Electric semi-trucks. My vision.

[Bangor Bob]

One candidate I have in mind are the fleet of yard maintenance crews running around. To really work well, you'd not only want a truck that can tow a trailer, you'd also want electric yard equipment, at a price and in a form factor that enables working all day and recharging fully overnight.

Electric yard hostlers and drayage trucks are already a thing. California *really* wants them since so much local air pollution comes from equipment at the ports. There's also the Wrightspeed option - microturbine + electric drive + some batteries. It's not particularly more efficient than a diesel ICE, but when running natural gas it's a heck of a lot cleaner in terms of "criteria" pollutants - particulates, NOx, SOx.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

The main problem is the weight of the batteries which would be much more than the weight of the engine (the drive train would still be there, unless the motors were placed inline with the axles the way the are in subways). Remember that you'd have to design a truck that could drive all day without stopping to charge. Also many truck drivers wouldn't put up with a 75 mph speed limit.

Trucks have a limit per axle between 8,000 kg and 10,000 kg depending upon the jurisdiction. Every bit of mass that isn't cargo can't be charged for. Now there are some types of trucking (furniture vans for example) that are volume constrained rather than weight constrained. These could benefit from being electrified, but they are in the minority.

The real answer to this is more trains and fewer trucks.

Yes, weight is a huge issue. Federal Interstate limit is 80klb.

More trains, with semis picking up at hubs and distributing would allow more electrification. If costs fall enough, large logistical operations would find specialized use, I'm sure.

Still need to get to moving people affordably first though.

 

[wdolson]

Others have articulated the difficulties with long haul trucking being electrified - no need to say more there. I think that this comment shows us a path towards increasing electrification of commercial vehicles. Like many such things in life, there will be a gradual process of technology improvement leading to a larger and larger range of vehicles that can be electrified in an economical and effective fashion.

Delivery vehicles and other in-town commercial vehicles that are used for part of the working day, and then return to a depot / garage / parking spot overnight, before going back out the next day to support work are an obvious candidate for initial electrification.

One candidate I have in mind are the fleet of yard maintenance crews running around. To really work well, you'd not only want a truck that can tow a trailer, you'd also want electric yard equipment, at a price and in a form factor that enables working all day and recharging fully overnight. Initially, something that might help these vehicles and equipment electrify is the possibility of collecting a small premium from customers that want a "green" service, though I expect that will someday soon be along the lines of the banks that wanted to charge a premium for online banking services (that ended awfully quickly - the savings to the bank for universal online banking far outweighed the revenue for a subset of the bank population using online banking services).

We're not there today, but I see the day coming soon where the daily operating expenses and maintenance of electric vehicles and equipment will put the gas powered equivalents out of business because they will be too expensive to operate.

And all of these drive demand and volume, that drives the economies of scale and further research and innovation, that lower the costs and increase the capabilities, thereby bringing ever expanding markets into first feasible range, and then to a tipping point where you have to electrify to remain viable in the market.

Another 2-5 years of Model S / X, and we may see that tipping point in the luxury sedan and SUV market. An admittedly small market, but one we can study to anticipate the effect of advancing technology and volume on other markets.

I agree, but some companies have had electrics around their plants for a long time. When I was working for Boeing back in the late 80s, early 90s, their factories all had fleets of small electric pickups running around. They were about twice the size of a golf cart with a small pickup bed on the back. They ran around everywhere. They probably liked the electric vehicles because they could come and go from indoor buildings without putting anyone at health risk. With the cost of electricity so low in Washington State, that was another bonus. Never leaving the property, people could easily return them to where ever they charge them up when the battery gets low and get another one.

I can see a niche for expansion in this realm. For vehicles that never leave one location or rarely leave, range is a much more minimal issue and if the company if getting cheap to free electricity (such as with an expanded solar network where that is feasible) it makes it a good economic choice too.

At the current level of technology, the only viable way for long haul trucks is CNG/LNG. Even hydrogen is not suitable, because despite a weight advantage, it is at a volume disadvantage. And fuel cells don't have good power density and $/kW.

What could change on the battery front is metal-air or lithium sulfur batteries, but with conventional batteries, long haul is still pretty far off. Or you get creative, like overhead wires or wireless charging on the road.

Biodiesel is another possible alternative for long haul trucks and it has the advantage of only requiring no changes to run the truck on it. That means a transition can be done without affecting the fleet already on the road and can be done in stages. CNG/LNG requires a whole infrastructure be put in to use it, then the trucks need to be modified. Biodiesel isn't as clean as other alternatives, but it does move us away from oil.

