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Tesla's Electric Semi Truck Will Reportedly Get 200-300 Miles Per Charge (reuters.com)
According to Reuters, Tesla next month plans to unveil an electric big-rig truck with a working range of 200 to 300 miles, a sign that the company is targeting regional hauling for its entry into the commercial freight market. From the report: Chief Executive Elon Musk has promised to release a prototype of its Tesla Semi truck next month in a bid to expand the company's market beyond luxury cars. The entrepreneur has tantalized the trucking industry with the prospect of a battery-powered heavy-duty vehicle that can compete with conventional diesels, which can travel up to 1,000 miles on a single tank of fuel. Tesla's electric prototype will be capable of traveling the low end of what transportation veterans consider to be "long-haul" trucking, according to Scott Perry, an executive at Miami-based fleet operator Ryder System. Perry said he met with Tesla officials earlier this year to discuss the technology at the automaker's manufacturing facility in Fremont, California.
Given the fact that tractors typically put in 450-600 miles in a day... Yeah yeah, stop and charge, but given it takes a few hours to charge a car, and this will supposedly have a MUCH bigger battery pack, I guess truckers can now get 300 miles before they have to stop for 5-6 hours to recharge, meaning drive for 7 hours, charge for 6, drive for 7, charge for 6, etc. Not too conducive to rest!
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I can see a big need for intra-city hauling of trailers. 100 mile range (with less than 20 minute charge times) would probably be adequate and it would help build the infrastructure for electric vehicles in cities.
It also proves the technology and helps it evolve into longer range tractors. 1,000 miles is 16+ hours of driving, which I don't think is legal in most states/provinces, but 400 to 500 probably is reasonable to allow the driver time to stretch, have a meal, rest, shower while the tractor is recharging. I suspect the 1,000 mile range is to minimize fuel costs which is less of an issue with an electric tractor which should be able to plug in at multiple truck stops.
The technology won't be perfect from the starting gate, but Tesla will learn and be able to build better tractors down the road.
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My SDV6 uses about 8l/100km normally. Hook on an empty trailer, that goes up to about 10l/100km thanks mainly to the drag. Add a two ton load and suddenly we're up to 15l/100km.
How exactly is Tesla calculating their range?
These trucks (well the diesel counterparts there are no details available I've found) can haul 80k lbs so a larger lithium battery isn't an issue because it's heavy. The main problem is it's still too damn expensive. Hopefully this will come down soon. Charging will be dirt cheap but a new battery will likely cost 50-80k USD before subsidy and won't last long if the vehicle is used commercially, much less than a car. It will be interesting to see what the true cost of ownership is after a decade of real world use.
With proper logistics planning, the recharge is actually not a problem. You just time the operations nicely, or even use the loading/unloading times for (partial) recharges.
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You can release the energy from a lithium ion battery very, very, fast. Explosively fast. It takes considerbly more talent and effort to release the energy from a tank full of diesel.
I live not too far from highway. I usually cannot hear cars. But large trucks, yeah I hear them. And I guess I am breathing what they are putting out as well. I cannot wait for electric semis to become popular. Sure, in the early days, with a 300-mile limit, it will be a regional solution. But I'll take what I can get. As another poster noted, Seattle is about 150 miles from Portland, OR. An electric truck from Portland could travel to Seattle, charge while being unloaded and then be able to make the trip back. And I suspect most of the trucks on Hwy 26 near me are regional.
Electric semis? Get them on the road ASAP please.
Perfect opportunity to develop swapable battery packs.
Have gnu, will travel.
No, no, NO.. there is NO commercial vehicle on the market that would EVER sell any significant number of units if the ONLY thing they can get is a measly 200 to 300 miles a charge.
Your average OTR trucker will drive at LEAST about 500 to 600 miles a day, I know. I was one. And there will NEVER be enough time for a trucker to just stop for a day to recharge this hunk of over engineered trash. It is just flat out incompatible with the entirety of the US's commercial logistics infrastructure. In fact most of the large carriers specially try to get team drivers on the go, just so they don't have to waste any time. Most of these trucks, at best, will have all of 4 hours a day where they are NOT running.
Nope, this is just one more example of Mr. Musk trying to spin up for support to a technology just flat out won't work. Ironically, you might be able to make something like this work... but it would probably require an entire infrastructure of hot swappable batteries 'refueling stations' where you can stop and swap out batteries for fresh ones.
Even a typical local truck is running 300-400 per day.
More importantly than "... a battery-powered heavy-duty vehicle that can compete with conventional diesels, which can travel up to 1,000 miles on a single tank of fuel...." is that diesel can fill up in about 20 mins. It doesn't take 12 hours to fill the tank.
-Styopa
Those "specialised situations" could very well be cities that no longer allow ICE powered trucks to be used within their boundaries. Have depots outside the city for ICE road-train long haul pick-ups and drop-offs, and shuffle the goods onto electric short-haul for travel to/from the final destination within the city borders.
Since when did trucks sit around for extended periods of time?
The trailers, sure.
A lof of privately owned trucks are owned by a partnership of two or more drivers who work in shifts so the truck is on the road 90% of the time. When it's not moving, their capital investment isn't making them any money.
Even in little old back-water NZ, where you can't actually drive 1000 miles without ending up in an ocean and drivers have strict limits as to how long they're allowed to drive each day, trucks don't sit around for hours on end. Most of them don't even wait to board a ferry between islands, they leave the trailer at the port and move on to the next job.
Wasn't there a company named Nikola that already made a prototype for a semi trailer truck with the range of 1100 miles? I think it had a hydrogen power system with electric Drive.
You're all super focused on the range. Tesla has not said anything about the range. Some guy gave his theory. Now you're all jumping on that and either crapping on them or supporting them.
There are other uses beside long-haul. I'd expect Tesla would go first for local routes with smaller tractors and lighter trailers: supermarket and chain restaurant deliveries and the like. A fixed route would be the easiest first market for an electric tractor - assuming it's actually cheaper to operate long-term.
Tesla could still have a nice business even if it's only suitable for 5% of semi trucks sold - but I'd be surprised if they would actually be cheaper long-term (i.e., across multiple battery pack replacements, given how long commercial trucks tend to stay in service).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
He is doing things. He puts up his (and other believer's) money and he is doing things that are hard to do. I mean, he could be finding new ways to push advertising down our throats or finding new ways to exploit our privacy but he is going into outer space and manufacturing electric cars and solar panels. Give him credit for that.
Although I'm global IT for an international aerospace firm my office is above a shipping and receiving warehouse (long story.) We ship large crates (could be used for homeless housing, god knows I've had apartments about that size) full of airliner cabin parts all over the world. The trucks that pick them up, mostly FedEx, are short cab with 30' trailers, all local. If these guys can rack up more than 200 miles a day in Seattle/Everett area traffic I would be amazed. The Tesla range is perfect for this use. There are a lot of these out there. Even the can haulers (containers) from BC going to Seattle/Tacoma are in this range one-way.
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Also I think you may have to look at TCO. I mean, lets say the cost of maintenance is dramatically lower, it might make more sense to maintain more trucks and switch the load if it is cheaper overall.
And besides, they are only aiming for regional markets right now anyway. I could see UPS and FedEx trucks being a better use than the Semi market.
Most trucks operate out of a fixed depot at one end of every route. That is an obvious and logical place to put a battery swap station. Given that tractor units can already "hot-swap" trailer units, it doesn't seem like much of a design stretch to make a similar system where the truck disengages the battery at a charge-park at the depot, drives off the spot where it deposited it, backs up over a fully charged battery and it automatically locks into place under the vehicle.
The truck doesn't have to stop for half a day to recharge, it just needs to drop it's trailer, drop it's battery, drive over a fresh one and collect it, then collect the next load. All that is required is a pickup mechanism and a small battery or supercap to enable the truck for the battery change procedure.
This is also a good point.
My roommate used to drive a big-rig truck locally--pick up stuff at the port in Long Beach and take it to local distributors. All those trips were under 200 miles. She also used to pick up at the port and take loads to Arizona, where other truckers would take them to their final destination--a distance of about 350 miles, so a little over.
I'll agree that the range seems a bit low, but it's definitely interesting stuff.
Toyota Puts Fuel-Cell Semi Truck to Test at Los Angeles Port April 19, 2017 https://www.bloomberg.com/news... The newest heavy-duty truck set to operate at the Port of Los Angeles emits an unusual byproduct that California could certainly use more of: water. Toyota Motor Corp.’s hydrogen fuel-cell truck, which will emit nothing but vapor, will begin a feasibility study at the port this summer. The Japanese automaker unveiled the concept Wednesday and will start testing it in short-distance fleets that run back and forth between the city’s docks and nearby warehouses operated by retailing giants. Swapping internal-combustion engines for fuel-cell stacks will support Governor Jerry Brown’s efforts to cut emissions from freight movement in California. The ports of Long Beach, Los Angeles and Oakland handle 40 percent of U.S. container traffic, with commercial shipments generating half of California’s toxic diesel-soot emissions and 45 percent of the nitrogen oxide that plagues L.A. with the nation’s worst smog.
There are a number of routes where an electric truck would never need to charge - ones where they drive an empty truck up a hill to a mine or agricultural area, pick up a heavy load, and then have it push you back down the hill. I can foresee drivers needing to watch that the battery is empty enough to make it down the hill.
I trust that they have built the regenerative system heavily. Driving a truck down a hill is where truck drivers earn their money, and drivers will love them if they make that job easy.
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I have a question for you? How come so many truckers are really fat with world record guts? They don't look too healthy. Not implying that you are that way. It seems that most of them chain smoke too. It is amazing that any of them reach the age of 60. Coal miners get black lung. Truckers get big guts and coronary disease.
I don't think you're looking at the whole picture here, though. Traditional trucks have to have drivers. That means to go beyond 11-hour operating days, you have to either have two drivers ($$) or a network of depots with sleeping areas so you can hand off the truck to a new driver every 11 hours (possible, but logistically challenging). Autonomous EV trucks, even if they spent 3 hours out of every 8 hours charging, would still do 15 hours a day (four hours more than a single driver). And if they used a battery swap approach (5 minutes per "charge", with one charge every ~4.5 hours), then they would do 23.5 hours per day (more than two drivers). So I'm not convinced the range issue is as much of a problem as you think it is.
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Actually no, no that STILL will not work because even those 'small local routs' STILL use full sized semi trucks. They just use what is a called a 'day cab'. Or a basically full sized semi truck, but without the sleeper compartment.
Another problem that I didn't think think to mention was the supply chain of replacement truck parts here in the US. There are so many trucks in operation that they HAVE to keep parts pretty standardized just to keep them all running. One thing Musk is complete ignoring about the industry is that part of the trucking industry. That any one trucking company HAS to be able to get access to spare parts continuous or the fleet breaks down. In fact I have a solid example of this in the problem that a lot of companies have ti the new 'super single' double wide tires. Basically it's just one bit tire instead of two, as you see on most rigs. In a lot of ways the new try is better, but they just can't them in stock for most of the industry. So to this day there's not a lot of shops that carry a lot of the latest style.
The idea that you're going to have fleet of trucks that will ONLY get 200 or 300 miles on a charge is LAUGHABLE worthless in any but the most specialized situations.
For long haul, sure. But that's hardly the only type of truck in use on roads and highways today. All of the big courier and postal companies have fleets of trucks used just for commercial pickups and deliveries. These trucks don't run all day long -- they often run a route in the morning delivering packages, and a route in the afternoon picking up packages. They only route starting and ending at their local distribution centre, and spend a good deal of time stopped, and won't put 200 - 300 miles on them in a day. And I'd guess that, in North America, there are over 100 000 such trucks on the roads on any given day. Those trucks aren't in use at night, and so could make economic sense to run in an electric variant.
Local in-town moving trucks would be another possible example that could benefit from an electric fleet. People don't move their houses and apartments at night, and short-haul moves can typically be completed within a day. According to this source, nearly 60% of all personal residential moves in the United States are within the same county. All of these could easily be serviced by an electric vehicle with a 200 - 300 mile range.
I don't think either of these examples is a "specialized" situation (according to the above source, in the year in question there were over 23 million moves within county) -- they're just different from the type of hauling and logistics _you_ have experience with. Tesla's trucks aren't aimed at the type of hauling you're discussing -- but there is still a pretty massive market for smaller regional hauling that Telsa could tap into if they get the economics right.
