same route, and regenerative braking with the most oversized capacitors available...

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[mirix]

Though when a garbage truck is stopped, it's usually lifting garbage bins, with big hydraulics... which need power too. So the engine isn't entirely 'waste' when it's not moving.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[Adriax]

According to the article the conversion kit costs $100k and it has no mention to lifespan.

But say your lifespan number is correct, lets look at this.
8 hrs a day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year for a fulltime 100% driving duty vehicle = 2080 hours/year.
So already this conversion would last 5 years at a bare minimum. Please note the article suggests a 3 year payback time on this, meaning a possibility of an extra $66k of savings for the medium duty kit.

Of course that would require the turbine to be running full time and the vehicle to be in motion the full time. Which is not the workload they are targeting.
For a garbage truck spending some of its work time parked to pickup dumpsters and most of its driving being start/stop (regenerative braking), lets say the turbine only runs 66% of the time. That would give a converted garbage hauler a 7+ year engine lifespan, which is frankly pretty darn good.
A delivery truck with a maybe 50% drive time would last over 10 years.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[The Grim Reefer]

Except garbage trucks don't actually drive that many miles. Time, yes, miles, no. That makes them perfect candidates for electric.

They also run the compactor (or whatever it's called) rather frequently. Something's going to have to power that too, and I imagine that will eat up a lot of energy.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[Waffle Iron]

I can't wait for to be woken at 5 AM when the turbine generator fires up outside my bedroom window ;(

The garbage trucks active at wee hours are usually emptying dumpsters. The engine noise is least of your worries compared to the sound of them slamming a half ton steel box up over the truck then down onto the pavement.

As a former weekly 3:00am victim of this practice at an apartment I used to rent, I think that operating any garbage truck between 11:00pm and 6:00am should be made into a felony.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[Anonymous Coward]

They are talking about residential garbage trucks not commercial garbage trucks. Residential trucks might run the hydraulic compactor every 30-50 houses whereas commercial garbage trucks are lifting one or more very heavy bins at every stop they make.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[timeOday]

You could cut out the middleman on this vehicle's charging turbine by removing the electrical system altogether and running it on gas, or diesel or propane.

Which one of those supports regenerative braking? I would think regenerative braking would be the single biggest win on a garbage truck. And you only need a small battery to do it on a hybrid.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Most residential garbage trucks spend their time driving at speeds where regenerative braking is ineffective.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[NormalVisual]

and an electric motor is MUCH better for a stop&go traffic pattern due to resting torque differences and regenerative braking.

Regenerative braking doesn't do a whole lot when the vast majority of your stop & go driving never gets above 10 mph with only 100 feet or so between stops.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[mirix]

Around here, the residential trucks have hydraulic arms that grab and lift a wheeled bin into the.. hopper thing.

Probably a lot less power required than for the compacting rams, but power nonetheless.

Re: Distance and Charge Time

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the "twenty something with a crappy apartment" segment is an untapped political powerhouse. They're typically apathetic and you could motivate them quite easily if you ran for office on this platform.

Personally, I am trying to imagine a logistical reason for doing so. The only thing I can come up with is efficiency. These vehicles are large and need to stop at nearly every building in their operating radius for the day. That means the garbage trucks are frustrated at the drivers in front of them for holding them up. This means they need more trucks and drivers to finish daily routes. that results in higher costs (and consumer prices) and less profit.
Drivers commuting and making deliveries would hate garbage trucks as well for messing up their timetables. There are obviously some garbage trucks that run normal daytime routes but to force them all to do so will probably result in bad things for garbage companies and the population at large shortly afterward.

Imagine someone like yourself that lived next to the interstate instead and wanted to cut off the driving of semi trucks during those same hours. Those air brakes, y'know?Result: More trucks in daytime traffic making it miserable for the rest of us. Costs go up, etc.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[mythosaz]

Regenerative brakes are never net plus. Simply driving better is more efficient, if traffic lets you.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[michrech]

Aside: I believe all curbside trash pickup is a conspiracy to generate HOA fines.

I have a fix for that - don't live in an HOA zone. HOA's *suck*, and the only thing keeping them around are people willing to live under their rule.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[Barsteward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K... - as used in Formula 1

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[dkf]

Please note the article suggests a 3 year payback time on this, meaning a possibility of an extra $66k of savings for the medium duty kit.

A 3 year payback time is really quite good, in the region where garbage truck operators will do it without any additional incentives.

Re: Distance and Charge Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't confuse the poor souls with facts. It goes against the religion of the renewable/sustainable energy nutters. Electric won't work. Ever.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[dunkelfalke]

In my personal experience, hybrid garbage trucks are significantly less noisy than normal ones.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[MichaelSmith]

Yes I would agree. Its just that I used to hang around the test stand in the engine factory for the Australian fleet of FA/18 jets and those things are very loud.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[dunkelfalke]

They are also huge, with the according airflow. Piston aircraft with comparable performance was actually way louder.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[boris111]

I think most of the noise is from other sources anyway... like this

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[markass530]

never is a bit too strong of word. yes regenerative breaking is often thrown in as a feature and talked up in applications where it has little to no benefit but that doesn't mean there aren't circumstances where it's beneficial

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[Anonymous Coward]

It is more the stop and go driving repeated thousands of times a day. An electric motor has its maximum torque at the low end (zero RPM, standing still). So the electric motor is perfect for getting large 5 ton trucks moving. Most residential garbage/recycling trucks stop and go 20-30 times a block. That is perfect. Add in a Capstone Turbine to provide electricity when the batteries run down and you have a great match of technical strength to required function.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[minstrelmike]

Another advantage for garbage trucks and other vehicles that stay in the same city or area, you don't have to set up a nationwide recharging or hydrogen network to get started. There are a lot of fleet vehicles in certain areas using all sorts of different energy sources.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[wagnerrp]

Remember, the driver themselves used to fulfill the same purpose as that hydraulic arm, lifting residential trash bins into the loader. That means it's not going to use more than a few hundred watts. The AC unit for the cab is going to draw more.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[wagnerrp]

Regenerative braking doesn't do much at 10mph, because there typically isn't much energy to extract at 10mph, and similarly, there isn't much energy to put back in to reach 10mph. You are correct that regenerative braking wouldn't provide much gain, but then the real purpose of this is to just prevent engine idle, which is going to be the overwhelming majority of fuel consumption on a vehicle like this.

Re:Distance and Charge Time

[beastofburdon]

This would be more efficient with a small electric motor running the hydraulics than directly off the engine. The electric motor only needs to run when there is work being done where the engine is constantly running and either pushing hydraulic oil on a bypass or continuously engaging and disengaging a clutch, which also takes energy.

Low hanging fruit

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

SCHOOL BUSES. Usually low-speed, frequent starts & stops, usually only out for 2-3 hours at a time. Time to recharge between morning and afternoon routes. Current diesel models get terrible mileage. Perfect for teslafication.

Re:Low hanging fruit

[crow]

FIRE TRUCKS: They rarely have to travel more than a few miles at a time, with plenty of time to recharge. And they're all ridiculously expensive already, so the added cost of batteries is insignificant.

Re:Low hanging fruit

[mythosaz]

Sort of. Quick Googling suggests that 1:3 miles school buses drive are to events - taking kids on field trips, taking football teams cross-town to games, etc.

You'd need one set of buses to do the morning pickups and afternoon drop-offs, and another set of buses to take kids cross-town on a Friday night for a football game or to the next town over for the band regional.

OTOH, charging the Google Buses that don't pay the drivers mid-day (split shifts: LOL) would be dandy.

Re:Low hanging fruit

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Sure, but then there's question of miles driven per day. I think there's a lot more bang-for-buck in school buses.

What starts with "F" and ends with "U-C-K"? Fire truck.

Re:Low hanging fruit

[realilskater]

Fire trucks also have several power take-off accessories like water pumps that may run for hours fighting a large fire. In the context of this article if the turbine generator can supply power for all the accessories for an extended period of time then you should be OK. But that is definitely not going to make the cost of the truck cheaper.

