People seeing Musk for the fraud he is

Of course they are quick. Electric motors make stupid amounts of torque to get things moving. Hell, that's why they use them on locomotives. I'm surprised the whole "diesel-electric" thing hasn't found its way to the trucking industry...

 

Because over time batteries deteriorate and big batteries are friggin expensive. But this is based on the widely used design. BUT from what I hear the Tesla batteries are on another level well ahead of competition. That and when you make new technology someone has to be the beta tester and weed out the bugs. Many big rig drivers don’t want to be shutdown for constant repairs. Hence why many drivers hated the first generation def trucks.....even the trucks today still have kinks that need tweaking. Imagine starting over again with this $#!+. Honestly I just say production companies themselves bite the bullet and offer incentives to try out their buggy inventions instead of pulling everyone’s hairs.

 

No battery storage required for diesel-electric. Just a diesel generator making power at peak efficiency and electric motors making power very efficiently as well.

 

Don't really need batteries with a diesel-electric...just enough to fire up the engine (same as now). The difference is that rather than the engine running through a transmission, to a drive shaft, through 3 differentials, and out through the axle shafts to the wheels, the diesel engine would simply power a generator. You'd have cables running power to electric motors at each wheel. It's the same exact technology that has been reliably running trains up and down the rails for 84 years...just on a smaller scale. Even a mere 100hp electric motor at each drive wheel would put more power to the ground than most trucks on the road today. The engine under the hood would only have to be capable of powering the generator required to power the motors, and even a small diesel out of a 1-ton dually could probably provide enough power to spin the generator at a considerable fuel savings.

 

I like talking to people that vehemently think that fully loaded trains get 8 or more mpg.

 

Their mpg per loaded ton is higher than trucks. The steel on steel low rolling resistance helps a lot.

 

Weight, efficiency (conversion) loss and cost are the three primary reasons trucks don't use the same type of engine/drivetrain combination as trains. Durability is a factor as well.

 

Big Oil would never agree to 100 mile per gallon trucks.

 

Neither would physics.

 

I doubt weight would be that much different. A smaller, lighter engine could power a generator, which given the weight of transmissions (dry weight on mine is over 1800#) would be in the same ballpark. Driveshafts aren't exactly lightweight, and they would be eliminated, as would the differentials, ring & pinion gears, etc...to be replaced with the electric motors.

As for the efficiency loss, you're already losing roughly 20% between the flywheel and the wheels. Any additional losses would be mitigated through fewer parts to maintain...u-joints, differentials, transmission...just think of all the grease and oil that coild be saved.

And cost? If it cost more, locomotives wouldn't rely upon it. There would be more diesel mechanical locomotives, and less diesel electrics.

No, I would wager a guess that "It's just not how we do things" has more to do with why it hasn't been tried than anything else. The fuel network already exists (same diesel fuel), so it isn't like it would require an entire infrastructure to be built before it can take off, but no reason to build that infrastructure until it does (such as the case for "alternative fuels"). This industry is rather set in its ways...as evidenced by the boom in truck orders in the year or two prior to a new emissions regulation (EGR, DPF, SCR) as companies pre-bought the units they were anticipating buying in the next few years...followed by the bust in truck orders as nobody wanted the new technology on their trucks...and then after a few years truck sales would level off again until it was time for the next round of EPA mandates to take effect and the cycle would repeat. Nobody wants to think outside of the box, even when that box is well proven in other industries.