Yaz
You're assuming that Tesla is going to target the US market with the first generation. It may choose the European market where a 200 mile trip between points is probably more common, often from rail heads or ports. It's also a market where the dominant diesel modes of transport have been recognised as a problem prompting new targets for electrification.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
These aren't long-haul trucks. They're inter-city trucks, often used to go between ports and their destinations, inside the city.
Sure they may be limited in that you can't take them between cities, but inter-city trucks have their purposes .And there are plenty of delivery trucks out there that run between stores and distribution warehouses where the store can't accept a trailer load. (They are sometimes called lorries).
Of course, none of those uses may call for the stereotypical "trucker" type, but yes, they're driving trucks and need all the requisite licensing and all that. And these trucks DO sit around a fair bir, so if you can even retrofit the loading bays and such with electric chargers, that's the best way to make sure of the loading and unloading times.
Yeah yeah yeah, "trucks" are big rigs that run on the interstates, they aren't "light trucks" (aka SUVs), or the cube vans and the like doing local deliveries. Though port cities also have a need for the big style trucks that really don't do much other than travel through the city delivering between the port and the customer warehouses (because they need to deliver the 20 and 40 foot containers).
And yes, some truck drivers do like inter-city driving. Because it also means they're sleeping in their own beds at night, see their families all the time, not worry about logbook checks or weigh stations, etc. And again, those port lineups, if you can put them in charging stations, well, more opportunities to charge up.
It's also why the article mentions the trucks will not come with sleeper cabs.
I wish they would get rid of the diesel busses in cities. Chinese companies have been building 150 mile range large busses for a while now, and most new busses sold in China re electric. Meanwhile ours still spew out black soot right into people's faces.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
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Your point is only valid for OTR truckers, but there are plenty of trucks that are only used inside a small area. Take fuel trucks that deliver gas stations in and around a big city for example. They are the ones that would benefit from being electric, as ironic as it sounds - provided, of course, that electric trucks are allowed for dangerous goods transportation.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Nope, this is just one more example of Mr. Musk trying to spin up for support to a technology just flat out won't work. Ironically, you might be able to make something like this work... but it would probably require an entire infrastructure of hot swappable batteries 'refueling stations' where you can stop and swap out batteries for fresh ones.
I agree he often promotes lofty and possibly unreasonable goals. But he's trying. He's moving the needle. I give Elon all my support.
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Electric trucks are already used in practice, see for example:
https://www.streetscooter.eu/
http://www.dpdhl.com/en/media_relations/press_releases/2017/deutsche_post_ford_manufacture_e-van.html
It's used for local mail delivery. 80km range is fine.
One of the things that Trucks hate the most is ANY down time.
Not having emotions, trucks don't hate anything. Drivers hate down time, but drivers are going away.
The idea that you're going to have fleet of trucks that will ONLY get 200 or 300 miles on a charge is LAUGHABLE worthless in any but the most specialized situations.
As it turns out, there are numerous cases where an electric class 8 truck is idea, like short-haul deliveries, or port drayage.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Meanwhile ours still spew out black soot right into people's faces.
Those vehicles should never have been permitted to have a ground-level exhaust. It's slightly better for people around the roads, but spectacularly worse for the people actually on them.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Thanks for your post. Seems to me an all-electric semi isn't ready for prime time. A hybrid semi seems to make more sense, especially for in-city local use. That energy wasted in braking large loads could be recouped. A smaller diesel engine and a respectable battery pack might mean a cost saving that is respectable enough to make up for the added cost of the hybrid system. Or it might not. If it were a workable idea they'd probably be doing it now.
As someone who drove semi and smaller commercial trucks and buses for over 20 years both as owner-operator, and as employee, I think you are missing the regional driver of a company owned aspect of these vehicles
As a long hual vehicle that range and possible downtime would suck money out of any private owner-operator's pocket. As a driver for a bigger outfit that maintains it' own regional fleet it is a potential money saver. I have worked both sides of thhat equation and can see both the down and up side of this vehicle. I have taken a trailer and dropped it and grabbed another trailer less than 20 minutes later and headed on down the road because that was how I made money I have also waited up to 4 hours for the client to get a load into the regional company's' trailer because I made money on an hourly basis and my company made moneynot only on the delivery but also on me waiting for the loading to be completed by their client beyond the first hour. Yes most days the client warehouse completed the loading in under an hour but sometimes shit happens and I had to wait and wait and wait. If I was lucky and the client knew they were going to run slow I could do another pickup or delivery but most mornings I was scheduled to be at the client dock by 7 am and they has given us no warning that something has gone wrong at their site before I go the dock.
So long haul owner operator you have completely correct - fuck this piece of shit prototype - unless you can fuel me up in 30 minutes of less from damn near empty to 98%+ and I can charge up at every community, truck stop, depot or hole it the wall I used to get fuel at ; but as a regional short haul company with hourly paid drivers .....this could save me lots of money on maintence and fuel costs ( depending on regional electricity cost ) Regional short hual is a big enough market for them to try as an entry or niche market and still turn a nice profit if they can get a big enough set of clients
Please see my "over 20 year" AC reply to the the parent.
For a regional short hual company these have great potential to save money even without the autonomous aspect. I do have a lot of worry over the self-driving aspect of these vehicles a lot more than I do with self-driving cars.
Where do you live? In The Netherlands, diesel buses emitting visible soot disappeared decades ago. New ones are extremely clean, although CNG buses, which are even cleaner, are quickly gaining popularity.
The nice thing about EVs, is it is rare to have break downs. And yes, musk is well aware parts issues.
Well, since 38% of the cost of trucking is just for fuel it could make quite a bit of sense to stop for 30-45 minutes every 300 miles for charging.. Or even better, do a 5 minute stop to replace the battery-pack..
Overview of the costs for a diesel-powered truck.
http://www.atri-online.org/wp-...
And if reading this:
https://electrek.co/2017/04/20...
Morgan Stanley came out today with a detailed note exploring the business of Tesla Semi and the analysts, Adam Jonas, who covers Tesla for the firm, and Ravi Shanker, a logistic analyst, believe that Tesla will go with a battery leasing model.
So this analysis is not done by Tesla but by Morgan Stanley so i would trust that a lot more than trust anything you spew out..
If Tesla charged $0.25/mile to lease the battery out, (a) the carrier can reduce its total fuel bill by 50%
50% in just fuel-cost reduction. That would be a 20% reduction on the total trucking-cost.. Increase salary-costs to cover the cost of stopping to recharge (if you have long routes) and you will still end up with something like a 15% or higher drop in trucking-costs.... For inter-city deliveries you will not have any separate recharging-stops and you will also not have the increased fuel-cost associated with driving in city-traffic.
I'm not a Tesla-fan but i do see the possible cost-savings that this would enable... If Tesla can meet the demand as described in the electrek.co article above i do not know but there will be more companies than Tesla that will go down the same route.
How many people have bought an electric or hybrid car to get the sticker for the HOV lane?
I wonder if an electric truck could get similar privileges in California.
I see that his Muskiness has managed to purchase some moderators. Did you actually get paid, or are you sucking his cock for free?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You can also factor in that electric vehicles has less things that can go wrong and does require less maintenance.. I can find a bunch of articles about gasoline-powered vehicles, but no comparisons with diesel-engines..
The major parts in an electric engine are:
- The ESC that control the amount of power the engine gets. Quite small so easy to keep a spare in the truck.. But also fairly interchangeable.... Usually rated by amp and voltage so anything a similar should work too..
- The actual electric engine.. These should most-likely outlast the life of the truck..
- The battery.. These usually never completely fail, but degrade in capacity if a cell in the battery would get shorted..
- Controller that will manage battery-levels, overheating etc.. And this one should also be fairly small and allow for a spare in the truck.
and there are not much more things that are critical for the function of the vehicle.. Compare that with a diesel or gasoline engine... (not counting on other stuff like hydraulics etc since that would be the same for both type of trucks)
For a big semi you might add a gearbox to increase the amount of torque it could produce, while keeping the electric engine a bit smaller.. You could also have an electric engine per wheel or axle to give more power, with the added benefit of being able to continue driving even if one of them failed.
