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Wonder if there will be 110v battery heaters in the Semis? You can plug a Diesel into a 110v socket to keep the Engines and fuel warm when not being used.
How do you keep a fleet of Battery powered Semis from getting cold soaked in Frigid Weather without being plugged into these large power chargers like the Mega Chargers?
Scheduled departure - battery power alone (reduces range, but might be ok on known routes), a low kW power source (enough for heating, block heater, refrigerated lorry power).


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Good discussions all around.

CARBs ACT legislation has been adopted by many states on the coasts. Can’t remember if OR is included or not. WA is.

Either way there will be a lot more electric trucks soon. There is already a lot out there (non Tesla).

OR was the only other state that had planned to follow CARB regulations in 2024 but they have since postponed.
 
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Will places like NYC be able to handle the power generation required for their all of their Municipal Vehicles to go 100% electric in a few years?
This also include Fire Trucks, Ambulances and Police Vehicles. NYC had to go back to using ICE powered Sanitation Trucks for Snowplowing
The New York City Department of Sanitation is the largest sanitation department in the world, with 7,201 uniformed sanitation workers and supervisors, 2,041 civilian workers, 2,230 general collection trucks, 275 specialized collection trucks, 450 street sweepers, 365 snowplows, 298 front end loaders, and 2,360 support vehicles. It handles over 12,000 tons of residential and institutional refuse and recyclables a day.
 
Deleted by OP. I shared some info but thought better of it, thinking it might qualify as privileged info.

Sorry about that.

But the very vague version is that Paccar has sold many times more EV Semis than Tesla has, plus has CNG and H2 on the horizon. Paccar stock did better than Tesla stock did last year as well.

Just don't quite get why the hype around Tesla building semi's.
 
Deleted by OP. I shared some info but thought better of it, thinking it might qualify as privileged info.

Sorry about that.

But the very vague version is that Paccar has sold many times more EV Semis than Tesla has, plus has CNG and H2 on the horizon. Paccar stock did better than Tesla stock did last year as well.

Just don't quite get why the hype around Tesla building semi's.
Most folks who have looked into it and done the math of the full-cycle efficiency and costs of H2 don't see a big future for H2 in transportation. so that probably won't get much attention.

CNG is still fossil fuel, so while it's cleaner than gasoline or diesel, it's a baby step away from the current fossil fuel economy and the associated costs. And CNG stuff has been around a long time...I feel like I've seen CNG on city buses for at least 20 years. So, probably not much current excitement on that.

That aside, the world needs as many electric vehicles as it can get, so I imagine folks here would be happy to learn more about Paccar's EV offerings.

Obviously, this being a Tesla forum, Tesla will get lots of attention. Tesla is also in the news (positive and negative) constantly...they get clicks...so the self-fulfilling result is that they get even more stories and discussion in the media and world as a whole.

By comparison, honestly, before this, I had never even heard of Paccar. So, today I learned that they are the parent company of subsidiaries Kenworth, DAF, and Peterbilt. But, even trying to google now, it's hard find promotion and/or specs of their EV semi offerings. What I have found in just a very quick search for EV's tied to Paccar is:
  • Kenworth T680E battery electric truck with up to 150 miles of range, from a 396 kWh battery, and with a max charge speed of 150 kW. It uses CCS1 and takes about 3 hours to charge.
  • Kenworth and Peterbilt Hydrogen Fuel Cell trucks with ~450 miles range available for reservation now and delivery in 2025
  • DAF XD Battery Electric with 310 miles of range and 325 kW charging
As I noted, many folks just arent' excited about Hydrogen (the middle bullet point) anymore. Those EV trucks are perfectly acceptable...they have lower range and slower charging than the Tesla Semi, but they (and just about every other EV truck) will have a place they can fit in and serve an excellent purpose. As above, I'd say the biggest reason there isn't more excitement about them is because they aren't being promoted the same way, and aren't being built by a company that historically drives clicks in the same way.
 
