This will save a lot of money over time. Last time I checked in any detail, electricity prices per mile of transport per ton were about 25% that of fossil fuel prices per mile of transport per ton, and that was three years ago. They should really move all long-haul trucking to electric as well, at least for the main trunk lines, and for city-wide delivery. Remote rural routes will likely be the hardest to electrify.
I have a hard time believing electric semis are cheaper because of range limits.
The amount of energy needed to "fast charge" must be immense.
I’ve been wondering what the most repairable vehicle might look like, and I guess the USPS already put a lot of brain power into that problem. I presume this is ugly because it’s both purpose built and highly repairable.
Ugly is subjective. I see it as "modern style has been sacrificed to achieve functionality/safety/..." and that's a form of beautiful for me.
Over-provisioning vehicles has a capital penalty and requires staging areas that don’t already exist.
All of this has a capital penalty and requires stuff that doesn't exist yet. We're discussing exactly what stuff might be worth said capital penalty. If the basic running costs of these are really 25% of ICE vehicles then there's a lot of wiggle room for some extra "capital penalty" while still saving a tonne of money.
Logistics companies currently need 1 truck to go cross country. Why would they opt for 4 instead? That have to be driven to checkpoints and wait. It makes no sense
All of this has a capital penalty and requires stuff that doesn't exist yet. We're discussing exactly what stuff might be worth said capital penalty. If the basic running costs of these are really 25% of ICE vehicles then there's a lot of wiggle room for some extra "capital penalty" while still saving a tonne of money.
I’m not convinced EVs have a capital penalty over ICE. If an operator already has a truck they aren’t going to be in the market for a replacement, EV or not, until it reaches EOL. The lower cost of operation may move the needle on when ICE trucks reach EOL but not by much. How does an owner-operator justify the cost of buying two trucks and staging them? Even for larger operations how do they justify buying trucks th…
he’s suggesting using more trucks to counter the lower range. That’s the capital penalty
I think the problem with long haul trucking is just getting the range. Are we close to having enough battery capacity to allow drivers to meet their hours-per-day limits? If not electric won’t be economical for operators. Local delivery is a much clearer fit for electric, even in the short term. We see that here.
Stop-start traffic and local delivery is much clearer, but from what I've seen of the energy calculations on Tesla Semi, it actually makes sense for bulky vs. heavy shipments on flat, warm routes, as long as there is appropriately sited charging infrastructure. Especially good for consumer-facing and high margin fleets, which is why Frito-Lay is an ideal launch customer. Even if it doesn't make absolute sense today,…
Yeah you point out something that is easy to miss in these conversations. This is a transition. It won’t happen overnight. Local delivery will be first, which will contribute to economies of scale that will make ideal long-haul routes feasible, which will make further routes feasible. It will probably be decades before long haul Alaskan semis can be replaced with EVs but we can deliver the mail in LA with an EV today.
I wish I could buy one of those vans. They're almost exactly what I want to make a camper from.
EVs are still not campervan ready unless you have no plans to boondock (i.e you will always have a connection to the grid when you stop for the night). If you use solar for recharging, best efforts (with a huge unfolding PV array) get you maybe 100 mile hops. That might be enough for some folks, but it's probably not going to be generally satisfactory (and, btw, it is a huge PV array that is required).
This will save a lot of money over time. Last time I checked in any detail, electricity prices per mile of transport per ton were about 25% that of fossil fuel prices per mile of transport per ton, and that was three years ago. They should really move all long-haul trucking to electric as well, at least for the main trunk lines, and for city-wide delivery. Remote rural routes will likely be the hardest to electrify.
I think the problem with long haul trucking is just getting the range. Are we close to having enough battery capacity to allow drivers to meet their hours-per-day limits? If not electric won’t be economical for operators. Local delivery is a much clearer fit for electric, even in the short term. We see that here.
If we're willing to invest in the infrastructure, it's possible to charge the trucks while they're in transit:
I have a hard time believing electric semis are cheaper because of range limits.
The amount of energy needed to "fast charge" must be immense.
...why is it so much more than the energy required to charge slowly? The battery might get a little warmer while charging, so that's some more waste heat, but the battery gains the same amount of stored energy either way.