Actually no, no that STILL will not work because even those 'small local routs' STILL use full sized semi trucks. They just use what is a called a 'day cab'. Or a basically full sized semi truck, but without the sleeper compartment.
How much importance does does the truck's chassis have between the two styles of trucks? As far as I can tell the only real difference between a day cab and sleeper cab semi would be the elongated chassis on the sleeper which can support more or larger fuel tanks. There shouldn't be a difference in engine block or the GAWR of the chassis.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
There's a classification system for vehicles that's already in use and you can be a good judgment call on which class they're targeting once they unveil the vehicle. Additionally, the only locations that can't accept a trailer load either have no room for the truck and trailer or lack a forklift while having no loading dock.
Once you have a picture of the truck then you can determine Tesla's intent for it. Right of the bat we're going to see which classification the truck can fit into. The first thing to look for is what all is on the chassis. The cab is a given but what to look for is whether it's just a cab/chassis or if they already have some things fitted to the chassis. If they have a box on it then they're targeting class 5-7 depending on the number of rear axles and that's in line with deliveries made within a city. If they have a fifth wheel they're targeting class 8-13 and that's a different sort of use case. If it's a pure cab/chassis then they're leaving which class to target the vehicle up to the purchasers.
If the chassis already has a trailer attachment point then you're getting into what people classically refer to as semis which are the class 8-13 vehicles. The trailer on these vehicles typically sits higher off the ground than you would find in class 5-7 vehicles. You would need a loading dock with a hand lift or a forklift (with or without a dock) in order to unload the trailer.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Charge for a trip is one thing, maintaining a good capacity over time is another.
Assuming that it's a 1:1 swap.. agreed. But with the range limitations, perhaps things would more like the pony express, fresh trucks at handoff points. You have to think outside your narrow worldview.
also, you're a cunt.
-jct
Seattle is working on it. There's already a lot of trolley routes, but they recently got some battery-powered buses, and are ordering a lot more.
The biggest thing that is missing is how many miles does it do unloaded, half loaded etc. if it does only 300 miles unloaded then it's not even good enough for small delivery trucks. Pulling several tons of product costs energy, a lot of energy. The diesel tanks on some trucks can take up to 400 gallons and those batteries are about 100 times less dense per volume of energy.
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If you were a trucker, then you would know that all trucks are not used for long-haul. In fact, a sizeable fleet of trucks with 53' foot trailers are used for intra-city delivery to large stores. To say otherwise is pure horse shit.
Why would you think it would take a full day to recharge, when any logistics center you stop at would have access to a nice beefy 480V triple-phase power connection on the grid, and plenty of cement on which to build a big beefy charging center right next to their big ass diesel tank and pump? No EV takes a full day to charge, why would this one?
Don't spread FUD.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Why do you assume that Tesla hasn't talked to experts in the industry before going all the way to prototype on this? Especially when the summary (and the article) says that they have?
Do you think that the logistics industry conspired to have some fun with Tesla and get them to spend millions on a prototype that nobody wants? Or, do you possibly think that they sat down and came up with the requirements of such a product, and then Tesla worked to deliver those requirements... just like any other engineering effort ever?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
I think the ideal application is something like the regular routes here in the Los Angeles area. There are a huge number of truckers who go back and forth between the port complex and major logistics centers in the Inland Empire. The round-trip is well under the 200-300 mile range of these trucks, and it involves a lot of travel through highly congested areas where electric vehicles have an inherent efficiency advantage. Perhaps more important, the ports have a long-standing problem with diesel exhaust pollution, and they're talking about phasing out diesel trucks for electrics to help deal with it. This is going to make that practical rather than pie-in-the-sky.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Listen, MORONS. ALL VEHICLES BREAK DOWN. There is NO vehicle brand that will NOT need replacement parts. Yeah, sure. You might not have to replace whole engines anymore, but news flash... they don't have to replace engines very often as is. But that doesn't mean you don't have to keep replacement parts on hand. Like AIR COMPRESSORS. Yeah, you see all commercial vehicles use pneumatic braking systems. And guess what, all CURRENT MODELS OF COMPRESS run entirely off of engine power. And LITERALLY EVERYTHING is run off that central air compressor compressor. Everything to the climate control systems to the braking systems, to the SUSPENSION system.
