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Nikola Motor Company Reveals Hydrogen Fuel Cell Truck With Range of 1,200 Miles (valuewalk.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ValueWalk: Nikola Motor Company just unveiled a huge class 8 truck which will run on hydrogen fuel cells. Nikola claimed that the truck's operational range will be as much as 1,200 miles (1,900 km), and it will be released in 2020. Nikola designed the Nikola One for long-haul transport across a large landmass. The truck will deliver over 1,000 horsepower and 2,000 foot-pounds of torque. Provided these claims are true, the vehicle will provide nearly double the power of the current-gen diesel-powered semis/articulated lorries, notes Ars Technica. The leasing cost of the trucks will include the fuel price, servicing costs and warranty, but exactly how the lease will work is not known now, notes Ars Technica. The company says it has already accepted nearly $3 billion in future orders. A fully-electric drivetrain which gets power from high-density lithium batteries runs the vehicle, and a hydrogen fuel cell charges the batteries on the go. Its reach is presently limited, as hydrogen fueling stations currently exist in only small numbers. This made Nikola decide to construct a network of 364 hydrogen fueling stations across the U.S. and Canada, just like Tesla with its network of Superchargers. Milton claims it will come with a smart dashboard which has the capability of picking the most cost-efficient route for drivers. Also one or two full-size beds will be included inside the vehicle's enormous cab. It will have other luxuries and necessities as well, such as Wi-Fi, a refrigerator, 4G LTE connectivity, freezer, a 40-inch curved 4K TV with Apple TV and a microwave.
Although trucks are highly regulated they also happen to be a lot easier to use a platform for this kind of experimentation. For one an extra 1000 pounds isn't going to impact performance (though it will reduce freight capacity). Some truckers tell me just ice and snow can add a couple of thousand pounds to their trucks in the winter. Anyway plenty of room to play around with different drive trains and power systems, which is what this company seem to have done.
I've always been skeptical of hydrogen as a means of of energy storage, but if the numbers are right this is pretty good, for a range of about 800 miles. 1000 hp and 2000 ft-pounds of torque are definitely good numbers for a class 8 truck. The truck I drive sometimes is only 500 hp and 1800 ft-pounds of torque, and pulls 63500 KG GVW (only on flat roads and not fast). So this should easily go up and down mountains. And with no transmission to shift, the power will be smooth and efficient. I'm thinking they've had their prototypes on the road for some time now, so it will be interesting to see how quickly they can really bring this to actual market (start leasing them to real drivers and real companies).
The articles I've read don't talk a lot about how the refueling is done and pouring liquid cryogenic fluids is pretty dangerous. So we shall see. And we don't know much about other details like if the drive train can act as a big engine brake. It's pretty funny how the media reacts to things like this. Instead of focusing on the truly interesting aspects of the truck like the power cell and drive train, they focus on the cab and how it has a nice sleeper with a microwave oven! Hilarious.
Anyway, coming from someone who actually has a CDL and drives trucks on occasion, I'm quite interested to see where this goes.
These guys have finally designed the world's best 2005 Semi Truck.
Also one or two full-size beds will be included inside the vehicle's enormous cab.
For who? Are they trying to milk the last owner operators? Walmart quibbles with OEMs over 0.1 MPG claims. The second they can, every single Walmart truck is going to be replaced by an autonomous driver, even if it's just between cities. (Given where most Walmarts are located it'll replace 90% of their need for drivers). They spent a lot of time and money designing something that will never get used by time this hits the market.
, the vehicle will provide nearly double the power of the current-gen diesel-powered semis/articulated lorries
And? Truck OEMs are moving to Natural Gas. Locomotives are too.
Everyone thought Warren Buffet was crazy buying a rail company in 2009. Turns out that he owns Northern Natural Gas the largest interstate natural gas pipeline system in the United States. Northern Natural Gas' pipeline system stretches across 11 states, from Southern Texas to Michigan's Upper Peninsula, providing access to five of the major natural gas supply regions in North America. (At which point he starts to sound a bit more like Rockefeller).
10 years ago Natural Gas was a 3rd party add on. Now the engine OEMs are selling it in addition to dual fuel engines (NG/Diesel). That goes for engines for a small tractor up through their largest stationary engines.
Natural gas is:
With a tiny compressor you could come home and 'fill up' at night..
If I was an investor the 2 power sources for vehicles going forward are going to be natural gas & batteries. You cut out a lot of gasoline and diesel refineries. You can run locomotives and semis on natural gas (since batteries alone can't (yet)).
Hydrogen, in 2016, is a non-starter. First you can't just 'get' it. We're quickly getting an EV grid and the Natural Gas 'grid' is already there.
Finally it's not about horsepower. Those Semi truck engines "only" pushing a few hundred HP can easily put out more. The Caterpillar D11 bulldozer only has 850 HP. The reason they're de-tuned is they're designed to do that 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for a million miles. You can easy tune them up to easily out do the 1,000 horsepower and 2,000 foot-pounds. [And why geeks that aren't into machinery shouldn't just look at specs like they're computers.]
By 2020 this is going to look like a dinosaur.
Still Bull. Energy density of hydrogen is 120 MJ/kg, Propane has 49.6 MJ/kg However the density of liquid hydrogen is 70.8 kg/m^3, while propane is 493 kg/m^3 at STP. Propane wins at 24.5 GJ/m^3, and liquid hyroden is only 8.5 GJ/m^3. Deisel for reference is 35.8 GJ/m^3
I heard the Chinese copied Tesla's designs and are going to release a knock-off version next year.
They're going to it Edison.
I don't say that gas turbines are generally great, they are good for certain conditions, otherwise people wouldn't try to put them into tanks since, oh, about 1943 with the Turbopanther.
T-84 is a diesel tank because it is what Ukraine has a factory for - before 1991 they were only able to build diesel T-80 in first place because the Malyshev factory can only build their two stroke diesel. That is also the reason why Ukraine barely uses the T-72 tanks - they cannot build the original engine and they would have to downgrade them with that peculiar two stroke diesel (basically the old and problematic T-64 engine with an additional cylinder) as well.
As for T-90, it is not a successor of T-80, but a successor of T-72, hence it never was a gas turbine tank in first place. The actual successor of T-90, the Black Eagle prototype, had, in fact, a gas turbine engine.
Diesel engines are much cheaper and far less thirsty, so economics are one of the reasons why diesel engines won. The other reason is that gas turbines suck (no pun intended) in the so called "hot and high" settings. This is why aircraft versions intended to take off in airports that are located at high altitudes or in very warm areas usually have more powerful engines. That is not an option for a tank, hence their engines feel anemic in the same conditions.
Like I said, gas turbines are great when it's really freezing outside, when diesel engines need a lot of time and effort to start, the fuel and the coolant lines are frozen shut and have to be thawed first. In these conditions a gas turbine tank can be started in mere minutes, and actually performs better than average thank to dense air and good cooling. Gas turbine tanks also have an excellent power to weight ratio because a diesel engine with the same output has easily twice the weight of a gas turbine. This is the reason why M1 is a gas turbine tank - it is so obese that a diesel engine would make it a Tiger 2. The Leopard 2 engine that has the same performance as the M1 engine weighs 2200 kg compared to the 1100 kg of the M1 engine. It is also twice as wide.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap