Why do so many Americans hate European trucks?

This one was on service last week, rubber hoses for power steering where leaking already.. needed replacement.

2016 Daf, 400k km (250k miles). Dutch quality at it's finest.

 

Here's a dumb idea.
Mount a 12v battery on the front of each trailer, in parallel with the truck, and mount solar panels and/or a generator on one trailer wheel to assist charging.
The surface area of a 40 ft van is close to 1000 square feet, not including the front and rear of the trailer, surely a safe spot for solar panels could be found, could keep the truck's batteries charged as well when sitting.

 

Sure, but these are 'normal' automotive alternators delivering something like 1.5kW. When you need a lot of electricity to save fuel, you obviously need a much bigger alternator, and then it is also obvious that such an alternator will also be build with maximum efficiency in mind.

 

Perhaps that is part of it, but I suspect that trying to squeeze to much "efficiency" out of a system leads to reliability issues which were not encountered in older equipment like I run.

Looking at the efficiency of each component, and learning new ways to accomplish the same task with less use of energy is certainly a worthwhile pursuit, but the efficiency of a truck involves so much more than just fuel consumption. It is a business perspective that counts. At what cost per unit, including the cost of downtime, will this piece of equipment produce the task at hand?

 

Energy efficiency vs economic efficiency.

 

Precisely. I used way too many works to say the same thing!

I should add, I am not advocating that everybody drive a 30 year old truck. I am just trying to point out that depending on the use and usage, older technology can be economically viable.

 

You do realize that the total power (watts) the alternator has to produce is the same regardless of voltage, right?

You could up the voltage to 96 volts if you wanted but that alternator is still going to need to be producing over 1000 watts to power that fan you speak of. You can't have a magic alternator that will produce say 150 amps at 12, 24 and 48 volts. The amperage generated will be inversely porportional to the amount of voltage (150A @ 12V, 75A @ 24V, 37.5A @ 48V).

 

Yes

Sure, the higher the voltage, the lower the current, and that means thinner wires. Thinner wires means that it is easier to build a motor with high power.