Re:Low hanging fruit

[turkeydance]

Cross-Town? how about cross-state? significant rural school districts use buses constantly. 4-hour commutes are common for all sorts of activities: to school from home and back, sports, field trips, etc. it's 6 hours (in a school bus) one-way to the State Capitol.

Re:Low hanging fruit

[Anonymous Coward]

In the (rather large) metro area that I live in, the dispatch regularly puts fire trucks on the road to cut down on response times, particularly when adjacent fire stations are on a call

Re:Low hanging fruit

[steelfood]

Schools are too poor to pay for a whole fleet of brand new buses and the charging infrastructure around it. And since the largest and majority of school systems are publicly funded, there's too much oil money floating around to allow this to happen anyway. It might work for private schools, but they're also operating on thin margins and there's oil money there too.

Not to mention it'd be a PR disaster waiting to happen. One school bus fire involving the batteries, and you'll bet there's big oil ready to scream, "Think of the children!" irrespective of whether anyone was actually hurt. This is especially true considering diesel doesn't go up in flames easily (the fumes do, but the fuel does not), which is easy to spin.

No, to effectively promote the electric vehicle agenda, school buses should be the last ones to convert. Now, to sabotage it, school buses would be the first point of attack.

Re:Low hanging fruit

[MichaelSmith]

IIRC there was a product advertised some years ago. Its basically a contractors truck with an integrated generator. The focus is on supplying power to a construction site, and traction runs off the same power source.

Re:Low hanging fruit

[drinkypoo]

SCHOOL BUSES. Usually low-speed, frequent starts & stops, usually only out for 2-3 hours at a time.

Inner city school buses, sure. I live in the country. Even out here, though, a hybrid system might make sense. Relatively little battery coupled with a KERS-style system to permit absorbing significant power while regeneratively braking, and a plug-in mode to permit clean operation while traveling through the residential sections or while actually at the school, and to perform acceleration operations in general so that the dirty diesel doesn't have to. Since they're automatics these days, you can hybridize at the torque converter.

Re:Low hanging fruit

[sjames]

Or convert a portion of the buses and optionally, make the long haul buses plug in hybrids rather than just electric.

Re:Low hanging fruit

[mirix]

Just changing to direct injection diesels with better gearboxes would be a large improvement, yet it doesn't happen. Schools are broke. The school buses around here are as old as me.

Re:Low hanging fruit

[Jeremi]

Schools are too poor to pay for a whole fleet of brand new buses and the charging infrastructure around it.

If the batteries reduced the buses' operating costs to the point where the upgrades/purchases would pay for themselves in a few years (and that's a big if!), it would not be difficult to arrange financing for the buses. The schools wouldn't have to pay anything extra, and the schools and the lenders would split the savings, profiting both parties.

Re:Low hanging fruit

[angel'o'sphere]

Yeah, you are right.
It is completely impossible to electrify a set of busses for ordinary school transports and keep some busses as diesels for long distance over land hauling.
Reminds me about the pictures of the Katrina Hurricane, a parking lot full with minimum 100 school busses, under water ... and people _walking_ with luggage on their back on a highway out of the city.
It was completely _impossible_ to use those busses to evacuate the population ... (* face palm *) Well, the "fleeing" people on foot where mostly black, and we know in Louisiana an Mississippi there is still apartheid and they would not have been allowed to sit in a school bus anyway ... except for the black driver, if course.
Not to mention that all those busses got lost to the rising water ... must have been a fortune!

Re:Low hanging fruit

[Firethorn]

Fun fact, last time hybrid buses came up because of Seattle's disappointing results with them, primarily due to new EPA requirements wrecking the efficiency of the diesel engines), I figured out that the standard bus has about the same horsepower as a Tesla Model S. The primary reason for using a diesel in school buses and such is for torque, reliability, and fuel economy.

So 1, maybe 2 Model S batteries would be able to provide all the current a school bus needs.

Re:Low hanging fruit

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.poudre-fire.org/home/showdocument?id=2729

Re:Low hanging fruit

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad there isn't some grant money to pay for 'green' school buses.

Re:Low hanging fruit

[drinkypoo]

I figured out that the standard bus has about the same horsepower as a Tesla Model S. The primary reason for using a diesel in school buses and such is for torque, reliability, and fuel economy.

The bus taking off from a stop all the time is like a Tesla making a 0-60 run from every light.

Re: Low hanging fruit

[AlMarzian]

With school buses and garbage trucks the transmissions get a tough workout. The simple drive train of an electric vehicle should cut costs ver the long run.

Re:Low hanging fruit

[Chris Mattern]

Reminds me about the pictures of the Katrina Hurricane, a parking lot full with minimum 100 school busses, under water ... and people _walking_ with luggage on their back on a highway out of the city.
It was completely _impossible_ to use those busses to evacuate the population ... (* face palm *)

Well, yeah, it was. A motor vehicle that's been submerged isn't going to run, at least not until it's been repaired.

Re:Low hanging fruit

[angel'o'sphere]

Yeah, and that mindset is the reason so many people died.

The busses would have been supposed to evacuate the city before they got submerged!

The busses had no place on the parking lot at the first place! Either national guard or fire fighters or the army themselves should have confiscated them and rescue people! If the 'city' has not the 'guts' to order the drivers or ask for volunteers!

And for your interest, no I did not forget the closing html tag ... seeing a city and its people drowning while everyone who has a responsibility and an authority and an office does nothing, makes me simply ANGRY!

Re:Low hanging fruit

[RockDoctor]

SCHOOL BUSES.

Whatever happened to walking (or cycling) to school? In the 13 (14?) years that I was in primary and secondary education, I think I got a lift to school on maybe three or four occasions - when Dad had some business to do in town rather than in the factory. And when I was at university, it was either walking or cycling to the department and once per week out on field work.

Re:Low hanging fruit

[jonbryce]

Except that if there is a major incident near one fire station, all the fire engines from that station will go to that fire, and at the same time, some fire engines from other stations will go to that station to provide cover for any other incidents that take place at the same time.

Re:Low hanging fruit

[Chris Mattern]

The busses would have been supposed to evacuate the city before they got submerged!

The busses had no place on the parking lot at the first place! Either national guard or fire fighters or the army themselves should have confiscated them and rescue people! If the 'city' has not the 'guts' to order the drivers or ask for volunteers!

When, exactly, did the busses get submerged? Was there time to get them out? It's entirely possible that nobody knew that the flooding would reach the parking lot until after it did.

Re:Low hanging fruit

[Firethorn]

Like I said "is for torque". Torque, more than horsepower, is what gets a bus going. Meanwhile electric motors are great at low RPM torque, so while I'd go with a heavier duty motor for the bus, it doesn't actually have to be any more powerful, or even all that much heavier.

The lighter weight of a Model S allows it to accelerate much faster, but the power demands are remarkably similar. Note that I mentioned that a Model S battery would be able to provide the current, not the energy. You'd get less range than a Leaf trying to drive a bus on all-electric with a single S battery. So what I was picturing was taking the electric drive-train of a Model-S and more or less converting it into the electric portion of a hybrid system for a bus.

Re:Low hanging fruit

[angel'o'sphere]

It is much more likely that no one thought about using them. After all most whites had their own cars and who cares about the blacks?
The fact that the city will be flooded was at least in Europe well known days ahead.
On the other hands, americans are well known to rather stay at home and defend them and drown than follow evacuations early ... probably some officials figured it would be pointless to offer free rides in busses out of the town.

Wondering why it took so long...

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The diesel-electric locomotive took over from the steam locomotives at incredible rate of adoption. Many steam locomotives pf Baldwin Loco Works, Philadelphia, made just one run from assembly line to scrap yard. It was that fast, technology changed before the order pipeline was flushed. In just 10 years, between 1950 and 1960. But even very large earth movers, even those that needed lots of electric power on board, stubbornly stayed with diesel instead of diesel-electric.

