Cummins Unveils Electric Semi Truck Before Tesla (autoblog.com)

Cummins has beat Tesla to the punch by unveiling its own electric semi truck. According to Forbes, the fully electric, class 7 day-cab urban hauler, called Aeos, gets 100 miles of range from its 140-kWh battery pack and can haul a 22-ton trailer. While the company does offer the options of additional battery packs to triple the range or a range-extending engine generator, the Aeos is better suited for city use rather than long-haul trucking. Autoblog reports: While this electric truck is a concept, it's a working demonstration of a product Cummins plans to start producing in 2019. At the unveiling in Columbus, Ind., Cummins also revealed its latest near-zero-emissions natural gas engines, as well as the X15 and lightweight X12 clean diesel engines. The company said it is embracing new technologies that allow its customers to contribute to a sustainable future.

Comments

it's just another prototype.

[pezpunk]

we've seen hundreds of Tesla-killer prototypes and promises. What we haven't seen to date, though, is a company other than Tesla who can actually deliver a production electric vehicle that people really want to drive.

disclosure: i'm a Tesla owner (and it's by far the best vehicle i've ever owned by an extremely wide margin)

Re:it's just another prototype.

[Rei]

BMW owners used to say the same thing about their "ultimate" vehicle (right before it started a never-ending journey into repair shops)

Given that the person's Tesla will have a 8 year / unlimited mileage warranty on the battery pack and drive unit....

No, those aren't the only things that can break in a vehicle (the rest is 4 years / 50k miles), but just pointing out, Tesla's warranty coverage on the S and X is superb. And it didn't come with the 8 year / unlimited mileage warranty on the drive unit - they added that in for free to all owners when the early drive units started having bearing issues. I mean, what sort of company does that? And they generally go ahead and replace any early drive units if they make any sound at all, just as a precaution to avoid any problems down the road that might be past the warranty period.

In case you're curious, the battery packs have held up amazingly well - even in heavy service like taxi duty in harsh climates. The relatively small number of battery replacements have been almost exclusively nothing to do with the packs themselves, but a switch / connector on them. As mentioned further down in the thread (with a link to data), typical degradation for a Tesla pack is about 4% in the first year of ownership, and then it slows down greatly, with typical 5-year degradation at around 6-7%. Which is pretty much the sort of "range degradation" you'll see in a gasoline vehicle as well, since gas engines become less efficient with age and thus you don't go as far on a fixed-size tank. The primary difference being that gasoline vehicle tanks are primarily sized to minimize how infrequently you have to through the inconvenience of detouring from your daily life to go to a gas station, while EVs start each day with a full charge and the concept of "range" doesn't even come into play unless you go on a road trip - wherein a Tesla, that means "several hours of driving, then a lunch break, then back on the road for several hours more driving..." etc. Depending on the model, a 10 minute bathroom/stretch break when stopped at a supercharger means another hour or so of range. A half-hour stop to eat means about 2 1/2 hours more range. In short, it's only a minor, leaves-you-properly-rested-like-you're-supposed-to-be slowdown on long trips, while in your everyday life it means you never even have to think about whether you have to detour from your schedule to go stand outside at a place full of carcinogenic evaporating gas drips and exhaust fumes while paying out the nose for fuel.

Re: it's just another prototype.

[Rei]

No, the "fuel" that Tesla runs on is the fact that the market thinks it has massive profit potential, and has consequently pumped capital into it valuing the company as one of the world's largest automakers based on said profit potential.

But then again, random Slashdotters living in their moms' basements disagree, so clearly major capital funds and their due diligence analysis of the company's financials are wrong.

Note: there is a wide spread on the value guidance from different investors on Tesla - it's one of the curious market stories of our time. These figures generally range from bulls who think it should be around $200 to bears who think it should be around $450. But even with TSLA at $200, it would still be a massive company.

GOOD!

[Gravis Zero]

While people may think this is trying to steal Tesla's thunder, you should remember that Tesla Motors wasn't started to make a buck, it was started to prove the viability and promotion of electric vehicles. The fact that other companies want to jump on the bandwagon isn't a bad thing, it's a good thing because it means that the plan behind Tesla is working. If you only like Telsa for the money aspect, you can suck it. ;)

Re:"Better For City Use"

[Rei]

Wear down? You mean degrade? If so, no, that's not "the way it is in electric cars".

Driving on modern EVs is much less stressful than charging. A 300 mile Tesla driving at 70 mph discharges fully in 4,3 hours. It can then fill up half its pack in 20 minutes. The rate of putting energy into packs is much higher than the rate of taking them out, unless you're driving full out on the track.

Secondly, supercharging has little to no impact on a Tesla pack's life, as confirmed by numerous comparisons. Nor is degradation even much of an issue at all, period. Here is collected data on Tesla vehicles. Click on "charts". You'll see that typical degradation is about 4% in the first year of ownership, and then it strongly declines; after five years, the average total degradation is about 6-7%. Roadster owners (aka much older vehicles) usually report about 10% degradation. Tesla warranties their packs for 8 years (with unlimited miles on the S and X). And 8 year battery warranties are actually pretty much the industry standard these days.

That of course doesn't mean that you can't make a bad battery pack; it's actually easy. Early Leafs had bad problems with degradation in hot climates, for example, because their packs are only passively cooled rather than climate controlled (they still suffer worse degradation than Teslas, but they're not as bad as they used to be). It all comes down to what type of cells you use (because chemistry / design greatly affects properties; all li-ions are most definitely not equal) and how much you baby them.

