It's even simpler than that - put most of the battery in the floor of the trailer. The trailer is going to have to sit next to a loading dock anyway while it gets loaded / unloaded - just plug it into a charger that is right there next to the dock door. The Tesla truck thing drops off the trailer and disconnects, and then has a smaller on-board battery that can be used in the distribution center lot to get to another trailer (already loaded with cargo and charged) and hook up. The driver then leaves, fully charged (more or less).
Then you don't have to have the complicated battery swap thing, because it's built into the current process of docking a trailer, unhitching, and hitching up a new trailer to go to the next destination.
If you aren't dropping the trailer, then while it's being unloaded it gets plugged in anyway, and the whole truck sits and charges, rather than just sits like it does today.
Commercial trucks swap trailers around quite often, and those trailers sit stationary for some time while being loaded / unloaded.
Put most of the battery in the trailer. Then your trailer swaps include battery swaps, and you can put your battery charger on the same loading dock where you back the trailer up to in order to open it up and load / unload.
The tractor bit stays on the road, and the trailer bit that would be sitting stationary can be doing the charging too.
I don't know where Costco's distribution center is, but there are a shitload of them in Puyallup for various companies. Going from there to Portland would not involve nearly as much traffic, as you never actually go through the Seattle area - just SR512 south of Tacoma.
Short version: where the endpoints of your trip are matter a great deal.
And how much diesel fuel and maintenance does that standard truck cost over it's lifetime, versus the reduced maintenance needs of an EV version plus recharge electricity (possibly self generated - any place that these trucks stop for extended periods of time usually have vast spans of rooftop that are perfect for mounting solar PV panels, and those panels may already exist).
It's an argument of TCO - there may be more capital cost up front, but if the operational costs are down over the service lifetime, and that service lifetime is equal or greater, then at the end of the day it may be a savings. Plus, capital expenditure usually is much more friendly to business due to tax depreciation rates than operational expenditure - if the TCO was equal between the two, but the Tesla is more weighted towards CapEx than OpEx, then the business saves more money on taxes.
Now only if there was a way to track charging cycles on a battery pack, and some way to electronically store it so that you could quickly read them in a flash...
Truck stops exist, and usually have cheaper diesel prices for commercial vehicles with the proper credentials. Why couldn't superchargers be added to these same chunks of real estate in order to enable faster charging times? Also, many countries have regulations on the books that say that commercial drivers must take breaks every X hours of driving - sounds like a good time to top up the battery while you are taking your mandated brake.
Tesla wouldn't be spending hundreds of millions on R&D to create a prototype, much less shop it around to the large logistics companies if it didn't pencil out; and the large logistics companies wouldn't want the thing if it didn't make sense for them too.
Or, they just scan the app image in the Google Play repository, and have a way to flag things as 'bad' so that the device will remove it the next time it checks in for updates, which it already does.
Why would they need to scan hundreds of millions of devices, when all those devices downloaded it from a single repository they own and control?
Yes, Google trades your privacy for their money. But they aren't fucking morons about how they do it.
That's probably good, because the odds are you would need to buy a new device to get it anyway. The track record on most manufacturers / carriers delivering major (and even minor) updates for legacy devices is staggeringly poor.
because it's a hosted application, rather than one that locally stores all the hundreds of little-used frameworks that some lazy ass developer wired together to make 95% of their "app"?
And as is also stated in the summary, Foxconn will be spending at least 2x that just to build the place. You can bet there are all kinds of 'buy American' clauses in the contract for the construction materials, and the labor will be sourced locally. All of that will be taxed, and all of the economic activity that results from that will be taxed.
I'm not saying it all pencils out even (or even close), but it's not as dire as some people are screaming about. This is why economists are usually rather smart, and take their time before they weigh in on things - it's a complex system.
That's like saying that it shouldn't be possible for an "attacker" to "hack" your brake lines with a hacksaw.
