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A Garbage Truck That Would Make Elon Musk Proud

Posted by Soulskill on from the does-it-have-rockets? dept.

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.

5 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. Low hanging fruit by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  2. Re:General Moters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A complete LACK of HTTP skills. He meant this

  3. Engines are more than just for movement: by Hartree · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Elon Musk had nothing to do with this by ModernGeek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Sig: I stole this sig.
  5. Re:Distance and Charge Time by NoKaOi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.