This conversion of diesel trucks to diesel-electric or gas-turbine-electric trucks is long over due. In the case of steam locomotives, the efficiency went from 6% for steam to 15% diesel-electric. But coal was much cheaper than diesel. Here the efficiency boost is probably from 20% to 30%. Going from expensive fuel to slightly cheaper fuel. It might not beat the speed at which steam was made obsolete. But it could come close.

Re:Wondering why it took so long...

[Anonymous Coward]

Moving from Steam to D-E happened quickly not because of cost, but all the other advantages. A DE locomotive doesn't need to haul a coal hopper - because diesel is so much more dense in terms of energy. It doesn't need someone to shovel coal throughout the journey, constant water top-ups, and doesn't generate the smell or dirt a steam locomotive does. On top of all that they generated more torque.

Simply put, there was no disadvantage to the change.

Re:Wondering why it took so long...

[mirix]

Well, apart from sunk cost, and upgrade cost. Which is why East Germany ran some steam trains almost until reunification! (though I'd imagine they'd have been converted to oil firing by then, which brings down the work load a bit).

Coincidentally, pretty much the only place that can repair or build full size locomotive steam boilers today is in Germany. It's something of a lost art, I guess. When the UK commissioned a new steam train a few years back, they had to get the boiler made in Germany. No one left in the UK can make them, and they invented the things...

(apparently not exactly, but sort of)

While manufacturing facilities still existed in Britain to manufacture such a large boiler,[40] because of the design differences from the originals the trust required a supplier with specific experience of designing, building and certification of steam engine boilers to modern safety regulations,[38] as required by the European Union's Pressure Equipment Directive.

Re:Wondering why it took so long...

[wvmarle]

Currently there are hybrid diesel/electrical double decker buses on trial in Hong Kong. Lots of stop and go traffic of course, which is what the trial routes have been selected for as there the most savings can be made. No more idling engines for starters!

How these would work for long-distance travel like trucks tend to do, I don't know. Savings will be far less there.

Re: Wondering why it took so long...

[shilly]

We've had hybrid double deckers in. London for at least three years, including the new Boris Buses

Re:Wondering why it took so long...

[hackertourist]

The ability to accurately control an electric motor is probably a big reason why this took so long. Electric trains from that era have really crude systems for selecting a speed: the motor had several windings which you could switch on or off, or place them in series or parallel. Then there were resistor banks for intermediate settings. So instead of a smooth "analogue" throttle, you had maybe 10 speed/power settings to choose from. This sort of works for a train: there's enough inertia that you can switch settings without jerking the passengers around.

For a vehicle, this lack of control was/is unacceptable, so widespread adoption had to wait until high-power electronics became available.

Re:Wondering why it took so long...

[drinkypoo]

In the case of steam locomotives, the efficiency went from 6% for steam to 15% diesel-electric.

You'd have had even better efficiency with direct diesel... if a drivetrain could be developed that would handle it. That's the only reason why diesel locomotives use an electric powertrain. You can't meaningfully store all that power in the locomotive, especially since braking is spread out across the train. The only way to meaningfully make long-haul trains hybrid is to power each car like a subway train. We could retrofit existing cars by replacing the bogeys, but it's a fairly massive undertaking. Having each car capable of becoming its own train for short periods and reducing the locomotive to a generator car (with enough traction to move itself, of course, but not to pull a whole train) would provide many efficiency benefits.

Re:Wondering why it took so long...

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

You are right in saying the electric part actually reduces efficiency, the only reason to have it is to eliminate the gear box/transmission. But once the technology is in why did it take 60 years to scale the system down to handle trucks? While the automotive engineers spent all that time designing gear boxes to couple the diesel to the 18 wheel truck's wheel, why did not think of going electric? The greatest advantage would be in removing the low end torque requirement. Diesels have better low end torque than gasoline engines. But electric motor has the best torque vs power profile. Using an electric motor to remove the first gear alone would allow them to optimize the engine better for fuel economy, freed from the low rpm torque requirements.

Well we have the benefit of hindsight.

Re:Wondering why it took so long...

[amorsen]

Why would you switch trucks to a less efficient system? Would you really put a 200kW+ electric motor in just to get rid of first gear?

Re:Wondering why it took so long...

[wagnerrp]

Get rid of first gear, ditch over a ton of engine and transmission weight, improve front end/tractor aerodynamics, use a modular engine/generator unit that could easily be pulled and maintained externally, while the truck continues on with a replacement unit.

When your power source does not need to be mechanically coupled to your drive, there are all sorts of potential advantages if you go looking for them.

Re:Wondering why it took so long...

[jonbryce]

There are a lot of hybrid buses in use, not as a trial, in Reading, England - http://www.reading-buses.co.uk... . They currently run on three of the routes, 17, 21 and 26.

Re:Wondering why it took so long...

[drinkypoo]

You are right in saying the electric part actually reduces efficiency, the only reason to have it is to eliminate the gear box/transmission. But once the technology is in why did it take 60 years to scale the system down to handle trucks?

Without regenerative braking, it is a net loss. The transmission is more efficient. The only reason we use it in trains is that they would otherwise just eat gearboxes. Trucks are light enough to where they can still have a gearbox. That's it.

Diesels have better low end torque than gasoline engines. But electric motor has the best torque vs power profile.

Right, that's why EVs or hybrids make sense for trucks which will do a lot of start-and-stop, like school buses, city buses, and perhaps garbage trucks. But they have to be able to take advantage of regenerative braking, or you're just jerking off. The range advantage of liquid fuels is compelling even in cities in many cases. Garbage trucks are heavy because the compactor has to be heavy in order to function properly, and that implies that the compactor is doing a lot of work as well. There's just a lot of work being done in a garbage truck. Only on the densest routes does it seem likely to make sense to make them all-electric. Using a turbine is a slick answer, and on a massive truck which is ordinarily very loud, there seem to be zero drawbacks.

At last a good idea

[Blaskowicz]

I believe electrics and hybrids are overrated most of the time : huge costs and environmentally friendly don't mix that well in my mind.
Garbage trucks are a nice low hanging fruit and are universally needed. Whatever place they're to be found before/after their work day so to speak is where you can do electrical charging and maintenance (and maybe the same for other municipal vehicles)

If electric somewhat hybrid garbage trucks make sense, they'd be welcome everywhere, even/especially in African and Asian countries.

Re:At last a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to think so to. Until I did some research and got a plug-in electric hybrid.

Most of my driving is local, and well within the electric range. Sure, I'm paying off a car loan right now.. But I'm also only filling up my 10 gallon gas tank once every other month. At current rates I'm paying 1/4 the price for electric miles than I am for gas miles. And gas miles are 50 mpg city, 60-70 on long highways.

The low costs of running the car have made the payments quite affordable, and I'm getting a nice new car out of the deal.

I admit I might be a bit of and edge case. I don't do that much driving compared to the average american. I ride my bike to work, and everywhere else I can. (I honestly put more miles on my bike than my car. I'm set to ride 6000 mi this year)

Seriously we need to make bicycle commuting a social norm in this country. You save gas. You save money. Instead you burn fat, which you normally pay to get rid of anyway (gym membership, diet counseling, etc)

Re:At last a good idea

[Grishnakh]

Seriously we need to make bicycle commuting a social norm in this country. You save gas. You save money. Instead you burn fat, which you normally pay to get rid of anyway (gym membership, diet counseling, etc)

That's not going to happen until we spend a ton of money and make safe bike lanes and roads, instead of expecting cyclists to share the road with idiot drivers in giant SUVs applying their makeup and texting while driving.

Worse, even if we did that, in many locales it still wouldn't be very popular because the weather is so lousy in North America. Sure, places like southern California, the Pacific Northwest coastal area, even much of the east coast during the three non-winter seasons would be perfectly nice for cycling, but think about places like North Dakota, Minnesnowta, Arizona, etc. You'd be lucky to have decent and safe weather half the year, if that. In Phoenix, it's over 100 degrees for at least half the year; it's actually unhealthy to ride in weather that hot. Florida probably isn't any better. And with global warming, summer temperatures are rising.