If you have physical access to the vehicle and want to do someone harm, there are far easier ways than a laptop plugged into the ODB2 connector. And, the most obvious way that an auto manufacturer would "fix" this "flaw" is to engage in some scheme reminiscent of DRM, further locking down anyone from being able to repair the car themselves.
Oh, you want to replace the stereo? Fuck you, the security controller for the door locks is in the back, and it all has to have our special firmware on it to talk. You can get the $300 upgrade the stereo at the dealership for $2000.
In fact, this is such a known quantity by anyone that knows what the hell is going on in a modern car that there are products you can buy for some cars that actively edit the CANbus signals going into the ECU to tune the car's engine without invasive and potentially dangerous loading of non-sanctioned firmware. And, this additive hardware adds settings and features that were never available to the car from the manufacturer, such as altering turbo boost based on current octane sensor data and oil temperature data - increasing power when safe to do so, but decreasing if fuel quality is bad, or the engine is too hot. It achieves the desired effect in a safer, better, and more reversible way than an ECU flash with a different boost mapping.
And this is possible because you can slap a signal processor in between the ECU and the rest of the CANbus, and the ECU will never know it's happening. Something starts to go wrong, and you disable it or remove it completely (unless something goes REALLY wrong, in which case caveat emptor, buddy.)
Yeah, I'll go ahead and keep the open CANbus instead of some new standard that requires all kinds of lockdown and essentially DRM, and deal with the exactly zero "vulnerability" issues in literally billions of vehicle-miles travelled by CANbus equipped vehicles.
Or they don't want to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the first President in modern history to claim there were "really good people" in a fucking white supremacist rally shouting anti-semitic slogans long before the violence started.
Any truly good people would have found their car keys and used them to get the fuck out of there when the torches and jew hate started. That "press conference" was unbelievable, and I blame nobody for running as far from this administration as they can.
Nazis are deplorable, and there is no place for racist thugs in modern society.
That being said, the rights enshrined in the Constitution allow for ignorant hillbilly racist fuckheads to be ignorant hillbilly racist fuckheads (as long as it doesn't violate someone else's rights), just the same as it allows for me to be able to call them ignorant hillbilly racist fuckheads without fear of legal sanction or prosecution. And, just like the ignorant hillbilly racist fuckheads will bear the consequences of their ignorant hillbilly racist fuckhead ways, I will bear the consequences of my choice to proclaim them as such under the rights of free speech.
For some reason, this concept is either too hard to understand, or just willfully ignored by some people. And, even though I called them ignorant hillbilly racist fuckheads no less than six times, I'm sure someone will reply saying that I'm a nazi supporter in all seriousness, because I didn't immediately join in lock step with wanting to lock them all up and throw away the key (or something more violent) because of their belief in ignorant hillbilly racist fuckheadism.
Also, what do you do if you are on a desktop that doesn't have a camera (yes, they exist) or a laptop without a camera (they also exist).
Seems like a lot of work to use what is essentially Hangouts, which was essentially Gchat. Which was essentially many other IM products that came before it.
Maybe they could launch yet another chat service which doesn't work with the previous ones, and let the previous ones all die a death of neglect - because they've never done that before...
It would help if Google would actually do some development on it, and not just keep creating replacements and abandoning what was there before.
Gchat and Google Voice are a thing, then Hangouts becomes a thing and the first to are left to wither away. Now a new chat thing comes along and Hangouts is left to wither away.
I can't imagine why people don't want to hitch to this platform, and why other apps might be more popular to use. Maybe if Google didn't fuck over every single person that ever uses one of their apps, more people would give it a go?
Slashdot Mirror
It's even simpler than that - put most of the battery in the floor of the trailer. The trailer is going to have to sit next to a loading dock anyway while it gets loaded / unloaded - just plug it into a charger that is right there next to the dock door. The Tesla truck thing drops off the trailer and disconnects, and then has a smaller on-board battery that can be used in the distribution center lot to get to another trailer (already loaded with cargo and charged) and hook up. The driver then leaves, fully charged (more or less).
