Why do so many Americans hate European trucks?

It's possible to make significant improvement just by using better wire and cable, but it cost money.
For example, electrical transmission over long distances, particularly in colder climates, there are huge drops in voltage, so much that the voltage has to be stepped up at points along the way because the resistance is so high.
The solution is super conductive cable, but the cost is seemingly unjustifiable.
As a musician I noticed differences in the way my instrument sounds, cable to cable.
I have several decent quality guitar cables and a "Monster" cable that cost as much as the other 3 put together, you can hear the difference.

Just curious, snapped this pic of a local truck a while back, don't see many 10 axle combos, mostly 8 axles in Canada, assume it runs into Michigan.
Is this a popular set up in Michigan, (or Europe),what can you gross on 10 axles?

 

No, but in Europe we're using 24V, and that's a whole lot better than 12V

The industry recognised a long time ago that cars and trucks would get far more electric components. Furthermore, removing the water pump, the oil pump, the air condition compressor etc. from the engine, would create a clean clutter free engine. Using electric motors for those components would save a lot of energy (fuel), with electric motors they can run at the desired speed, instead of the same speed as the engine.

In future cars and trucks will get 48V systems. You can already order a Bentley with 48V instead of the usual 12V.

 

Real problems transport industry have:
- economical slowdown
- high diesel prices
- lack of drivers
- high costs of operation
- cheap labour lowering rates

What Caesar think is a problem:
- only 12/24V installation

 

He doesn't have to pay for any of his brilliant ideas.

A company will have to abandon all used equipment (tractors and trailers), and purchase new that work with each other. He can tout the savings of the new technology, but doesn't take into account the cost of the transition.

 

Just where do you suppose that all these electric motors are going to go? The clutter you speak will still be there. The inherent electrical problems will likely cost far more than the savings in fuel in the immediate future.

 

As far as I know only a few components operate at 48 Volt, the hybrid system the most important of them in most cases.
Bentley is not the only one to use 48 Volt, even Hyundai have cars with 48Volt hybrid system.
Most other system in these cars are still at 12 Volt, and will probably remain like that for quite some time, is the general opinion.

It all looks nice and certainly has advantages to have complete 48 Volt systems, in theory.
In reality things are a bit different, you can't just change a complete industry from 12 (or 24) Volts to 48 Volts just like that, so we will probably end up with dual voltage cars and trucks.

The lower currents have advantages, like lower voltage drops over the wiring and connectors.
But the lower currents will also lead to corrosion and connection problems much faster, simply because the current is too low to keep the connections clean and uninterrupted. Corrosion and increased transition resistance will happen over time, unless different connector materials, or connector plating materials are used.

Knowing how the bean counters at truck manufacturers work, first thing they will do is to use smaller contacts in connectors, reduce wiring diameters, because the currents are that much lower.
For example go from 16 gauge to 24 gauge, in theory enough for the current.
The result will be relatively large voltage drops again, and less resistant to vibrations, breakage etc.

That's not even considering interchangeabilty between new 48 Volt tractors and 12/24 Volt trailers.
What would happen if you connect a 12 or 24Volt ECAS or EBS/ABS unit on a trailer to the 48 Volt of the tractor?
In general trailers are run for many more years than tractor units, and largely outnumber tractor units. So the tractor would have to be multi-voltage capable to connect to existing trailers in the fleets.

Or all these trailers have to be upgraded to 48 Volt as well, and I don't see this happening, not in short term.

Sure, 48 Volts has it's advantages, but it certainly isn't all roses.

 

Or tulips.....

 

Yes indeed, high quality cables, but even more importantly high quality corrosion free connectors, are a guarantee for good electric wiring.

 

The price of shrimps is also very low this year.

What that has to do with the 48V discussion? Nothing, just as your arguments.

 

This brilliant idea has been around for 10 or 20 years by now, it is really nothing new. It's not my idea either, in case you didn't notice.

Do you really think the industry doen't come up with electrical components that will make the transition possible without abandoning existing equipment?