Re:At last a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

So many missed opportunities...you got Minnesnowta in, why not North Dasnowta, Aridzona, and Phurnace? Even Flooda would have been fine.

Re:At last a good idea

[Grishnakh]

The others are more clunky and might confuse readers. With "Minnesnowta" it's easy to tell the state name. I don't think I would have picked up what "Flooda" is referring to, and I definitely would not have gotten "Phurnace". And Arizona being arid really isn't a problem; Southern California is arid too, but the weather there is great because it's mild and it's right next to the ocean (the problem with SoCal is the LAPD and all the crime, not the weather). Arizona (the southern part, where Phoenix is) is a hellhole not just because it's arid, but more importantly because it's hot. Florida is a hellhole for the same reason, but it's not arid at all there. In North Dakota, as I understand it, snow isn't really that big a problem anyway; the main problem there is the -40 - -50 temperatures. Good luck cycling in that.

Re:At last a good idea

[Blaskowicz]

Bike roads ought to be rather cheap : not much weight is applied on them by the vehicles.

Re:At last a good idea

[Grishnakh]

True, but you're still looking at miles and miles of them, and where exactly do you put them? To be safe, they need to be separate from car roads (just watch, some cycling extremists will jump down my throat here and say it's perfectly safe to ride inches away from 6000-pound SUVs driven by people texting), but in most places, there isn't enough space to do that since the buildings are already there, so you're looking at either turning the sidewalk into a bikeway or narrowing the road, both of which are generally infeasible, at least here in the northeast where I currently reside.

Cities kinda need to be designed to be cycle-friendly from the outset.

Re:At last a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I ride in Phoenix (Ok, North Scottsdale) from 2PM to 4PM on 110+ days. other than a Camelback with a 3L reservoir, and another 3L filled in the front pocket I haven't found an issue. And I am obese (medically), and because of this riding I am less obese. Actually the human body can do very well in hot & dry weather - like Phoenix and really not that well if you are talking 56-60 and 95% humidity.

Re:At last a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheap isn't as much of a problem as who will pay for them initially. I live in Dunedin, New Zealand, and we're busy putting cycle lanes in anywhere we can. The problem is, it's damned expensive, only a fairly small number of cyclists are using them, and we only have 4 or 5 months a year that are any good for cycling, anyway.

There's a vocal minority of cyclists lashing out that motorists should be paying for them, because motorists are the problem. (Tell that to the guy I nearly creamed because he shot out in front of me from a side road, ignoring a stop sign. There was also the family of Pacific Islanders who overtook me on the side I was indicating, and cut off oncoming traffic, because they felt like it. The cops wanted a word with them.)

Bike roads aren't actually that cheap, it's the comparatively low ongoing maintenance costs that make them stand out. They still cost millions to build.

Re:At last a good idea

[NormalVisual]

Then on top of that, you have to look at the number of people that commute to work. My commute is about 30 miles - well over an hour's ride to get to work, and given the heat and humidity here (Florida), you'd have to be working someplace where you could shower after you get there. Factor in the daily thunderstorms during the summer, and it sounds to me like a really miserable experience.

Re:At last a good idea

[sjames]

I'll second the bike lanes, and I don't mean a 3 inch wider shoulder on the road. I have ridden a bike on the roads perfectly legally and it was damned scary. I'm not sure what's worse, the screeching tires behind me or the people whizzing by 10 MPH over the limit 4 inches from my left knee.

Re:At last a good idea

[Grishnakh]

Exactly what I'm talking about. All it takes is one slightly wrong move by an idiot driver and you're either in the hospital, maimed, or dead.

Re:At last a good idea

[angel'o'sphere]

For a moment I was shocked about the temperature, until I realized it must be Fahrenheit :)
Regardless, cycling in either -40 Celsius or Fahrenheit is not a problem at all.
Question is: do you have deep snow, ice or strong cold winds; all that would be annoying.
But cycling under clear sky with sun and an inch or two snow on an otherwise not to icy road is a perfect day!
Like cross country skiing.

Re:At last a good idea

[Grishnakh]

For a moment I was shocked about the temperature, until I realized it must be Fahrenheit :)

Have you forgotten that -40F is exactly the same as -40C?

But cycling under clear sky with sun and an inch or two snow on an otherwise not to icy road is a perfect day!

If you're a seasoned and extremely fit cyclist who's used to such temperatures, sure. If you're some average person, fuck no.

The world's most bike-friendly city is usually cited as Copenhagen, Denmark. Go to Youtube and search for "copenhagen biking" or something like that. There's some videos there showing zillions of city residents cycling around; it's a very common form of transportation there. Now notice what these people look like, and how they're dressed. They're not wearing specialized cycling clothes, their bikes are not high-performance, and they aren't all super-fit and lean athletes. They look like regular (but European, no morbidly obese people there) people just riding bikes, but in great numbers. Those people, while certainly more in shape than the average American, would freeze to death biking in -40 temperatures, and if you magically transported them to Fargo, would probably just get a car.

America's most bike-friendly city is Portland, Oregon. Like Copenhagen, it also has a very mild though somewhat cool climate. Snow is rare there (just like Copenhagen), and sub-zero (F) temperatures are unheard of or extremely rare. There's a reason cities with mild (not too hot, not too cold) weather year-round become cycling havens, and cities with brutal winters or summers do not. No one (except a few die-hard extremists, who are always the ones who respond to my posts with naysaying) wants to ride a bike to work in subzero(F) or 100+(F) temperatures. Would you want your 80-year-old grandparents riding in that weather?

Re:At last a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Global Cooling over then 20_30 years will make your args NULL and void about LA weather!

Re:At last a good idea

[Blaskowicz]

How the hell then do people there manage to get out of their home at all and not freeze to death?

Re:At last a good idea

[Grishnakh]

I imagine they wear heavy coats and layers of clothing, and don't stay outside for very long, just enough to get from their house to their car.

Walking around for a few minutes in a heavy parka is very different from riding around at 10-20mph on a bike for 30-60 minutes.

Re:At last a good idea

[Blaskowicz]

There's considerable heating when you ride, from your metabolism and muscles etc.
It makes riding at -5C (23F) a piece of cake and I think the worst I ever experienced was -10C (14F). In fact the problem then is when entering a building, that's like a heatwave and you're heavily sweating. Have to stand outside a bit, waiting to cool off.

I would love to try riding at -30C to -20C (-40C? if the "warmer" rides work out and even then maybe not!). I have no experience of these temperatures whatsoever. I'd fear something nasty could happen to the tires, brake cables and whatnot.

Re: At last a good idea

[shilly]

Or, you can take road space away from autos and dedicate it to bikes. There's a lot of outrage when you do it, but it's possible. Google London super cycle highway debate to see how this is playing out in the UK.

Re:At last a good idea

[Grishnakh]

You're forgetting the wind chill, and all the extra clothing you have to wear which makes it very difficult to have the proper range of motion necessary on a bicycle. Plus, how do you keep your head from getting too cold? Bike helmets are great for ventilation, but that's exactly what you don't want in very cold temperatures, and they don't cover your ears at all. Back in college when I rode in temperatures like you describe (down to the teens), I wore a thin skullcap under my bike helmet, but that's not nearly sufficient for subzero temps. I guess you could forgo the helmet, and just not worry about a concussion if you have an accident, but that doesn't sound like a very good option to me. If we're going to do that, when why not eliminate all the safety equipment in cars?

Re: At last a good idea

[Grishnakh]

Or, you can take road space away from autos and dedicate it to bikes. There's a lot of outrage when you do it, but it's possible. Google London super cycle highway debate to see how this is playing out in the UK.

