Who is/will be the 1st TTR member to drive Electric Semi-Truck?

I do agree with that, but i will play the game to my advantage no matter what kind of equipment i need to do it... You know the old saying adapt or die... It could be the greatest thing ever or a complete pig .. Only time will tell

 

I heard this from a non believer the other day. Not saying you are but similar to other past fears brought ups in this thread about how the earth was not going to cope with humans activity sounds a bit familiar. Things like lack of land fill sites, park oil was another, and so on. "They" just seem to find more.

Again with every car, truck, motorcycle manufacturer investing so heavily in electric, surely if there was shortage or rare minerals and materials that make batteries, why would they bother.

One thing for sure though, we will recycle very little of it.

 

There hasn’t been an awful lot of experience with long term use of li-ion batteries in intensive use applications over long periods of time. Teslas have been, and still are, pretty much urban commuter cars they don’t rack up many miles, even for a car.

I’ve seen a few cases where a Tesla was used in shuttle / delivery / taxi type applications, and those battery packs dropped their max capacity by about 15%, most of that in the first 100K miles, and by 300K that deterioration basically stopped. Some vehicles have gone over 500K, before being junked, but batteries were still operational. That is the very limited, anecdotal evidence of battery longevity I’m aware of, but it does seem to be encouraging.

Problems with failed cells seem to be relatively more frequent, and shops are popping up to diagnose and replace errant cells in packs for comparatively inexpensive rates.

To address the question on the pricing of these new electric trucks (non-Tesla), they seem to be about twice what an ordinary truck costs. Co-incidentally, California (and I believe maybe New York) offer a tax rebate of about 50% towards new electric heavy duty trucks……. Your tax dollars at work.

 

Regarding battery prices, the wife has a Prius. Pro fossil fuelers have always loved to ask me "but how much does a replacement battery cost?, or "how long does it last?" and then love to advise me "$8000 for a new battery".

Well Toyota told us 8 years guarantee but they can go to 15, unlimited miles. In reality it lasted 7 and had done 112K mile. The new battery was AU $2400 but we got 12 months pro rartor warranty which brought it back to $2100 fitted. Guarantee has been bumped to 10 years still with unlimited miles.

It was far cheaper to replace the battery than upgrade as the battery is the only thing ever gone wrong with the car in 7 years, and overall its still like new basically. One set of front brake pads is all we have spent on it besides oil and filter every 9K mile. Boring for sure, but reliable and economical at its best.

 

Many men have been killed (crushed) in the hump yards in the rail yards. A single car is deathly quiet rolling slowly till it bumps the next car.

I doubt the bozos in charge will have a low speed warning of any kind, but I may be wrong…..

 

By the numbers, we (humans worldwide) are good at recycling 1 thing only, metals, aluminum is 1st, steel is second (by $ value, not weight if i remember correctly, it switches if thats the case)

So if we are going to be good at recycling anything, my money would be on rare earth metals out of battery packs before say cycling water to o2 and hydrogen.

Energy source is relevant as someone else mentioned, be it hydrogen vs electricity, that energy has to come from somewhere. Im not in the doom and gloom "the sky is falling" climate change camp, but by the numbers, none of the "green" energy crowd seem to understand that wind and solar are only supplemental at this point. IF they want to get away from fossil fuels, the only power source available is nuclear. Period. So until we ramp up more nuclear plants, everything is just lies about how much they care about the environment and future.

 

Yes renewables are nothing without fossil fuels, as they mine, power, and make the renewables too be used. Personally I'm no so keen on nuclear as we seem to incapable of dealing with it when it goes south. Doesn't do it often but once or twice is enough to see the future. Plus its extremely expansive and slow to implement, well in my country. I am no expert by a long shot.

I hear cold fusion could be winner, but think its no closer than the sun currently.

In the meant time I'm upgrading our home solar energy to 27kw, we feed in 10kw to the grid for some pocket money and help out. Then with the remaining 17 power the house, its heating and cooling, along with the pool heating. Not perfect but brings our energy bill down to double digits for 3 months.

For me if the domestic market largely ran on solar, and even if industry chipped in during the day, the need for daytime coal would reduce by 50% or more. Leaving wind, gas, and coal to supply the evening and backup for day time short fall. But again I'm no expert or ground braking thinker.

 

My Brother had a Prius for 11 years. He was quite good at keeping it serviced. Never had a battery replacement or problem. Think it was around 300k when it was totaled by insurance after being hit.

 

1. Please cite how we are actually terrible at nuclear when it goes bad, relevant numbers would be say # killed in nuke plant disaster. Fukashima, 0 deaths from the plant, it was all in the evacuation and flooding response. 3 mile island, safety measures worked, 0 dead. Chernobyl, they had to ignore like 3 recommended building parameters then also they messed up 3 other preventative measures, and then attempted bad rescue and mitigating procedures which they didnt even need to do...

Its slow to ramp up, true, but oh boy is it cheap once built.

Comparing total nuke plant deaths to even just mining deaths, its not even close, nuclear is safer in orderS of magnitude within 2 years or less, and thats the 100% CUMULATIVE nuke deaths since we started vs yearly mining


2. Solar is still going to fall prey to the storage issue, and still has the resource cost associated with producing panels (same mining etc issues with batteries)
Its still supplemental and is geographically bounded for where implementation makes sense
(that last is not an arguement against it per se, but it is a caution as to saying it is all we need to focus on and it will solve all our energy issues)

 

Not sure I mentioned people dying around nuclear going south, just we do not know what to do with it when it does. Don't see much going on around Chernobyl except a few die hard old locals who won't move, and tourists looking for a russian nuclear disaster experience. Fukushima is still a soldering #### pile, though has stabilised after dispersing 47,000 people and creating its own 18 mile exclusion zone. Today, after some 11 year on its oddly enough in part become a solar farm.

Nuclear sure looks like it can solve humanities energy problem, just not sure if humanity can solve its peaceful existence. Weather its in an arms compacity or the lesser grade energy version, we just don't know how to clean it up. The intensity and regularity of natural disasters be it derived from climate decline or not is a factor to consider that appears is not going away. This is for any energy source however.
Not saying Solar is the be all either, as it sure has its limitations, as does wind, as does coal, as does gas, as does any other offering.

It seems to me one side of politics wan't an ultimate single solution if they have to replace coal as they see climate as BS, the other is happy with a multi faceted approach and see climate as happening. There is no easy solution with clear vision.

As I said I am no expert, and don't think for second any of my views will keep people awake at night of make a scrap of difference. Its a forum.