Will places like NYC be able to handle the power generation required for their all of their Municipal Vehicles to go 100% electric in a few years?
This also include Fire Trucks, Ambulances and Police Vehicles. NYC had to go back to using ICE powered Sanitation Trucks for Snowplowing
The New York City Department of Sanitation is the largest sanitation department in the world, with 7,201 uniformed sanitation workers and supervisors, 2,041 civilian workers, 2,230 general collection trucks, 275 specialized collection trucks, 450 street sweepers, 365 snowplows, 298 front end loaders, and 2,360 support vehicles. It handles over 12,000 tons of residential and institutional refuse and recyclables a day.
The answer generally is no. You will see a bunch of information about how the total average power of the grid can support commercial vehicle electrification, but for many operations you don't get to choose when to charge due to better proving or off-peak demand. This is especially true as the amount of electric trucks leaves applications where the truck returns to base every day and only works a single shift.

Its a significant concern for the OEMs but the approach seems to be we will crank out vehicles to meet the regulations until we are asked to stop :). When some areas can't handle any more, other areas will still have capacity, so I think it is good to just keep upping the numbers of EV trucks until we find the limit the infrastructure cannot support. Hopefully as more vehicles deploy, the infrastructure grows as well but its hard to show we need to increase infrastructure if people don't see the need. I think its one of those things you can show using data analysis until you are blue in the face, but no one believes you until it becomes common knowledge it is the holdup. Even then, maybe it won't be an issue and a lot of analysts and the OEMs were wrong. No one wants to wait and find out.

A lot of the analysis I have seen and the analysis in the Greenhouse Gas Phase 3 regulation which essentially mandates a certain overall nationwide fleet sales includes trucks using 200kW chargers, only charging at night, and having batteries similar to the size of the product offerings we have had for years. I think this is where the biggest issue is between studies that say we are going to be fine, and studies that say we will not be. The information showing we will not be able to support use more realistic charging options such as a megawatt charger (can go down to a low power similar to current CCS1 DC fast chargers and up to ~1MW in the near future, most are at about 0.75MW available now) and use trucks that have around a 1MW of onboard storage which will be necessary for many applications.

Just my take on it.

Deleted by OP. I shared some info but thought better of it, thinking it might qualify as privileged info.

Sorry about that.

But the very vague version is that Paccar has sold many times more EV Semis than Tesla has, plus has CNG and H2 on the horizon. Paccar stock did better than Tesla stock did last year as well.

Just don't quite get why the hype around Tesla building semi's.
You can't even guess how many times I hear "when will you build EVs like the Tesla Semi?" and I am like we have been for a few years.... Its just aggravating a bit to the people who work on them as the media and hype machine are all around Tesla's Semi which is not even a real production vehicle (despite what it may be titled as, its still in customer test phase and they don't have a volume production line). On the other hand its good that there is so much publicity and people are excited for elerctric trucks and know its possible that it is what it is and you take the good with the bad. I just wish instead of saying "when will Telsa sell the Semi so we can have electric trucks?" the media might tip the hat to the people who are actually doing it and give credit to there are options out there, and the Tesla when/if sold at scale will be a step forward in the evolution.

When comparing to the current offerings, remember that these are the products being sold right now and produced in quantity. There is a lot more stacked in the pipeline to come from everyone that utilizes the newest technology and not what was available when the existing version in production now had at the time it was designed.

Most folks who have looked into it and done the math of the full-cycle efficiency and costs of H2 don't see a big future for H2 in transportation. so that probably won't get much attention.

CNG is still fossil fuel, so while it's cleaner than gasoline or diesel, it's a baby step away from the current fossil fuel economy and the associated costs. And CNG stuff has been around a long time...I feel like I've seen CNG on city buses for at least 20 years. So, probably not much current excitement on that.

That aside, the world needs as many electric vehicles as it can get, so I imagine folks here would be happy to learn more about Paccar's EV offerings.

Obviously, this being a Tesla forum, Tesla will get lots of attention. Tesla is also in the news (positive and negative) constantly...they get clicks...so the self-fulfilling result is that they get even more stories and discussion in the media and world as a whole.

