Who is ordering their tesla semi truck

Nothing I haul pays by weight.

 

Outside of bulk work nothing pays by weight down here.

 

The Tesla semi is claiming 2 kwh per mile or less. A power plant makes 0.85 CO2 per kWh. So that means Tesla semi would make 1.60 CO2 per mile.

Diesel fuel is 22.44 CO2 per gallon if we just burn it in a bucket. We know a diesel truck can get 7 mpg. That would be 3.20 of CO2 per mile. Are my numbers correct ?

I think most people will buy or not buy the Tesla semi if it's cheaper to operate then diesel. That's kind of the unknown at this point because it will need charging locations and see how it preform in real word plus the price of power to recharge

 

The numbers COULD be correct, but you don’t define what kind of power plant. If it’s a nuke or hydro, there’s virtually no CO2. If coal, more than you quote, 2.23 per KWH. (https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php)

And if you burn diesel in a bucket, it produces LESS than 22.44 lbs of CO2 per gallon because a considerable amount of the carbon will be combusted into soot (carbon) and CO. The more complete the combustion, the more total CO2 is produced. (What Are Diesel Emissions). Perfect combustion results in only CO2 and water.

 

The problem is that going green is not really green. The technology is just not ready.

Don't get me wrong because if there was some alternative energy source that we could use that would be better for the environment and would be inexpensive and it would be an endless supply that would be great, but we are nowhere near that.

So we currently have diesel trucks that apparently fossil fuels are the enemy. Now the improvements in the trucks themselves are a big deal. If I put my Cummins big cam engine in the most aerodynamic truck ever made I would probably get like eight miles to the gallon or something like that. Most of the improvements that are made are with the tires and air deflection so that the truck is more aerodynamic. You can't even compare an older truck to a newer truck simply because of that. Yes I'm sure the engine is more efficient but you're not talking 5 miles to the gallon more. Maybe a mile or two if that, so the trucks really are becoming much more efficient than the engines themselves. Which seems to indicate that the trucks themselves could continue to improve. But apparently continual Improvement is not enough.

The goal is the eradication of fossil fuels. Okay so we build electric vehicles. Yay no more fossil fuels!

Not so fast.

Where do the minerals that are needed for these batteries come from? That's right, third world countries that are completely unregulated by any pollution laws whatsoever will crank up their gigantic colossal polluting mines and mine the minerals for the batteries. So they make colossal, unregulated pollution with fossil fuels so that we avoid fossil fuels.

Hmm. Ok well that's okay because we're avoiding fossil fuels! Just plug it in and charge it!

And how exactly do we get that electricity? Oh that's right. The whole movement is like California saying that they're going to Outlaw every internal combustion engine by whatever date that it is, but when the weather is a little warm and people turn their air conditioners on it shuts down the power grid, so then they end up paying more for their electricity because they buy it on the spot Market that's powered by fossil fuels.

So again, no more fossil fuels that's the end of fossil fuels we don't need them any more we're going green!... Until predictably and inevitably and absolutely positively we need fossil fuels.

It certainly doesn't seem like there's any road that anyone is going down anytime soon that is going to eliminate fossil fuels. It certainly would seem that the powers that be would be extremely happy if there was an appearance of going green, but the world polluted exactly the same or possibly even more.

And then of course we have the batteries themselves. What do you do with those batteries when it's time to replace those incredibly expensive gigantic monsters? Apparently nobody knows and it is an ecological nightmare. So of course, full speed ahead!

And this is the whole thing of it that I just can't comprehend. When the technology is ready great let's do it. If it's not ready let's use what we have and not cause havoc all over the world to be on a crusade to eliminate fossil fuels when in reality we're really just swapping where we are using the fossil fuels and what our ecological issues are.

And also it is very commonly known that one country is going to not even scratch the surface of the pollution problem. So unless the whole world does it at the same exact time nothing is going to work. In the meantime it's just going to cause a whole host of problems to simply not get any real difference in effect.

It is always amazing when you see activists and politicians so excited to take action on doing something that really does nothing but cause problems.

And maybe someday Elon Musk or some other brilliant person will seriously come up with the technology and get it ready so that we can snap our fingers and put it into use.

That time positively is not now.

 

And not many fire departments are equipped to handle ev fires from what I understand. They should make them follow the same restrictions as a hazmat vehicle when it comes to tunnels in my opinion

 

I think this video will answer many questions brought up throughout this thread:



Unlike many folks in this thread, I am a bit optimistic about the future of Electric vehicles although I have no experience with them. I do read up on it, try to understand the basics of the technology to have insight into the future surrounding it. I also think that it's coming to this industry faster than many people think and/or believe, and will have a greater impact on it than many of the people posting believe.