Intercontinental cargo that may require electric aircraft or electric ships are probably the gleam in somebody's eye, but I've never had much luck mixing salt water with electronics of any kind.

-- Ardie

It's going to be a very long time before anyone does anything significant with electric aircraft. With aircraft, weight is everything and fossil fuels are the most concentrated energy source per volume we have. Gasoline is 33 KWH/gallon and jet fuel is a bit more than that. Lithium-ion batteries are less than 1 KWh/gallon volume. If we get a battery technology that can concentrate energy like fossil fuels, then electric planes are possible, though jets are going to continue using liquid fuels for even longer. Jets are necessary to get above about 500 mph. Propellers lose efficiency the closer you get to the speed of sound to a point where they aren't propelling you forward at all. Jet are needed to go faster and they have much higher limits. Jet engines get their propulsion by basically creating a concentrated fireball and throwing it out the tailpipe.

 

[Saghost]

If we get a battery technology that can concentrate energy like fossil fuels, then electric planes are possible, though jets are going to continue using liquid fuels for even longer. Jets are necessary to get above about 500 mph. Propellers lose efficiency the closer you get to the speed of sound to a point where they aren't propelling you forward at all. Jet are needed to go faster and they have much higher limits. Jet engines get their propulsion by basically creating a concentrated fireball and throwing it out the tailpipe.

Not necessarily. Your points about the battery density issues are certainly well made, and I believe that will become the deciding factor. However, when it comes to jets, we've learned a lot since the WW2 era...

A modern high bypass turbofan like airliners use produces around 90% of the thrust from the fan rather than the jet itself - in principle, you could have any power source turning the fan and get nearly as much thrust, including big electric motors. (Emphasis on big - a CFM56 on a 737 is delivering something on the order of 10,000 horsepower during normal cruise flight. Cooling a motor like that will be an issue, too.)

Honestly, I think a transoceanic hyperloop is a more practical engineering project than an electric airliner is right now - at least there the technologies are more or less understood and available, though the scale is certainly daunting. That might change with a major battery breakthrough, but you're talking about a couple of orders of magnitude of breakthrough.
Walter

 

[wdolson]

Not necessarily. Your points about the battery density issues are certainly well made, and I believe that will become the deciding factor. However, when it comes to jets, we've learned a lot since the WW2 era...

A modern high bypass turbofan like airliners use produces around 90% of the thrust from the fan rather than the jet itself - in principle, you could have any power source turning the fan and get nearly as much thrust, including big electric motors. (Emphasis on big - a CFM56 on a 737 is delivering something on the order of 10,000 horsepower during normal cruise flight. Cooling a motor like that will be an issue, too.)

Honestly, I think a transoceanic hyperloop is a more practical engineering project than an electric airliner is right now - at least there the technologies are more or less understood and available, though the scale is certainly daunting. That might change with a major battery breakthrough, but you're talking about a couple of orders of magnitude of breakthrough.
Walter

Turbofans get a lot of the efficiency of a propeller from having essentially a giant propeller in front, but to get up to the speeds jetliners achieve, you still need the jet engine pushing you forward. Boeing was developing the 7J7 when I was there which was a joint project with Boeing and Mitsubishi. The plan was to put a pair of uber turbo props on it, which were essentially the fan part of a turbofan engine. The plane would have been slower than a turbofan powered plane, but it would have been more efficient. The project fell apart in part because airlines weren't that interested in it. They switched gears and put resources into what eventually became the 777.

 

[omgwtfbyobbq]

I wonder if we'll see something like a phev diesel semi with ~50 miles of loaded EV range/400 miles of diesel range that can also connect to a third rail system on highway truck lanes. That could provide a good blend of fuel efficiency, emissions reduction, and capital cost. Then again, it may require an act of god to get truckers to queue up and not pass each other as often as possible in order to use a third rail system.

 

[arnis]

There are regulation how long can truck driver drive non-stop and how much must he sleep.
Truck driver - Wikipedia
During sleep trucks usually are stationary. Dual driver scenario is not popular.
Most truckers drive for 9h per day, let's say 10h. Everything else is the time for charging.

Semi with trailer will draw around 90-100kW per 100km. Truck is limited to top speed. EU usually 90kmh.
Therefore battery with capacity 10hours*90kmh=900km/day... 100kW*9=900kWh plus buffer, 1MWh
will be suitable for unlimited trucking. It's just 10 Tesla packs. 5000kg. No problem. Diesel weight 1+t, ICE 1t,

Humans sleep 8 hours. Single Supercharger stall can output 120kW. Times 8hours = 1MWh. Absolutely no problems.

My guess - less than 6 years before first fully capable "full range" electric semi. It's all about the profits.