By comparison, honestly, before this, I had never even heard of Paccar. So, today I learned that they are the parent company of subsidiaries Kenworth, DAF, and Peterbilt. But, even trying to google now, it's hard find promotion and/or specs of their EV semi offerings. What I have found in just a very quick search for EV's tied to Paccar is:
  • Kenworth T680E battery electric truck with up to 150 miles of range, from a 396 kWh battery, and with a max charge speed of 150 kW. It uses CCS1 and takes about 3 hours to charge.
  • Kenworth and Peterbilt Hydrogen Fuel Cell trucks with ~450 miles range available for reservation now and delivery in 2025
  • DAF XD Battery Electric with 310 miles of range and 325 kW charging
As I noted, many folks just arent' excited about Hydrogen (the middle bullet point) anymore. Those EV trucks are perfectly acceptable...they have lower range and slower charging than the Tesla Semi, but they (and just about every other EV truck) will have a place they can fit in and serve an excellent purpose. As above, I'd say the biggest reason there isn't more excitement about them is because they aren't being promoted the same way, and aren't being built by a company that historically drives clicks in the same way.
Electric pretty much is the most efficient way power the vehicles. Keep in mind the wide variety of use cases a semi truck model has and the remote locations they are used in. Not every application can be covered by electric, especially with the lack of charging infrastructure, so there will have to be more than a single solution.

CNG trucks have been around for a long time. Westport has been making injection equipment for Cummins engines since at least 2013. Yes it burns fossil fuel, but it does not create NOx in large quantity like diesel and power plants burn it to generate power so althoguht not the best, its not bad, and much better than diesel for emissions.

For H2 there are applications where it makes sense. Fuel cells are pretty finicky and they need really clean air and are pretty expensive, so time will tell if they catch on in vehicles or are more used for stationary power generation. H2 ICE is an application for hydrogen that uses a traditional diesel engine design for the most part and can be either port or direct injected (much better). The cost here is significantly less than electric trucks and fuel cell trucks, but its nearly emissions free and can be fueled quickly. In Europe this will be an option as they are gearing up to support it with fueling stations, in the US its not as clear, but DOE is funding more investigations into it which shows there may be more ability to use it from a regulatory perspective.

The joke hydrogen is the fuel of the future and always will be is mostly true, but I think there is a place for it depending on application. Electric will be much less hassle, so if possible it would be the better choice. Electric trucks are still mega expensive though, even with the vouchers so the cost aspect may put hydrogen in favor in the near term.
 
The EV Semis actually cost new well over $600K. The Federal and State government rebates are currently $140K/ unit right now in CA, which of course taxpayers pay. The diesel fuel tax in CA is $1/ gallon, so there is another $100K the CA taxpayer has to subsidize EV's with per unit, over its lifetime.

Yet, believe it or not, the issues above are not what really makes them truly money losers. See the following for a few relevant points.

EV semis can't do the miles and need time on the chargers. Due to hours-of-service rules this is either going to require shorter shifts, or additional employees or additional trucks.
You are allowed an overweight permit in OR, as we are in TX, however the overweight permit is allowed for both diesel and EVs, so no advantage there. The fact is that EV semis are going to haul a lot less. Meaning you will absolutely need to have more EV Semis on the roads to legally haul the exact same tonnage of goods.
The batteries are going to be wiped out quickly and expensively due to the 1 GW charging speeds.
I've been told by people with turned up diesel semi-trucks, with much less instant torque than the Tesla EV semis, they EAT tires and tires are very expensive for Semis. I had a guy with a 700 hp CAT tell me his drive tires were done in sub 10K miles. Normally a set of drive tires, which cost about $3K, go about 80K miles. The tire bill along with the power of the Ev Semis would melt profits. Also, tire PM is actually a larger polluter than the ICE by a long shot. Meaning a tire eating EV Semi would still pollute more than a diesel, even just at the vehicle.
Frankly, I don't believe for a moment that mining a 200+ kwh battery pack, replacing it likely annually, then figuring out a way to generate the electricity to charge these things, is actually greener than a modern diesel, whose tailpipe emissions are currently cleaner than the air they take in, in every major US City.
To build a single truck charging station (not the additional electricity generating plants, which cost much much more) to charge approximately 8 EV Semis cost approximately 1.5 million. I was told of a company that did it strictly by the book in SoCal, all permits and processes followed, and when they try and charge their 8 EV's several blocks of their local neighborhoods lose power as each EV Semi uses about 24 homes worth of electricity.