I do think we are still quite a while out from OTR but not because we can't do it, but what it will truly take to get it done. I think local and regional will be greatly impacted sooner than many of you think especially after watching this video.

I also think many folks are ignorant of the truth about the impact of Moore's Law on these matters and it will continue to have on technology, power grids and the move to green energy, the advancement of battery technology in general, and many other factors like what AI is doing in sectors like google, Uber, Tesla, and the trickling down technology from those other sectors as well.

There is a massive rush behind the scenes for companies that are utilizing driverless technology because the real prize is domination in the shipping and freight industry, not smart cars. Smart cars are just the stepping stone. You control shipping throughout the country or the world, you pretty much control everything and I think that is what they are really after. Trade route domination has been something fought over for control since the beginning of time practically. It's just being fought at a much different and quieter level today. Companies like Tesla, Google, Uber, Amazon, etc... all know that being the leaders in such a thing would virtually give world domination. They aren't after driverless cars long term, they are after controlling the trade routes of modern times.

The domination is just not on trucks, but via sky also. Imagine drones picking up freight and not having to utilize roads as much anymore. Imagine simple things like having your doordash, Uber eats, Walgreens (prescriptions), etc... being delivered by a drone instead of a driver doing it. Now imagine it on a bigger scale.

Whether folks like it or not, it's not going away, and it's coming faster than most people can comprehend. All the limitations people mentioned in this thread like power grids being overloaded, fossil fuel consumption on the back end, high costs of batteries and mining, etc... will eventually be worked out as we are thinking about these things through our current limitations, filters, and imaginations. I think hydro in the world's oceans is something that will eventually dominate more than wind turbines kind of stuff, and we haven't even begun to really tap into that stuff yet. I have seen generators being created to harvess the waves in the ocean that looked pretty promising and exciting.

Moore's law will continue to play out, people will continue to become more intelligent in general, and many of these limitations we will be laughing about in just 10-20 years from now. The access to resources of education today are endless with things like Youtube alone. I was the village idiot for most of my life with some learning disabilities and lack of resources. What I have been able to teach myself in the last ten years as an older adult is absolutely phenomenal just from youtube alone. Technology is forcing us to self-educate much faster and more than we ever have.

When I was a kid, they told us it was "impossible" for water to exist anywhere else in the universe besides earth. Now we know it's literally everywhere throughout the Universe, on comets, other planets, even other earths out there, etc... Yet within my life time, it went from impossible to everywhere. If someone told me when I was just a teenager that we would be walking around with cellphones that had more technology in it combined than what they used to land on the moon, and we would even be able to do things like, "Hey Siri" to the level we can today, I would of never believed them.

I think it's ignorant to think the current obstacles won't be worked out within many of your lifetimes...assuming we don't blow ourselves up first.

I also think trucking companies that aren't thinking outside the box, and realize many local and regional drivers and trucks are going to be replaced by these technologies within a decade or two will not only hurt themselves long term, but generations of their dependents behind them also. Will they still need drivers and the like when all this happens? Sure, but so much of it will be automated, and someone with more of a tech background will be operating these things rather than your average Joe driver. Just like many of you know how to work on your own rigs, they will need to know how to work on these newer rigs to a certain level. Having the skills of even something like backing will be replaced by AI just like a Tesla can park itself today. Instead of having backing skills in school, it may be how to plug and play a camera, update the software, etc...on the rigs instead.

I think it's pretty fascinating and scary to see where it is all heading, and I would encourage anyone to keep self-educating throughout their life so they can stay ahead of the curve in general. I honestly believe it's coming faster than most people think. Especially when I read earlier this year that they have driverless taxis in San Francisco now. The more this technology is implemented, coupled with other technology like Quantum computing and AI, the faster and more Moore's law takes place IMO to overcome our current limitations.

 

Looking on ticktock, people who don't believe in vaccines, flat earth believers...
Yeah , right more intelligent

 

LOL...touche'.

When in doubt, always throw Ticktok into the mix and it will defy all arguments. You got me there. I literally just read something that said according to google, younger people are turning to ticktok as a search engine more than google now. Guess that defies everything I said. Ugh.

 

I mean, even the "top doctor" in the nation now says their latest and greatest vaccine for a disease with 99+% survivability rate doesn't do ####, even with several additional doses. At some point some of us begin to have questions.