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

There are lots of new battery technologies on the very near horizon. Sodium ion seems to be the most promising, with sodium being so plentiful. Once the trucks are built the batteries and types can be adapted and changed as they are available.

 

This is the thing that bothers most who know what the deal is with solar know local production is the best. When there is solar that is on the house, off loading at least 50% of the electrical needs during the day and having storage to run the home for half the night, would have a huge impact. When you have solar farms, you have a 30% loss in energy with the transmission of the power generated at the solar farm. But then there are other issues with these farms that are not issues with locally produced power.

North of me there is a fight going on with a solar farm plan, the township up there has bought up a lot of farm land in the past 12 years with the idea of cashing in on leasing it to a solar company which will give 2500 acres of solar power, much like the one in the thumb area of our state. There is a serious fight against it, most don't want it not because it will be unsightly but rather they would rather see the land used for farming.

Those who don't understand how it really works, they crap all over the idea, mainly with made up crap like batteries don't last. I have at my vacation place Edison batteries, which are completely rebuildable, I have a lot of them and a few of them go back to the 1930's.

Battery capacity costs have dropped, I just ordered another rack mounted battery system under $1300, which is amazing. This is number 8 and I have one more to go, then I can begin to put other storage offline that has been losing capacity, some are original batteries when the house was built.

It will take years for that technology to hit the market, but you are right, the trucks can adapt to different power sources.

Just an FYI about Prius batteries. I have owned several Prius - I say I bought them to make up for the trucks using so much diesel.

Well 90% of the time the batteries don't go bad within the battery pack, the connections corrode and have to be cleaned or replaced. 10% of the time there will be a total failure in multiple cells but overall the technology has proven itself.

Now recycling the EV batteries, many never make it near a landfill as many media morons have claimed. They go on the market, get sold off to people making power walls and storage for solar systems - local systems. I also seen them being used for EV conversions, like my neighbor has for one vehicle and is building another out of Tesla battery pack - this time it is a 1969 Plymouth Fury that he got out of a junk yard that is clean.

 

Remember these from the 80's. You've come a long way Baby

 

to me the biggest challenge is going to be the charge time. We slip seat all our trucks. Looking at the charge times, we would need to double our fleet. So double our fleet, double our insurance costs, double are parking costs, double our cleaning costs and spending more time with shuffling trailers around than I care to do- or I have to double my trailer fleet....and of course the cost for all this electric and putting in the chargers and maintaining them to support them. Parking will be much more difficult as now you have to ensure each tractor has a charger. I am not saying impossible, but they need to fix things. Furthermore, I have many doubts our current infrastructure could handle this. And lastly, what do we do when the power goes out and we can't charge our trucks at the parking lot? Not a big fan of buying the 1st gen of anything. As most have said it, when it comes down to it fossil fuel works

 

A question that might have an interesting answer, why are truck, and really auto, manufacturers skipping over a hybrid system. Yes, in the last two years, most auto companies have introduced one model of hybrid system. No large trucks have taken this approach. Curious as to why they seem to want to jump straight to battery systems. One would think, that if a hybrid system could perform well, it would lead to making the step to total battery based systems better and easier.

 

Local is always better. More responsive to immediate needs at the point of use. Solar systems can really help a regional grid in supporting short term demand loads, like mid afternoon surges when A/C systems start kicking in.

I think your loss rate is a bit high. Transmission does have some loss, it inherent in the system, it is more in the range of 5 percent or less. If any system has 30 percent loss, they have major design problems.

 

I wonder that as well.... The company hylion has something aling those lines... They have cng powered trucks and outfit current late model production trucks with electric regenerative axles that generate and can store power... But they are really moving their company in a direction towards building their own fully electric trucks... I think the hybrid model is being skipped because of the emissions standards and the government thinks electric is zero emissions... VS. a hybrid model that would still be generating fossil fuel emissions... Just speculating here.. I think a hybrid model would be the fastest most applicable way to get to production... And have an "electric truck" go completely cross country... Im not sure how big a motor you would need to keep those batteries charged, but i wouldnt think you would need a 15 liter engine anymore.. Could cut it in half or maybe less... But then again how much more weight does s hybrid model add vs just all electric... I remeber that tesla daycab when they first released it, it weighs like 40k empty with a flatbed.. I wonder if thats part of the problem as well

 

Peterbilt Debuts SuperTruck II Concept at MCE

This is a hybrid. There’s some other interesting info in the article. It runs a disconnect on the rear ends. At slow speeds it operates as a 6x4 but a 6x2 going down the highway.

 

All these companies working on the future while their performance now is garbage. Their motto should be “Investing in tomorrow because we already screwed our customers today.”

 

Seems like that path would make more sense. If memory serves me, the Prius and most other hybrids have very small engines, like about 1 liter or so. What is your APU engine? About the same? Would think that you could run a large enough generator with a 6 liter or less engine. Would guess the trade off of batteries to engine/generator would be about the same weight. From what information on how most of the hybrid cars work, under 35 mph and up to 100 miles in some, completely run on batteries. After that the generator takes over power.

 

HD diesel engine technology it's in its infancy.
The inline 6 cylinder or the OPOC modular engine can be both widely improved.
Don't doubt it.
I see them as the future in road transportation.