Then you don't have to have the complicated battery swap thing, because it's built into the current process of docking a trailer, unhitching, and hitching up a new trailer to go to the next destination.
If you aren't dropping the trailer, then while it's being unloaded it gets plugged in anyway, and the whole truck sits and charges, rather than just sits like it does today.
Commercial trucks swap trailers around quite often, and those trailers sit stationary for some time while being loaded / unloaded.
Put most of the battery in the trailer. Then your trailer swaps include battery swaps, and you can put your battery charger on the same loading dock where you back the trailer up to in order to open it up and load / unload.
The tractor bit stays on the road, and the trailer bit that would be sitting stationary can be doing the charging too.
I don't know where Costco's distribution center is, but there are a shitload of them in Puyallup for various companies. Going from there to Portland would not involve nearly as much traffic, as you never actually go through the Seattle area - just SR512 south of Tacoma.
Short version: where the endpoints of your trip are matter a great deal.
And how much diesel fuel and maintenance does that standard truck cost over it's lifetime, versus the reduced maintenance needs of an EV version plus recharge electricity (possibly self generated - any place that these trucks stop for extended periods of time usually have vast spans of rooftop that are perfect for mounting solar PV panels, and those panels may already exist).
It's an argument of TCO - there may be more capital cost up front, but if the operational costs are down over the service lifetime, and that service lifetime is equal or greater, then at the end of the day it may be a savings. Plus, capital expenditure usually is much more friendly to business due to tax depreciation rates than operational expenditure - if the TCO was equal between the two, but the Tesla is more weighted towards CapEx than OpEx, then the business saves more money on taxes.
Now only if there was a way to track charging cycles on a battery pack, and some way to electronically store it so that you could quickly read them in a flash...
Truck stops exist, and usually have cheaper diesel prices for commercial vehicles with the proper credentials. Why couldn't superchargers be added to these same chunks of real estate in order to enable faster charging times? Also, many countries have regulations on the books that say that commercial drivers must take breaks every X hours of driving - sounds like a good time to top up the battery while you are taking your mandated brake.
Tesla wouldn't be spending hundreds of millions on R&D to create a prototype, much less shop it around to the large logistics companies if it didn't pencil out; and the large logistics companies wouldn't want the thing if it didn't make sense for them too.
Or, they just scan the app image in the Google Play repository, and have a way to flag things as 'bad' so that the device will remove it the next time it checks in for updates, which it already does.
Why would they need to scan hundreds of millions of devices, when all those devices downloaded it from a single repository they own and control?
Yes, Google trades your privacy for their money. But they aren't fucking morons about how they do it.
That's probably good, because the odds are you would need to buy a new device to get it anyway. The track record on most manufacturers / carriers delivering major (and even minor) updates for legacy devices is staggeringly poor.
because it's a hosted application, rather than one that locally stores all the hundreds of little-used frameworks that some lazy ass developer wired together to make 95% of their "app"?
Yeah, it's called the 'service address' and they've been able to 'track' that for about 100 years now.
s/need time to/will never/
Here's a company that makes such devices for BMW, Mercedes, Mini, VW, and the Inifiti Q50.
But thanks for the snarky reply. Some people do still post things to Slashdot that they have some knowledge of.
At what point did I rationalize anything?
Did you read where I said I'm not saying it all pencils out even (or even close)? How is that rationalizing?
Who pays 7% interest with zero risk?
And as is also stated in the summary, Foxconn will be spending at least 2x that just to build the place. You can bet there are all kinds of 'buy American' clauses in the contract for the construction materials, and the labor will be sourced locally. All of that will be taxed, and all of the economic activity that results from that will be taxed.
I'm not saying it all pencils out even (or even close), but it's not as dire as some people are screaming about. This is why economists are usually rather smart, and take their time before they weigh in on things - it's a complex system.
That's like saying that it shouldn't be possible for an "attacker" to "hack" your brake lines with a hacksaw.
