Recent content by Opbrid

JohnSnowSW, There are no persons needed, the stations are entirely automatic (ie Proterra, Volvo, etc buses). The driver does need to get out of his or her cab and walk to the freshly charged tractor parked alongside. Good chance to stretch your legs? In my opinion, catenary spanning the...

In its present incarnation, it is more of a hybrid than all electric. Natural gas is not much better than diesel as far as CO2, and is particularly inefficient when burned in a microturbine. However, if they jettison the turbine and use tractor swapping, it becomes a pure EV, capable of...

Hi Wannabe, Good point on the space behind the driver (in the US/Canada only) that is currently a small bedroom.sleeping area. Good place for batteries! Even easier is to just swap the entire tractor. Since the main component of the tractor will be the battery, it isn't really much of a waste...

Rypalmer, I'm particularly interested in these "Sticky details" - I know very much how this goes, we are doing fast charging for buses in Europe, and these details can derail the best laid plans. Really, this scheme only works for big fleets who have control over their tractors, trailers, and...

Perhaps you weren't listening, the tractor swap only takes a few minutes. Drivers drive. The tractors charge. Weight is relative (Tesla Model S anyone?). Currently the ICE engine and transmission are something like 4000#? Certainly the tractors are not making money while charging, but fast...

Of course there is the Siemens overhead catenary system for trucks, proposed inductive schemes, etc. but all of these require lots of time and huge investments. Unlikely for many years. Conversely, "Superchargers for Trucks" are fast to roll out, and this tractor swap scheme seems like a simple...

True enough, but rail isn't easy to expand quickly, and point to point fast shipments nearly impossible. Trucks are here to stay for many reasons. Also, in the EU where I live, rail is already saturated, so trucking continues to grow, and an electric solution is needed desperately, so any...

Right now, we are charging buses in Sweden at 650kW (750VDC), with no barriers seen to 1MW. In other posts on this forum, a battery of 700kWh seems like it might do the trick to go 200-300 miles or so. Then you are only charging at 1C, no problem for most batteries. However, no one will want to...