You are however correct that freeway driving on EVs is much less energy (not power) efficient than in the city. EV ranges, however (at least for passenger vehicles - I've never looked into semis) are rated on the EPA 5-cycle or an equivalency metric (such as US-06 times a downward adjustment factor of 0.7). They're for "normal" highway driving, supposed to be an average of how people drive. That said, if you drive faster than average, you'll get significantly poorer performance. On the flipside, if you're a slowpoke, you'll significantly exceed the range.

Re:Musk reportedly went BALISTIC!

[Rei]

Recursion (n): See 'Recursion'.

Re:Electric trucks a joke here

[Rei]

I doubt a battery system would do so well in stop and go traffic all day?

Actually, EVs tend to go further in low-speed stop-and-go conditions than they do at high speeds. EV range is strongly correlated to velocity. Gasoline engines cancel out the increased aero losses at speed by the increased efficiency they gain from being in a higher torque regime. Gasoline vehicles (excepting hybrids) also do not regen, and they idle at stops.

As for over the road which is generally irregular routes, the ideal that you could just pull into a truck stop and charge up your electric truck for eight plus hours after only 300 miles is also ridiculous

What hat are you pulling that "eight plus hours" from? I have no clue what Cummins' plans are (presumption: "not much"), but long charge times has never been part of Tesla's game plan. Tesla battery packs are generally designed to fill approximately 50% in ~20 minutes, to 80% in ~40, and then taper down from there. Semi's launch will correspond with the rollout of Supercharger V3. All that we know about V3 is that it will be battery buffered (so the grid doesn't limit how fast it can discharge), and that it will make 350kW look like "a childrens' toy". Current superchargers are 145kW / max 120kW per stall (2 stalls per charger).

I pretty much averaged 400 miles plus a day easily,

So if you were driving, say, 70mph (go ahead and fill in the details yourself), that would be 5,7h, meaning somewhere on the ballpark of one hour of charging spread out over the course of your day of Tesla goes with fast charging for semi, even less if they go for battery swap (some people think they will; I do not). Whoop-di-doo. Fuel costs generally are double driver salaries anyway for a fleet operator. Also worth noting that in the EU, a driver isn't even allowed to drive more than 4,5 hours without 45 minutes of total breaks.

and how is Tesla measuring this distance?

Again, this article is about Cummins, but anyway, EPA ranges are based on the 5-cycle or an equivalence factor thereof. It's actually quite realistic. If you want a cycle to complain about, it's Europe's reliance on the ridiculous NEDC (it inflates EV ranges by 15-20%).

What about 6 % grades up mountains?

Grades are big loss factors for ICE vehicles, but not for EVs. An EV that rolls down the opposite side without regen loses almost nothing at all. If it has to regen, losses of the energy spent in climbing are generally only 25-50%, depending on the efficiency of the motor and battery. In the real world, the vast majority of climbing energy is recovered via rolldown rather than regen, and hence practical losses are very minimal.

Sorry trucking is a business model with around 3% profit

Which is why cutting fuel costs in half in the US, and by 60-85% in Europe, is a Big Freaking Deal.

most trucks are not owned they are leased

Are you trying to hit all of the selling points? The fact that it's leased makes it much easier because even if you have to pay a higher lease payment each month, you're saving much more than that in fuel payments each month, so it makes it a no brainer.

. Limiting weight capacity because of all those batteries

Tesla's Model 3 comes in at pretty much the same weight as other competitors in its class (BMW 3-Series, Audi A-4, Mercedes C350, etc). Semi will be no different. The packs on Semi will probably come in around 2 tonnes, give or take (it'll be easier to say once we're given exact specs). The drive units will add another 0,5 tonne or so. Compared to the weight of the engine and transmission they're replacing, that's not that much.

It will also almost certainly be the most powerful diesel truck ever. Expect

Re:Near zero emissions natural gas?

[Rei]

Bloody everyone in every conversation points out electrics pollute per mile depending on how the electricity is made.

Fixed that for you.

It is true some pollutants locally are less, and it may be better for a semi that travels long distances as opposed to cars, but a significant portion of CO2 and other pollutants (typically half for CO2 in cars) are generated by manufacturing it.

Incorrect, unless your definition of "significant" is different from mine. Said graph is from:

J. B. Dunn *a, L. Gaines a, J. C. Kelly a, C. James b and K. G. Gallagher (2015) "The significance of Li-ion batteries in electric vehicle life-cycle energy and emissions and recycling's role in its reduction" DOI: 10.1039/C4EE03029J (Analysis) Energy Environ. Sci., 2015, 8, 158-168 (The significance of Li-ion batteries in electric vehicle life-cycle energy and emissions and recycling's role in its reduction - Energy & Environmental Science (RSC Publishing) DOI:10.1039/C4EE03029J

Blue + red is energy burned in operation. Green plus purple plus light blue is energy used in manufacture, with no mass production in the EV case. Green plus purple (without light blue) is energy used in manufacture, with mass production in the EV case. To make the results of the above study even more extreme, a lot of EV manufacturers don't plan to power their production with grid power at all; Tesla, for example, plans to power the gigafactory almost exclusively with solar.

Really, it should be obvious that vehicle operation causes much more emissions than vehicle production. An average gasoline car burns its own weight in fuel every year. And beyond that, a sizeable chunk of the energy of its manufacture is recovered at the end of life via recycling.