What Do Truckers think of Electric Truck Tractors?

You need at least 1200mi of range, be able to fully charge in 30 minutes or less without blowing a hole in the ground or through the grid, and come in at less than 30k lbs.

You also can't look like some plastic bubblebot either.

What really should be pursued at this point is a hybrid technology.

 

not to mention the drivetrains. Can you use traditional transmissions with an electric engine? Or would you have to use a step-less transmission like modern agricultural tractors?

 

Any terrain is the easy part, they can come with a motor at each wheel, all wheel drive would be nice in logging, less tire chaining I'd have to do lol. They already have more power than a diesel. They are claiming 250hp per motor so 1000hp. Meanwhile we've had diesel engines for over 100 years and the most we can get from the oem is 605hp.

Probably won't need as many repair shops, EVs have less moving parts to go wrong in the first place(which should make them more reliable), also supposedly they are simpler to work on so more people would be willing to work on their own vehicle.

The range issue pulling heavy will be fixed in time, once there's more of a demand, more money will go into better battery innovations.

 

I think a big part of the “push” is exactly for the short hauls especially until they get it dialed in and these would be able to get charged Dailey

Long Haul May be possible but I think we are a long ways away from that being the norm

 

It'll be quite a while before electric trucks can be used for long haul. They'd need to be able to run for 11 hours or more in any terrain with any weight and fully recharge in at least a 10 hour break. Better would be to fully recharge in 7 hours for splits.

I think a better option would be a diesel engine running a generator to power electric motors like nearly every single diesel locomotive has used since the steam age and so do many large mining vehicles. I don't think it's as cost effective when downsized for trucks though, otherwise we'd already have that.

 

Teck to pilot ALTDRIVE on-highway truck

Being test right now. Looks like its a highway model Western Star (the 6900XD in the pictures is a different truck)

 

Sensors don't work in bad weather and batteries die in the cold.