EV semis are what happen, when a bunch of politicians actually think they are a lot smarter than they are.
you don't do trucking yourself i take it? Lots of "someone told me" troll bait.
 
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The answer generally is no. You will see a bunch of information about how the total average power of the grid can support commercial vehicle electrification, but for many operations you don't get to choose when to charge due to better proving or off-peak demand. This is especially true as the amount of electric trucks leaves applications where the truck returns to base every day and only works a single shift.

Its a significant concern for the OEMs but the approach seems to be we will crank out vehicles to meet the regulations until we are asked to stop :). When some areas can't handle any more, other areas will still have capacity, so I think it is good to just keep upping the numbers of EV trucks until we find the limit the infrastructure cannot support. Hopefully as more vehicles deploy, the infrastructure grows as well but its hard to show we need to increase infrastructure if people don't see the need. I think its one of those things you can show using data analysis until you are blue in the face, but no one believes you until it becomes common knowledge it is the holdup. Even then, maybe it won't be an issue and a lot of analysts and the OEMs were wrong. No one wants to wait and find out.

A lot of the analysis I have seen and the analysis in the Greenhouse Gas Phase 3 regulation which essentially mandates a certain overall nationwide fleet sales includes trucks using 200kW chargers, only charging at night, and having batteries similar to the size of the product offerings we have had for years. I think this is where the biggest issue is between studies that say we are going to be fine, and studies that say we will not be. The information showing we will not be able to support use more realistic charging options such as a megawatt charger (can go down to a low power similar to current CCS1 DC fast chargers and up to ~1MW in the near future, most are at about 0.75MW available now) and use trucks that have around a 1MW of onboard storage which will be necessary for many applications.

Just my take on it.


You can't even guess how many times I hear "when will you build EVs like the Tesla Semi?" and I am like we have been for a few years.... Its just aggravating a bit to the people who work on them as the media and hype machine are all around Tesla's Semi which is not even a real production vehicle (despite what it may be titled as, its still in customer test phase and they don't have a volume production line). On the other hand its good that there is so much publicity and people are excited for elerctric trucks and know its possible that it is what it is and you take the good with the bad. I just wish instead of saying "when will Telsa sell the Semi so we can have electric trucks?" the media might tip the hat to the people who are actually doing it and give credit to there are options out there, and the Tesla when/if sold at scale will be a step forward in the evolution.

When comparing to the current offerings, remember that these are the products being sold right now and produced in quantity. There is a lot more stacked in the pipeline to come from everyone that utilizes the newest technology and not what was available when the existing version in production now had at the time it was designed.


Electric pretty much is the most efficient way power the vehicles. Keep in mind the wide variety of use cases a semi truck model has and the remote locations they are used in. Not every application can be covered by electric, especially with the lack of charging infrastructure, so there will have to be more than a single solution.

CNG trucks have been around for a long time. Westport has been making injection equipment for Cummins engines since at least 2013. Yes it burns fossil fuel, but it does not create NOx in large quantity like diesel and power plants burn it to generate power so althoguht not the best, its not bad, and much better than diesel for emissions.

For H2 there are applications where it makes sense. Fuel cells are pretty finicky and they need really clean air and are pretty expensive, so time will tell if they catch on in vehicles or are more used for stationary power generation. H2 ICE is an application for hydrogen that uses a traditional diesel engine design for the most part and can be either port or direct injected (much better). The cost here is significantly less than electric trucks and fuel cell trucks, but its nearly emissions free and can be fueled quickly. In Europe this will be an option as they are gearing up to support it with fueling stations, in the US its not as clear, but DOE is funding more investigations into it which shows there may be more ability to use it from a regulatory perspective.