Again, once more you MORONS. Just because you can build a single model of truck in no way prepares Muck for the gargantuan task of changing the entirety of the US transpiration industry. Electric semi trucks... will NEVER be a worth a DAMN. And that's before we get to the fact that a crashed semi truck full of lithium ion batteries is basically a giant BOMB in crash. Unlike just a really big fire in a diesel burning truck cash.
Think about the package delivery industry. UPS and FedEx have fleets of trucks that drive fixed routes day in, day out. They load up at a hub, then drive to the next destination. Then fill up again and return home. Rinse/repeat. These use-cases alone would be a good use for these types of vehicles.
The next step would be the "around town" delivery vans. Most run a fixed circuit of mostly right-hand turns, with regular stops for pickup and delivery.
Start simple. Do the math. If companies can save money using these vehicles and shift their diesel to other tasks they will do it.
Long haul routes will continue to be dominated by diesel rigs for the time being.
-Darkelf
I am sure if I dig back and look up the announcement for SpaceX there will be aLOT of naysayers that will give many and varied reasons why an orbital delivery startup just won't work, and on and on. The posters will be knowledgable, and their arguments cogent (mostly) and reasonable. And yet here we are with SpaceX doing what the few other space companies claimed was impossible or financially unworkable. I trust that there are quite a few people at Tesla who can do maths, and can handle research. I also trust that Musk has the restraint to wait until all of that is done before announcing a move into a new market. I am not a super genius, but even I can see how fleet vehicles can be a great match for electrification.
The roof of a large trailer looks like an ideal place to have a huge bank of solar cells. Large trucks could lead the way in going to electric vehicles.
Growing up my dad was a semi driver for 10 years and I spent many a summer days and other breaks going with him on runs and filling out DOT mandated driving logs for him. He did what is called "Local" trucking, on a tractor that hauled two flat beds. What this means is he did deliveries in the Seattle area, but that area was from Blaine, Wa to Eugene, Oregon all the way east to Pendleton, Oregon. In a single day he would easily drive between 400-600 miles a day. Now there is a maximum time that he is allowed to drive as mandated by the USDOT, WSDOT, & ODOT.
There are also other things to consider like how often he had to take rests, operating time. Is there a charging station on his route, out in the middle of no where, conveniently accessible, will it charge his truck faster then fuling? Time is precious to these guys, they don't like the long days, they want to get their miles and deliveries done quickly and efficiently. A charging station will take longer to charge the batteries.
When you start talking about batteries you also need to consider weight, batteries weigh a lot more then fuel, and these trucks haul borderline maximum weight all the time. When you add in the batteries, you could easily put a truck over weight at the scales. When you get rid of diesel engines, you also remove other features of the trucks that are necessities, these trucks rely on engine brakes to slow down a lot; you don't have that with an electric motor. They use engine braks because current braking technology overheats and becomes useless too easily, and is also expensive and a big pain to keep replacing.
Another thing that keep coming to mind, is, is what I am calling weight to range. Is his estimated distance based on a fully loaded truck that is at maximum weight or is it based on a truck with half of his weight used? As you all know, the more weight you add to a motor, the more energy you need to expel to get up to full speed.
There are big companies that can use Musk's trucks. But, when you look at the actual trucking communities which is really a lot of small companies that bid for jobs, his trucks won't really work.
Taking into account the range Musk is talking about with trucks and drivers getting their work done, and all of the factors I have mentioned. Having an electric truck with current technology and facing the needs of the current community west of the Mississippi, and factoring their time needs, his electric truck dreams are a long ways away.
So these trucks can run around the clock, stopping every 3-4 hours for a 1 hour charge and still beat a trucker on average.
Of course, the 200-300 miles is unconfirmed. We'll see.
Maximum 11 hours of driving with a minimum of 10 hours off off-duty (sleep). If they can average 70MPH, that's 770 miles per shift.
Seems to me Tesla would have to hit something real close to that mark before an all-electric semi will get much of a foothold in the long-haul market. Of course, they'll also need to be able to recharge completely well within the 10 hour down-time requirement.