If you have physical access to the vehicle and want to do someone harm, there are far easier ways than a laptop plugged into the ODB2 connector. And, the most obvious way that an auto manufacturer would "fix" this "flaw" is to engage in some scheme reminiscent of DRM, further locking down anyone from being able to repair the car themselves.
Oh, you want to replace the stereo? Fuck you, the security controller for the door locks is in the back, and it all has to have our special firmware on it to talk. You can get the $300 upgrade the stereo at the dealership for $2000.
No thanks, I'll stick with the "flawed" CANbus.
In fact, this is such a known quantity by anyone that knows what the hell is going on in a modern car that there are products you can buy for some cars that actively edit the CANbus signals going into the ECU to tune the car's engine without invasive and potentially dangerous loading of non-sanctioned firmware. And, this additive hardware adds settings and features that were never available to the car from the manufacturer, such as altering turbo boost based on current octane sensor data and oil temperature data - increasing power when safe to do so, but decreasing if fuel quality is bad, or the engine is too hot. It achieves the desired effect in a safer, better, and more reversible way than an ECU flash with a different boost mapping.
And this is possible because you can slap a signal processor in between the ECU and the rest of the CANbus, and the ECU will never know it's happening. Something starts to go wrong, and you disable it or remove it completely (unless something goes REALLY wrong, in which case caveat emptor, buddy.)
Yeah, I'll go ahead and keep the open CANbus instead of some new standard that requires all kinds of lockdown and essentially DRM, and deal with the exactly zero "vulnerability" issues in literally billions of vehicle-miles travelled by CANbus equipped vehicles.
The Bay Area is expensive, traffic is a shit show, and public transportation takes hours to get you where you need to be.
In other breaking news, water is still wet.
Or they don't want to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the first President in modern history to claim there were "really good people" in a fucking white supremacist rally shouting anti-semitic slogans long before the violence started.
Any truly good people would have found their car keys and used them to get the fuck out of there when the torches and jew hate started. That "press conference" was unbelievable, and I blame nobody for running as far from this administration as they can.
Wish I had mod points.
Nazis are deplorable, and there is no place for racist thugs in modern society.
That being said, the rights enshrined in the Constitution allow for ignorant hillbilly racist fuckheads to be ignorant hillbilly racist fuckheads (as long as it doesn't violate someone else's rights), just the same as it allows for me to be able to call them ignorant hillbilly racist fuckheads without fear of legal sanction or prosecution. And, just like the ignorant hillbilly racist fuckheads will bear the consequences of their ignorant hillbilly racist fuckhead ways, I will bear the consequences of my choice to proclaim them as such under the rights of free speech.
For some reason, this concept is either too hard to understand, or just willfully ignored by some people. And, even though I called them ignorant hillbilly racist fuckheads no less than six times, I'm sure someone will reply saying that I'm a nazi supporter in all seriousness, because I didn't immediately join in lock step with wanting to lock them all up and throw away the key (or something more violent) because of their belief in ignorant hillbilly racist fuckheadism.
That makes far more sense. Thank you.
Well, you could always get a free phone number through Hangouts / Google Voice, until the inevitable demise of that service...
Also, what do you do if you are on a desktop that doesn't have a camera (yes, they exist) or a laptop without a camera (they also exist).
Seems like a lot of work to use what is essentially Hangouts, which was essentially Gchat. Which was essentially many other IM products that came before it.
Maybe they could launch yet another chat service which doesn't work with the previous ones, and let the previous ones all die a death of neglect - because they've never done that before...
Never heard of encryption?
This magical technology would allow only the intended recipients to read it, while still allowing storage by the service provider. Crazy, right?
It would help if Google would actually do some development on it, and not just keep creating replacements and abandoning what was there before.
Gchat and Google Voice are a thing, then Hangouts becomes a thing and the first to are left to wither away. Now a new chat thing comes along and Hangouts is left to wither away.
I can't imagine why people don't want to hitch to this platform, and why other apps might be more popular to use. Maybe if Google didn't fuck over every single person that ever uses one of their apps, more people would give it a go?