I don't see how you could possibly do that, because now you've made it impossible for cars to get to many homes and businesses, or worse delivery trucks. How do stores get stocked when there's no road for the trucks to bring the goods to the stores to stock them? How do people get from town to town in cars if there's no roads? Taxpayers would never go for a plan like that.

Maybe in some places you could make the streets much narrower to give room for bikes; this would work in Phoenix for example where many streets are 3 lanes wide on each side (good luck convincing people to ride in 120-degree temperatures though). But here in New Jersey, the streets are only 1 lane wide (remember, these roads were laid out a couple hundred years ago most likely); you simply can't narrow them any more than they already are. Traffic between towns is already ridiculous because it's so hard to build highways here, so much of the traffic is carried on narrow streets. This can't be fixed without doing something radical, like bulldozing lots and lots of buildings to build new highways or widen existing roads, or building tunnels (obviously not cost-effective).

Re:At last a good idea

[dunkelfalke]

There are thicker skullcaps and they also cover the ears. Might not fit the current helmet so you would need a second helmet for the winter.

To me, personally, given decent clothing and spiked tires, the worst thing about cycling in winter is having to be slow enough so I don't have to breathe with my mouth, and this takes a lot of fun from cycling.

Re:At last a good idea

[drinkypoo]

That's not going to happen until we spend a ton of money and make safe bike lanes and roads, instead of expecting cyclists to share the road with idiot drivers in giant SUVs applying their makeup and texting while driving.

Moreover, it's not even a good idea without doing that. If you don't have a bike lane, you've just created zillions of choke points at which the cars will be decelerating and accelerating again. It's going to actually cost energy unless basically everyone does it. That kind of thing can't happen overnight, barring global cataclysm or alien invasion :p

Re:At last a good idea

[drinkypoo]

To me, personally, given decent clothing and spiked tires, the worst thing about cycling in winter is having to be slow enough so I don't have to breathe with my mouth, and this takes a lot of fun from cycling.

To me, personally, given a nose that doesn't work properly, I would just die. I have Asthma. I'm never, ever switching to bicycle commuting. Even with power assistance I would still arrive totally wrecked. There will always be people who cannot or will not bicycle, for reasons like these. Rather than trying to enable everyone to bicycle, we should look at alternatives that would solve existing problems and still permit people to go about their lives, e.g. PRT. It's going to be a much easier sell than cycling, and it's not a particularly easy sell itself.

Re: At last a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of places just block off the roads and make it so only bikes and pedestrians can enter. But the barricades can open/close. Usually they open during certain hours that are considered "delivery hours." Since the roads don't look like normal roads and don't have dedicated parking, most non-delivery people don't enter.

Re:At last a good idea

[dunkelfalke]

The thing is, cycling is, in fact, good enough for most of people but you are suggesting to optimise for fringe cases like you first. It is way easier to optimise for the majority and to take care of special needs separately.

Re: At last a good idea

[Grishnakh]

That still doesn't answer how car traffic is supposed to get around. You're talking about completely removing cars as an option for travel where I live. Voters will never approve that. This approach works in dense cities like Manhattan where walking is normal, there's no driveways (only street parking), and there's lots of streets in a grid, so it's no big deal to shut some of them (the smaller, non-thoroughfare ones) off for pedestrians and cyclists, and let car traffic go around. In a place where ALL the streets are thoroughfares, no matter how small the street, and all the houses have driveways, this approach is impossible.

Re:At last a good idea

[angel'o'sphere]

No, I did not forget that -40F equals -40C, I never knew it at the first place. We use C in Europe, and I'm proud that I have a rough idea about temperatures in F above zero :)

Regarding temperatures: sorry, in a dry environment it is irrelevant how cold it is as soon as you start moving your body and you at least have some 'normal' clothing you heat up extremely.

So, yes skiing or biking in -40 degrees is no problem at all, after 5 minutes you have to start to undress your heavy cloth (in case you wear heavy cloth).

I already was skiing, alpine, not cross country, at less than -30C and when I was a child winters in Germany where pretty cold. Riding with a bike to school at -30C was the norm. It took quite a while over the course of the day to 'heat up' to -18C

At midnight or in the early morning it often had -35C or less.

When I was riding to school in the morning, I usually only wore ordinary clothes + 1 warm wool pullover and as jacket a simple wind and water tight cycling raining jacket.

Ofc, I was riding relatively fast, around 20 - 25 km/h, so under the wool and with the wind tight over dress, I became really hot.

Roughly after 3/4th of the trip we had to use a river ferry. So you could cool down a bit and cylcle slowly during the town to the school to get 'down' again.

Cold temperatures are overrated/overestimated. Simple cold is no trouble, blizzards are, obviously more of a concern :)

No one (except a few die-hard extremists, who are always the ones who respond to my posts with naysaying) wants to ride a bike to work in subzero(F) or 100+(F) temperatures. Would you want your 80-year-old grandparents riding in that weather?
But you do understand that this is only a cultural thing? Or? What exactly do you expect me to do when it is above 100F? Stop riding my bike? What do you expect my grandma to do? Stop riding her bike? Sorry, your conclusion about 'die hard extremists' is utter nonsense.
The temperature has absolutely nothing to do with riding a bike in summer. There is no difference if I'm sweating like a pig in 90F and have to drink 1.5l water after 30 minutes cycling, or if I'm riding in 130F (and I'm sweating like two pigs) and drink 1.5l water after 20 minutes and another liter after another 10 minutes.

The conception of yours is only in your mind, and it is wrong.

My grandma is now 88, erm, shit 89? I forgot her birth year, eek. Anyway, she rode her bike far into the 80s, and she is not a fragile/thin/slim woman. Hm, I believe the 90 party is planned for 2017, so she becomes 88 in April, ha, figured it (getting old myself now).

Re:At last a good idea

[Grishnakh]

Yep, I'm a big big fan of PRT like SkyTran. However every time I bring it up, naysayers just tell me how it's "impossible" even though it's just using existing technology and was probably technologically doable back in the 80s or 90s (meaning it's quite easy today with current computing and navigation technology), that "it'd cost too much" even though it's far cheaper than light rail or monorails, etc.

If we had had Slashdot back in the mid 1960s, people there would have gone on and on about how it's utterly impossible to send a manned spacecraft to the Moon.

Re:At last a good idea

[angel'o'sphere]

If you have asthma, you should move to a place with fresh air and should start cycling.
A no brainer, any competent doctor would tell you so.
Doing no sports because you have asthma is only putting worse to the worse ... and cycling is very likely the best sport, except perhaps for martial arts, Karate or Aikido, or sailing/rowing.
If you are scared, consider three wheel bikes or bikes where you ride in a half lying position (and yes, an extra electro drive makes sense, too), then you can simply stop and keep sitting and have no hassle with the bike.

Re:At last a good idea

[dunkelfalke]

There is truth in it. Before I started cycling I had quite a problem with breathing. Two years later the lung function test shown values of a ten year younger guy. I was impressed.

Re: At last a good idea

[shilly]

It's obvious that taking road space away from cars and trucks won't work everywhere. It's equally obvious that it will definitely work in some places. So I don't really see the point in saying "It won't work in my part of New Jersey".

Re: At last a good idea

[Grishnakh]

The point is, I don't know many places offhand where it would work. Phoenix AZ is an exception; in most built-up places, the roads were not master-planned, and are not sufficiently wide for the traffic they already have. Most places here do not have 3-lane wide roads crisscrossing the metro area. Taking away lanes will just make traffic much worse (and the slight reduction in traffic due to increased cycling isn't going to compensate), and in very many places, there aren't any lanes to take away in the first place. Again, Phoenix is an exception, and is not at all typical of the USA at large. New Jersey is: 2/3 of the population lives on the eastern side of the country, where the local roads were probably laid out in colonial times. Furthermore, even in Phoenix this idea wouldn't work at all, because the city is simply too spread out and sprawling. Even in good weather, no one is going to ride 30 miles each way to work (that's a typical commute there). At least here in NJ, things are generally closer together, but that also means there's no room left over to build proper bike roads; there isn't even any room to build decent car roads, so the traffic is atrocious anywhere near peak times, and the roads are entirely chaotic in their design.