The joke hydrogen is the fuel of the future and always will be is mostly true, but I think there is a place for it depending on application. Electric will be much less hassle, so if possible it would be the better choice. Electric trucks are still mega expensive though, even with the vouchers so the cost aspect may put hydrogen in favor in the near term.

Good to hear we have someone here from Renton. Always enjoyed my tours through the factory and at the testing track.

My opinions on EV semis are not as optimistic as yours. Until we can economically produce the energy to charge them and mine the needed materials in an environmentally sound method, the math ($ & environmental) just doesn't work for me, but that's fine.

The same way that I feel about passenger full size SUVs & PU's, is the same way that I feel about semis, they should all be series Hybrids, which greatly improves their performance and efficiency, without most of the downsides. Was told that Cummins was working on one using the X10 as the ICE generator, supposed to hit around 2027.

I think that the new CT, illustrates perfectly why large vehicles, don't make good EV's. That $100K monstrosity is the best that Tesla can do efficiency wise and with current battery tech, just an example on a small scale. And it's 6.5K pounds and used for passenger transportation! No one depends on it to eat.

We'll see, I guess.
 
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My opinions on EV semis are not as optimistic as yours. Until we can economically produce the energy to charge them and mine the needed materials in an environmentally sound method, the math ($ & environmental) just doesn't work for me, but that's fine.

...

This really feels like "perfect is the enemy of the good/better" logic. It sounds like we should continue with our much more damaging fossil fuel/diesel status quo until the newer EV+renewable technology can eliminate 100% of the problems that diesel has today.

We are NOT drilling, refining, and shipping fossil fuels today in a way that is "environmentally sound" or long-term economical.

To summarize my wordy post from before:

In a hyper-optimistic case of a Diesel Semi getting 10 MPG with a full load, driving it 146,000 miles would require 100,000 pounds of diesel, which is just burned and dumped into the atmosphere, including 300,000 pounds of CO2 alone, plus other worse gases and air pollutants. The next 146,000 miles will be the same or worse.

For an overly pessimistic analysis of an EV truck, we can pretend that the battery weighs 20,000 pounds (it doesn't) and will need to be entirely replaced after 146,000 miles (it won't). 146,000 miles of driving PER YEAR can be easily covered with 20,000 pounds of solar PV infrastructure, which will last 20+ years (so, in a way, 1,000 lbs per year). And, both the battery and the solar panels have domonstrated recycling that is in use commercially today.

There's just no real comparison between around 21,000 pounds of recycleable goods for the EV+renewable system and a diesel truck that would burn 100,000 pounds of stuff and spew 300,000 pounds of stuff into the air to do the same work.


The EV+renewable version of the world will just have much less stuff that needs to be mined or drilled, refined, and shipped, much less stuff that will just be mindlessly dumped into the atmosphere/environment, and much more stuff that can actually be recycled for re-use.

The pollution and other problems tied to the EV+renewable future should of course be addressed and reduced...but sitting on our hands and saying "it's not perfect yet" and waving a flag about the environment is a pretty tough pill to swallow when the alternative is just to continue to mine/drill, refine, ship, and burn enormous quantities of fossil fuels constantly.
 
Time is now

I hope that you are correct, that energy produced from renewables can economically replace fossil fuel energy production.

However, there is so much more to the equation and costs when considering heavy duty trucking.

I would love to see the average commuter to be running their daily driver on electricity coming from renewables. But that's a wholly different topic than trucking I assure you.

It makes more sense to go after the low hanging fruit (the commuter) rather than the very hard to reach fruit.
 
School buses are a great application for EVs for so many reasons including:
1) they are loaded very lightly.
2) They only drive for about 2 hours, then get 7 hours to charge for another 2 hours of drive time. Plus overnight charging.
3) These vehicles idle next to lots of school children in crowded areas
4) they rarely go over 50 mph
5) they park at the same place every evening
6) they are government owned
7) lots of stop and go, where EVs thrive
 
3) These vehicles idle next to lots of school children in crowded areas
This is a big deal. Studies show riding a diesel bus lowers IQ scores. I can’t believe how crazy parents can be about issues around their children but this one doesn’t get parents worked up. I guess if you can’t easily see the damage, there is no need for pitchforks and torches.
 