Like you say, think FedEx and UPS. They make a lot of stops, but have relatively short routes, and can usually expect to be recharged overnight.
When I started working for RTC, they were trying to teach us a complicated way for a team to switch drivers and log time such that the truck never had to stop. I was a sole owner/operator, so I didn't pay that much attention.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Hmm. I've had to pay for an engine overhaul. A battery replacement, with a trade-in, is likely to be cheap compared to the labor of an overhaul. Then there is oil changes. 5 gallons of engine oil is not cheap, and god help you if you spring a leak. I've known a guy that got a fuel tank ruptured. A hundred gallons of diesel kerosene running into a stream carries a big cleanup bill with it. Then you have to dispose of the used engine oil. Back in the day, dockyards would have burners to heat the building with used engine oil. I think those were so dirty that they were eventually outlawed.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
I wonder if it'll have battery swapping. It would seem to be a perfect fit for vehicles that travel fixed routes (mail, retail delivery, etc). Have an automated battery swap system at each location, the truck drops off/unloads its trailer, picks up/loads a new one, drives over the battery swapping station and in a few minutes is back on the road. The battery packs could even be used as a backup power source in the case of an outage and/or a load balancing system electricity savings.
And yet, most dock yard have a specially designed yard tractor for moving trailers around the dock. The cost and safety savings are enough to use a few of these instead of full sized tractors.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Diesel-electric locomotives get 200-350MPG. The mass population doesn't want to use it for transportation of goods because it's too slow and not nearly-immediate satisfaction. Now, for a truck, having to stop 3/4 of the way through a haul to wait hours for a charge to complete the haul is different....... right?
*faceplant*
Those trucks also tend to be worn out, repurposed road trucks. A large house will have about 16k lbs of stuff. Most will be between 4 and 8k, from my experience. And the truck will not run much, and won't be pulling hard when it does. People don't want to pay much, so the profit margins are also really thin. You won't see many new trucks moving household goods. A mover will just buy a worn out road truck and paint it.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Swapping out the battery back entirely makes little sense for passenger cars but for long haul trucks it makes perfect sense. Instead of recharging stations trucks could swing through, drop their battery and pick up a fully charged replacement.
And where are these truck supposed to charge? How long to full charge 4 to 8 hours? Need infrastructure first. Tesla should focus on trains.
Short-longhaul shipping will be the first segment to benefit from fully autonomous vehicles. Go Elon.
I have some mod points, but I can't find the '-1 Frothing at the mouth' option.
>There are other uses beside long-haul
Yeah.......tanks. At some point I'm expecting the military applications to come into question. If you can engineer an electric semi truck engine for hauling heavy loads of weight up to 300 miles, you can certainly engineer a tank with the same sort of engine. Next comes the driverless navigation system and artificial intelligence driven targeting (both of which will inevitably make their way into tanks as well at some point). Yes, we're just inching our way closer to having real HK robots from the terminator movies. Judgement day is inevitable.
Why would EV trucks necessarily have to use compressed air braking?
Not enough for long haul, yet. But a fair start
The Chevy Volt ICE can generate 60 kW as a Range Extender. Using a much larger battery on a semi-truck coupled with a appropriately sized Range Extender and fuel tank would mean range is no longer an issue. Use the batteries when in city centers, slow traffic, down slopes, and accelerating to speed. Use the Range Extender to generate when cruising on the highways or topping off the battery.
One question is whether you add an externally mounted Range Extender. in that case, it needs it's own generator motor. However, if it's designed into the chassis--like the Chevy Volt--you utilize the propulsion motors to generate electricity when they're not being used to propel the vehicle. The Volt uses a simple planetary gear and clutch arrangement that could be scaled and be far simpler and less bulky than the typical big rig power train.
If the rumors are true, these trucks could carry multiple electric motors. There's no need for them to all be the same motor. Using multiple, different motors--like the Volt--allows you to target efficiency across a larger set of loads. Some motors are better at slow speeds with massive amounts of torque and others for higher speed cruising. Clutch in a Range Extender on the slower speed motors and you can utilize them at their best even at highway speeds.