So no, I disagree with your statement that "it will definitely work in some places", except perhaps for a very few, very select locations where the local climate, city layout, and local culture all coincide to allow it to happen, such as Portland OR. Portland, being on the west coast, is a newer city so it likely wasn't laid out in such a cramped way like colonial-era east coast cities were, the weather is excellent as is characteristic of the west coast on every major northern hemisphere continent due to ocean currents, and it has a local culture where things like environmentalism are favored, unlike most of the rest of the US. These factors simply don't exist in almost any place else in the US.

Re: At last a good idea

[shilly]

Well, it will work in London, England, where there are several million people living. It works in many European cities already. And it works in New York City, where there are lots of Class 1 Bikeways. So many tens of millions of folks already have access to these. I'm sure retrofitting may be very challenging in some places, but London is not an especially easy place to do it either, including for several of the reasons you cite (eg our roads date back a lot further than colonial times) and we're managing. So I don't see why you're wanting to dismiss this out-of-hand.

Re: At last a good idea

[Grishnakh]

Well, it will work in London, England, where there are several million people living. It works in many European cities already.

Europe has an extremely different climate than North America; it's far more mild. Europe doesn't get brutal winters (well, inland it does, but London and various western European cities are not inland like, say, Moscow), and it never gets very hot (people there seem to think 90F is hot....). Europe's climate is pretty similar to Portland's and the rest of the west coast.

And it works in New York City, where there are lots of Class 1 Bikeways

I live right next to NYC. Not very many people use bikes there, and only in Manhattan, which is only a fraction of the city. There aren't very many bikeways, and the traffic is still brutal. Cyclists regularly get hit by cars and cab drivers (I've seen it myself). You're taking your life into your hands riding a bike in Manhattan, unless you stick to the bikeways that are totally segregated from roads (there's not many of these, mainly in the tourist areas). And again, that's only Manhattan; the other boroughs are not as bike-friendly at all. There has been a push to get people to use "CityBikes", a rental bike system, with some success. If they really want it to be more successful, they need to close down a bunch of the streets and make them bike-only, but I have a hard time seeing that because of the taxi lobby.

including for several of the reasons you cite (eg our roads date back a lot further than colonial times) and we're managing

You've also done things like close off lots of streets, institute tolls for driving in the city at certain times, etc. Those things can't be done here; they're too unpopular both with car drivers and with the taxi companies. London also has an effective subway system, something that only a few US cities have. The US has a far stronger car culture than anyplace in Europe, so it's easier over there to do things which make things difficult for car drivers to the benefit of others; not here.

Re: At last a good idea

[shilly]

You're conflating lots of things.

Addressing your first paragraph:
The point at issue was whether reallocating some roadspace from autos to bikes would be a good thing to do, not whether the climate of the US made it inherently unsuitable to ride a bike at all in (a contention I find pretty risible, to be honest). Nor was it a debate about whether or not cycling was inherently risky due to autos, whether in Manhattan or anywhere else. In fact, and pretty obviously, the whole point of cycle superhighways is to encourage cycling by reducing this risk. And I wasn't claiming that this risk was eliminated in Manhattan, I was simply saying that there are in fact routes in a major US city where auto space has been reallocated to cycles. Nor was I claiming that the amount of space reallocated needed to be large. You don't in fact need that many major bike routes with reallocated space in order to effect significant benefits for many cyclists. TfL studies go into this point in some detail, should you be interested. I am well aware of what CityBikes are, given that Boris bikes are common in London, and work on a very similar model.

Addressing your second:
Closing off streets has not happened yet. It is contentious but it will happen (and has happened in NYC too). The congestion charge is not material for cycle superhighways. The two policies are mildly synergistic, but there is no cause and effect. The tube is also not material for cycle superhighways. On culture: well, sure. But you said it was impossible in your first reply to me, not merely that it was difficult.

I don't think it's impossible, as you have been arguing. I do think that it's difficult, that it requires an effort of political and cultural will that is largely lacking, and that it doesn't work everywhere. But it could still be worth the effort.

Missed opportunity

[bugs2squash]

A Mr. Fusion, system would have been a better fit for the Garbage collection sector.

Re:Missed opportunity

[freeze128]

Or more realistically, a trash-burning steam-powered garbage truck. The more trash it collects, the more fuel it has.

Engines are more than just for movement:

[Hartree]

Fire trucks have to use their engines for extended periods to run the on board pumps during major fires.

Bad enough having to find a hydrant. Imagine having to find an electrical outlet with sufficient current capacity to keep electric pumps going after the batteries are down.

Re:Engines are more than just for movement:

[MrChips]

Aren't the majority of fire truck rolls false alarms? Could those be all electric while an on-board engine/generator burns diesel for the actual fires?

Re:Engines are more than just for movement:

[NormalVisual]

Around where I live, most dispatches are for EMS calls. Ambulance + fire truck is the usual drill.

Re:Engines are more than just for movement:

[Hartree]

Sure. Or, just make it a hybrid drive with charging from the grid and have the best of both worlds.

Fire trucks are a small enough part of the vehicles out there to be less of a worry for efficiency. Reliability is a big thing for emergency vehicles.

There are a lot of garbage trucks and other utility type trucks out there that do short range stop and start runs that would probably make a lot bigger difference.

Re:Engines are more than just for movement:

[Reziac]

Garbage trucks may not travel very far, but they run continuously for 10-12 hours per day. Also need power to run the hydraulics for the onboard crusher.

There are probably just as many school buses, and they indeed usually do two short trips per day. (Tho rural buses may travel long distances, up to 200 miles per day.)

Re:Engines are more than just for movement:

[wagnerrp]

Idling a ~300hp diesel engine just to pull a couple hp to run a hydraulic pump for a few times every hour is extremely wasteful.

1950.s Milk Floats in the UK

[nukenerd]

The UK at one time (certainly around the 1950s-60s) had the world's highest number of electric vehicles on the road - tens of thousands of them I believe.

They were milk delivery trucks (called "Milk Floats") which typically delivered milk around town in glass bottles to people's doorsteps at around 5-6 am every day. That was before most people had fridges but wanted fresh milk every morning. They ran on batteries and had a top speed of about 8mph.

It was ideal, like it would also be ideal for rubbish (US garbage) collection. Electric drives are good for the constant start-stop driving with long-ish pauses in between. Also the early morning milk floats did not wake people up as a IC-engined truck would have done.

Fridges and car ownership brought an end to most doorstep milk deliveries, but there are still some around.

Re: 1950.s Milk Floats in the UK

[shilly]

I remember milk coming this way in my childhood. It was great. We had a little milk bottle holder in which we would put the empties and set the indicator to say how many pints we wanted that morning. It was quiet, clean and environmentally friendly (the bottles were washed and reused many times before being recycled, in addition to the lack of pollution from the milk floats). But British retailing is a vicious business and tesco et al were just too fierce for up the dairy companies

Re:1950.s Milk Floats in the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

part of the reason they are going/gone is that they are heavy, over 3.5 tons, so you need an Light Goods Vehicle license to drive one, which now means you need a forklift license as well. It turns out that the transit based petrol milk floats can just be driven by any idiot with a car license so it is much cheaper to get drivers. There are issues with range and speed, which could be fixed if they wanted to invest in the technology, but the weight was the killer.

Re: 1950.s Milk Floats in the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I remember this from my childhood also. In the morning we'd all rush to get the milk first because the winner got the cream top on their cereal.

I think I was about 10 when milkman delivery stopped being available in our area, and my parents started getting big plastic bottles of milk from the supermarket. But when I moved out to my first place away from home / roommates with my girlfriend (now wife) you could get milk delivered again. So it took about 12 years for milk delivery to die as a common service and be reborn as a premium service.