My concern is with Rural areas and situations like School Trips such as Football and Basketball games. Then with two hours of driving in the morning and two hours of driving in the afternoon picking up and dropping off Kids. Not all Buses go back to depot after use. Some drivers take them Home since the Bus depot is a long distance away from the Bus routes.
 
My concern is with Rural areas and situations like School Trips such as Football and Basketball games. Then with two hours of driving in the morning and two hours of driving in the afternoon picking up and dropping off Kids. Not all Buses go back to depot after use. Some drivers take them Home since the Bus depot is a long distance away from the Bus routes.

Well, EV's have never been a solution for every situation. Doesn't mean that EV buses can't be implemented in several places. Keeping 1-2 diesel buses for road trips seems reasonable.

The largest issue is that EV buses, so far, have been terribly unreliable and had to be retired early by several municipalities. I have a close friend that is flown around to work on those EV airport shuttles, and I know they are terrible quality with very low reliability. IN fact, I thought I read that his company filed for BK.

PS. I can't imagine what in diesel exhaust could lower children's IQ. I don't want my kid or anyone else's kid breathing that obviously, but I really have a hard time believing that a mildly higher concentration of CO for 45 seconds/ day would 'lower IQ'. That doesn't pass the commonsense test. They don't have PM any longer.
 
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Well, EV's have never been a solution for every situation. Doesn't mean that EV buses can't be implemented in several places. Keeping 1-2 diesel buses for road trips seems reasonable.

The largest issue is that EV buses, so far, have been terribly unreliable and had to be retired early by several municipalities. I have a close friend that is flown around to work on those EV airport shuttles, and I know they are terrible quality with very low reliability. IN fact, I thought I read that his company filed for BK.

PS. I can't imagine what in diesel exhaust could lower children's IQ. I don't want my kid or anyone else's kid breathing that obviously, but I really have a hard time believing that a mildly higher concentration of CO for 45 seconds/ day would 'lower IQ'. That doesn't pass the commonsense test. They don't have PM any longer.
After some googling of the diesel exhaust vs. IQ issue, I found a study from January 2023:


The diesel exhaust from the study had a nominal concentration of 300 µg (micro grams) of PM2.5 (particulate matter of 2.5 microns or less) per cubic meter.

In the study, the adult subjects breathed the stuff for two hours, with MRI scans before and after. The effects lasted a few hours, and the authors weren't sure if there would be permanent changes with repeat exposure.

I can't find info on the actual PM2.5 concentration you'd expect near the exhaust of a modern diesel engine, just references that when the engine and diesel particulate filter are in good working order, 99% or 99.9% of the PM is captured. There's also lots of info about California regulations which basically don't allow diesel engines older than a 2010 standard to be on the road; I think the limit for PM in general seems to be 5 milligrams per horsepower per hour, but converting that to micrograms per cubic meter would take some assumptions. I didn't see much about other states, or countries for that matter...
 
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That's a study full of faults. The controls were breathing filtered air and the test subjects were breathing heavy exhaust while on an exercise bike.

In reality modern diesel exhaust, while having less O2, also has less pollutants than every major city in the world. It's literally cleaner than the baseline air that our kids play sports in every single day.

Also, it's not like children suck tailpipe smoke directly while exercising.

I do think that buses should began using exhaust stacks like big rigs to limit exposure.
 
That's a study full of faults. The controls were breathing filtered air and the test subjects were breathing heavy exhaust while on an exercise bike.

In reality modern diesel exhaust, while having less O2, also has less pollutants than every major city in the world. It's literally cleaner than the baseline air that our kids play sports in every single day.

Also, it's not like children suck tailpipe smoke directly while exercising.

I do think that buses should began using exhaust stacks like big rigs to limit exposure.
So you’d rather breathe straight diesel exhaust than breathe LA air?

Sure, when new, diesels are better than they used to be, but how clean is that diesel engine in 15 years?