When we moved to New Zealand we got all our groceries delivered. Then we moved to the USA where apparently delivering groceries in a denser and more populous region with cheaper fuel prices is deemed impossible for reasons I've never figured out.

Elon Musk had nothing to do with this

[ModernGeek]

The only purpose for putting Elon Musk's name in this is to grab the attention of the reader by dropping a popular name, I'm sure that he isn't proud of this truck; the article doesn't even mention his name. I'm sure that the "editor" that put this up didn't even realize they weren't talking about Elon Musk, they just skimmed through, saw "Tesla Co-Founder" and assumed said article was about Musk... I want to even say that the two aren't even on good terms anymore for some reason, something the "editors" should have looked into.. I'm with Steve Jobs on this one, Bloggers are not Journalists.

Re: Elon Musk had nothing to do with this

[Anonymous Coward]

The summary never implied the article was about Musk, he was just name-dropping to get more attention.

Elon Musk might very well be proud, or maybe not, it doesn't at all matter to the article.

Re:Elon Musk had nothing to do with this

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Good to know. I know that nobody on Slashdot is interested in what Paul Allen might be up to.

Re:Elon Musk had nothing to do with this

[DNS-and-BIND]

They're not so different. In the past year legitimate, serious journalists have been repeatedly busted doing exactly the same thing - passing on something they heard without verifying it.

Long distance freight:

[Hartree]

The short haul is a lot easier to do with batteries.

I like the idea of catenary wires or some other way for a truck on a freeway to get electric power from the road itself.

Use battery or a hybrid system to get from the customer pick up to the nearest interstate and them hook up to the electric for the long drive, and let the truck drive itself. Have that lane separate from the manual driving lanes.

An alarm sounds when it's time for the driver to take back over (or stops the truck in a safe place if the driver fails to take back over).

Makes the control system for the automatic driving part much easier as it's just following a wire or other guide.

Re:Long distance freight:

[PPH]

They call these freight trains. In some countries, trucks are taken from town to town on flatbed rail cars.

Re:Long distance freight:

[Hartree]

I'm quite familiar with intermodal transport. It becomes useful on longer runs. But, being able to just hook in to a powered feed is a lot more flexible.

For intermod, you have to have a truck and driver on either end of the rail link, plus the time to assemble the train, etc. It's quite efficient in a lot of ways, but unwieldy for mid range loads.

Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

"A significant number of consumers are buying electric passenger cars, but because they’re more expensive than their gasoline counterparts, the market is limited to a few percent of the overall market, many analysts say."

Significant, a few percent.

Re: Funny

[shilly]

I think he meant "a non-negligible" number. Aldi and Lidl hold only a few percent of the British retail market, but it's still significant, in that the big four supermarkets are all seeing margins erode, sales drop, and share prices fall. Same may be true here, in due course.

Chicago just bought 20 from another vendor

[Anonymous Coward]

Chicago just bought 20 electric garbage trucks for $13.4M over the next 5 years from Motiv Power Systems (adding to their fleet of 600).

With fixed 60-mile daily routes, it seems like garbage trucks are a pretty good match for the current state of battery technology.
I wonder why Wrightspeed is using a turbine as well? Motiv is making some PR hay out of the fact that their trucks for Chicago are the only all-electric ones in north america.

Elon Musk Elon Musk don't tread on me

[Anonymous Coward]

Ol' DiceDot just can't stop posting about put this guy or his battery company. Now we have a garbage truck that would make elon proud, darn post it up quick. dicedot is not allowed to go more than 48 hour without an elon musk vs something post or something that would make him proud. this guy is like morgan freeman. over reported. hipster dicedot why dont you link to a video trendily praising nikola tesla, too while youre at zombifying this site's soul with shit posts and dupes next to taboola ads of rotting teeth and warren buffet 401k secrets.

Brakes

[wb8nbs]

If there was EVER a vehicle that could use regenerative brakes, it is a garbage truck. Also the post office truck or whatever that thing is.

Re:Brakes

[NormalVisual]

Except that regenerative braking doesn't work well at low speeds.

Re:Brakes

[drinkypoo]

Except that regenerative braking doesn't work well at low speeds.

But you can get higher speeds by increasing the size of the motor, which increases the speed at which the armature passes by the coils, or the magnets, or whatever your design has that ain't moving. And there's room for that on a trash truck.

Re:Brakes

[NormalVisual]

Bigger motors aren't going to help the fact that there's just not that much kinetic energy to recover at low speeds, plus a bigger motor weighs more and will have greater internal losses in the windings. The system I have personal experience with used motors that were bigger than a V6 engine block and run through a substantial gearbox (so the motors ran fairly fast even at low speeds), and regenerative braking was still useless under about 15 mph. Residental garbage trucks don't go even that fast on the majority of their routes, and bear in mind that a heavy truck with a high accessory load will need much larger batteries.

I'm not saying that it couldn't be made to work, just that it seems kind of impractical for a heavy low-speed road vehicle that has to be completely self-contained and can't pull power from a catenary or other outside power source.

Re:Brakes

[drinkypoo]

Bigger motors aren't going to help the fact that there's just not that much kinetic energy to recover at low speeds

A typical garbage truck weighs upwards of 40,000 pounds empty. A typical full-size car is around 4,000. Tell me again how there's not much kinetic energy at low speeds. If you couldn't do regen until 15 then they were geared wrong.

Good video on this

[Tailhook]

Capstone Turbine Corporation makes the LNG burning turbine for this application. Here is a good video about it, showing the vehicle in operation and explaining the trade-offs; basically high initial capital costs with good long term savings in fuel and maintenance. Regenerative braking is a big win both in fuel savings and maintenance for garbage trucks which can perform more than 1000 hard stops per day.

Technical details on the turbine include; 200 lbs, 250 hp, 40,000h service life between overhauls (13+ years @ 8h / day.) The turbine has air bearings to eliminate wear, which implies a gas generator/power section arrangement to drive the generator, I believe.

Re:Good video on this

[dj245]

Technical details on the turbine include; 200 lbs, 250 hp, 40,000h service life between overhauls (13+ years @ 8h / day.) The turbine has air bearings to eliminate wear, which implies a gas generator/power section arrangement to drive the generator, I believe.

A gas turbine is composed of two sections- a compressor and a power turbine. Probably they are using some compressor bleed air for the bearings (which is expensive, effeciency-wise). It still doesn't make sense to me though. Diesels in that size are much more efficient, more tolerant of abuse, more tolerant of contaminated fuels, and a lot cheaper to maintain. The only reason to use a gas turbine is when weight REALLY matters. We're talking about a garbage truck here. 100-200 more pounds for a diesel engine isn't going to be noticed. It may even balance out since a tank of diesel can likely be made lighter than a tank of compressed LNG.

Re:Good video on this

[Firethorn]

Diesels in that size are much more efficient, more tolerant of abuse, more tolerant of contaminated fuels, and a lot cheaper to maintain.

Citation? In the video it mentions that a diesel replacement for the power of the turbine would be 2000 pounds, not 200. Not exactly the same size. He also specifies that the turbine requires less maintenance. The turbine(which shouldn't be running all day) is rated at 40k hours(4.5 years continual operation), doesn't use oil lubrication or have a cooling system to worry about. Service parts are filters - fuel and air.

Looking up diesel garbage truck information - I found a study where they had a service interval of 225 hours, probably about every 3-4 weeks. The study mentions going with special motor oil containing stuff that enabled them to 'extend oil change intervals by six times'. So I think that figuring on an oil change between 1-3 months is reasonable. That adds up.

As for contaminated fuels, is that such a big problem here in the USA? Besides, turbines are inherently multi-fuel, so as long as the fuel burns you should be good. If it doesn't even a diesel will hydro-lock and kill itself.

I think that the trick is that you might be thinking of aviation turbines, not power generation turbines. Looking up the Capstone turbine company, they produce power turbines, not aviation turbines.

The important bits I've heard about turbines is a bit that goes like "Small size, wide power band, efficiency, pick two". Aviation turbines aren't as efficient as they could be because they need to operate over a wide power band. However, the turbine isn't hooked to the wheels in this application - it can happily be either off or running in it's ideal power band charging the battery. At which point 1800 pounds saved DOES save fuel because a lighter vehicle can go further on a given amount of energy.

Re:Good video on this

[drinkypoo]

In the video it mentions that a diesel replacement for the power of the turbine would be 2000 pounds, not 200

Well, if he really said that, he's a dirty liar. You can trivially get 250HP from a 7.3 powerstroke, which weighs about 1100lb wet.

Looking up diesel garbage truck information - I found a study where they had a service interval of 225 hours, probably about every 3-4 weeks. The study mentions going with special motor oil containing stuff that enabled them to 'extend oil change intervals by six times'. So I think that figuring on an oil change between 1-3 months is reasonable. That adds up.

Sigh. No. You are applying statistics without understanding. The most common system to fail on a garbage truck isn't going to be the engine. The engine isnot receiving service every 3-4 weeks. A truck that unreliable would be sold for scrap. The most common point of failure is the hydraulic system. Diesel engines regularly run for literally hundreds of thousands of miles without anything more than regular scheduled maintenance service, unless they're six-liter Fords.

As for additives extending oil service life, dollars to doughnuts they're running AMSOIL. It really is a superior lube, as proven by independent testing. I'm running Schaeffer's now, which is similarly higher-synthetic. An oil can be described as a "full synthetic" when it actually contains only 10 or 15 percent synthetics (PAO, primarily - you can buy the pure stuff for A/C systems) because synthetic additives are packaged in dino juice and that's how they're added to the mix.

As for contaminated fuels, is that such a big problem here in the USA?

Water is the only common contaminant. It's not as unusual as it should be, though.

Re:Good video on this

[Anonymous Coward]

I was wondering who made the turbine as the article mentions nothing considering it's the heart of the system.

Capstone also made the turbine for Jaguar's concept sports car hybrid a few years ago.

Re:Good video on this

[Firethorn]

Well, if he really said that, he's a dirty liar. You can trivially get 250HP from a 7.3 powerstroke, which weighs about 1100lb wet.

What about the torque, and would the thing survive the stated 40k hours service life under such severe duty? He didn't mention that any old diesel would be 2k pounds, he mentioned it in the context of lifespan. I'm reminded of generators - standby diesel generators will rotate at 1800 RPM or faster, enabling more power generation from a smaller generator, but prime/continuous generators often operate at 1200 or even 900 RPM, drastically increasing their service life, but they have to be bigger to generate the same amount of power as the standby.

The engine isnot receiving service every 3-4 weeks. A truck that unreliable would be sold for scrap. The most common point of failure is the hydraulic system. Diesel engines regularly run for literally hundreds of thousands of miles without anything more than regular scheduled maintenance service, unless they're six-liter Fords.

You misunderstood what I said then. The 3-4 weeks was the regularly scheduled maintenance to do stuff like swap the oil and filters. It's not that the trucks were unreliable, it's just that they were used in such a severe duty operation that, much like NYC cabs, they ended up having to do oil changes on a frequent basis. The study was doing a lifecycle analysis using a different oil that extended the required service times substantially, even if the oil itself was more expensive, the increased usage time more than justified it.

Re:Good video on this

[drinkypoo]

What about the torque, and would the thing survive the stated 40k hours service life under such severe duty?

Yes. They used both the 7.3 IDI and its descendant the 7.3 Powerstroke in heavy equipment, generators, and so on. It's described as a light heavy duty motor, which means it's small. The 'stroke is also known as the T444, and it was used liberally by International for smaller and/or slower trucks, as well as by CASE for loaders and whatnot. You can get a lot more than 250HP out of it. Its stock power was up over that (to 275 HP) by the end of its lifetime. When performing generator or hydraulic pump duty, you can expect it to last even longer than it typically does.

You misunderstood what I said then. The 3-4 weeks was the regularly scheduled maintenance to do stuff like swap the oil and filters.

Switching to any higher-synthetic-content oil and installing a superior filter complex provides this kind of benefit. Also, the real problem is probably once again gearing. Diesels tend to contaminate their oil when driven incompetently, which is to say at insufficiently high RPM. But I can see that a trash truck might well not have sufficient gearing to really do its job. But if you go to an electric drivetrain, you eliminate that problem. I see that as the biggest benefit to an EV or hybrid trash truck. Virtually all of the oil contamination is going to be as the result of pulling away from all of the stops at low RPM. Remove the transmission and you eliminate this problem. The diesel engine isn't the problem.

I'm hesitantly interested in turbines for automotive applications, but Capstone has been trying to get something going for a long time now with no success. It makes me wonder why.

Re:Good video on this

[Firethorn]

switching to any higher-synthetic-content oil and installing a superior filter complex provides this kind of benefit.

Which is what the study mentioned. 3-4 weeks was using the old oil, 3-4 months is more likely with the high quality synthetic(with propitiatory additives) they switched to.

Looking up the specs of the 7.3L Power Stroke, it says 920 lbs dry, so 'wet' at 1100 makes sense. Making some sense of it, all I can think of is that he was rounding, so closer to 1600 pounds, not 2k, and that the 1100 doesn't include the cooling system(BIG radiator, hoses, coolant) that was also deleted.

Also, they did really improve it, didn't they? From 425lb-ft@2k to 525@1600, that's a LOT of improvement.

But if you go to an electric drivetrain, you eliminate that problem.

Among many. You also introduce some, but on the whole electric motors are vastly superior in all respects except one - the difficulty of keeping them supplied with electricity when you can't have them connected to the grid all the time.

I'm hesitantly interested in turbines for automotive applications, but Capstone has been trying to get something going for a long time now with no success. It makes me wonder why.

Conservativeness is the easiest explanation I have. These vehicles last a long time, and while buying one of these new-fangled systems could save you money, it could also lose you your shirt. See the consumer market in the USA and small diesel engines. Let them get used to the hybrid drive train, then maybe get them switched over to a turbine that has enough testing behind it in mobile applications.

Re:Good video on this

[drinkypoo]

Also, they did really improve it, didn't they? From 425lb-ft@2k to 525@1600, that's a LOT of improvement.

They made substantial improvements to the fuel injectors and then to the programming. The original powerstroke has no more power or torque than my turbocharged pre-powerstroke 7.3 IDI (AT185, I think, with an ATS 088 turbo.) But you can do nothing but chip it and maybe swap injectors ($$$) and get the same kind of power as the final-year trucks.

Whether IDI or DI, 7.3s regularly eat their fuel system around 200k, and regularly last to 400k before the truck falls apart around them. There's a lot of runners in junkyards and most of the ones that don't run need an injection pump, so the engine itself is really amazingly sound. The oil cooler is a bit of an annoyance, but that's mostly because you have to lift the engine in order to remove it for refurbishing. Otherwise, it could reasonably be part of the scheduled maintenance; you'd replace the cooler O-ring seals and the cooler header gaskets when you replaced the water pump somewhere around mid-life. I really despise coolant-oil heat exchangers, they create so many opportunities for spectacular failure. Sadly, I own two vehicles which have them.

Moters?

[antdude]

Who is General Moters? :P

Re:Low hanging fruitfor

[pepty]

Until they have to head to the next county for a forest fire and then run their pumps all day.

Pointless

[Issarlk]

Sure, it might be fine to collect garbage in the neighboorhood, but what happens when you want to take the wife and kids to vacations a few states away ?

Re:Pointless

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't take them in a garbage truck (ideally)

Who is Ian Wright?

[Anonymous Coward]

A really helpful article on how this technology came about

http://chargedevs.com/features...

Third world electric

[Anonymous Coward]

I lived in Asmara Eritrea in the sixties and I noticed they used electric garbage trucks. They were perfectly quiet, which suited me on those hung over mornings.

It's about time we tried to catch up with a small African nation.