Tesla Semi Competition

[adiggs]

More activity in electrification of commercial trucking:
TMC20: Penske buys three Class 8 electric hybrids from Hyliion - FreightWaves

I haven't previously heard of companies building hybrid class 8's, but it sort of makes sense. The article doesn't talk about the fuel efficiency improvement, but presumably one could look up the manufacturer and see what they have to say about that.

My own thinking / feeling about hybrid class 8's - if it gets manufacturers building them, and consumers buying them, and improves the fuel efficiency, then it's a useful step down the path. What we know from hybrid light duty vehicles is that while they make a lot of logical sense, in practice hybrid light duty vehicles help ready people to move all the way to full electric vehicles


Also mentioned here:

“As far as full electrified chassis, the drayage and the yard tractor applications are going to be prime as well as the medium-duty applications,” Slesinski said. “What we’ve found is you can actually justify that technology based on cost alone without any kind of incentives.”

 

[arnis]

The article doesn't talk about the fuel efficiency improvement,

Well, there is a reason for that

"the hybrid system we have will eliminate the need for charging" - Yea sure.
Sentence is constructed like hybrids are upgrade from electric..
Absolute rubbish.

Everybody tries hard to do as little work as possible and run the "self charging" wave.

A hybrid truck running on diesel fuel and electricity does not have to be plugged in for recharging.
Well this is a lie. This truck doesn't run on electricity. It runs on diesel, 100%.

It's like saying diesel locomotives run on pure electricity (because they have electric motors that move it). No they don't.


Tesla Semi Competition - is the topic. This is not competition.

 

[adiggs]

I don't know if this approach to autonomous trucking will get legs or not, but it looks like it's on the road in Sweden.

Einride to hire remote truck operators, plans U.S. launch - FreightWaves

Basic idea - trucks that can navigate particular routes autonomously, with a remote operator that jumps in and takes control for difficult maneuvers. No idea how well it's working - only heard about this for the first time when I read this article.

 

[adiggs]

First time I've seen this - the top 4 articles (they get posted in time order) at FreightWaves have to do with different aspects of electrification of commercial trucking:
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/category/trucking

I'd be happy with 2 of 4 .


We have Ford excited about electric delivery vans.
Nikola decides to go public with their fuel cell vehicles (I counted this as electric)
FedEx electrifying stations in California.
DTNA has an idea of what will spur electric vehicle adoption (hint - stop talking about it and start building them )

 

[roblab]

Tesla Beaten To The Electric Big-Rig Punch

It's good to have competition although its range spec is subpar!

Remember, Tesla's goal was not to compete, but to show the way, to prove it could be done. Tesla makes it necessary that the big-rig manufacturers figure out how to electrify their trucks, because with electrics, you can "defy the laws of physics." Like pulling 80,000 gvwr up a 15% grade or more, at speed. Living on a hill, I always get my ire up when I see a semi creeping up the hill ahead of me, at twenty miles an hour below the speed limit, with a line of a dozen cars behind them. Rarely do they pull over as the law demands, if they have over five cars behind them, nor do they worry about the other law, "slower traffic keep right". I'll be glad when electrics drive the diesels off the main roads into the few corner cases there might be.

 

[mspohr]

Here's an idea

'E-highways' could slash UK road freight emissions, says study

'E-highways' could slash UK road freight emissions, says study

The UK could eliminate the majority of the carbon dioxide emissions from road freight by installing overhead charging cables for electric lorries on “e-highways” across the country, a report by government-funded academics suggests.

In contrast, a lorry fitted for electric roads would only require a battery of similar size to an existing Tesla car to be able to cover the vast majority of the UK, according to David Cebon, a professor of mechanical engineering at Cambridge University who co-authored the study.

 

[jhm]

Here's an idea

'E-highways' could slash UK road freight emissions, says study

'E-highways' could slash UK road freight emissions, says study

The UK could eliminate the majority of the carbon dioxide emissions from road freight by installing overhead charging cables for electric lorries on “e-highways” across the country, a report by government-funded academics suggests.

In contrast, a lorry fitted for electric roads would only require a battery of similar size to an existing Tesla car to be able to cover the vast majority of the UK, according to David Cebon, a professor of mechanical engineering at Cambridge University who co-authored the study.

Wow, that seems really expensive, 19.3B GBP (24.9B USD) for 4300 miles. This is a capex of $5.78M per mile. Financing at 10% (comparable to what utilities are granted), the financing cost at about $66 per mile per hour. How many truck per hour on average would use this? Maybe trucks come 10 seconds apart, 300 trucks per hour. This would warrant a price of $0.22/mile plus cost of power and other opex. Cost of power is around 2 kWh/mile * $0.10/kWh. Other operating expenses are a fraction of opex, say about $0.03/mile. Total cost of charging could be in the neighborhood of $0.50/mile. This would be competitive with diesel at $3/gallon. I don't think this would pencil out well in the US. Perhaps UK can make it work, but the case seems borderline with diesel.

Meanwhile, Tesla is looking to slice $0.25/mile off the cost of diesel. The capex alone makes the catenary hard to compete with Tesla Semi. The key issue is utilization. At peak capacity maybe trucks can come 3 seconds apart. But most highways do not run 24/7 at peak load. Moreover, traffic congestion can also reduce the number that can drive through a mile segment per hour.

The study claims that truck operators can break-even in 18 months, while the catenary may take 15 years to break-even. This does not sound like it can compete with Tesla Semi, which also can break-even in that time, but does not have to pay off such expensive infrastructure. Certainly, at Tesla Semi to add a pantograph to participate in such as system, but if this adds 25 to 50 c/mile in operating cost to use this power, I'm not sure why the Tesla owner would want to do that.

I think once Tesla is producing a serious volume of Semis, this catenary scheme will lose support. This might only work if taxpayers foot the bill. But if comparable subsidies were also available to owners of a Tesla Semi or comparable, the public could see a lot more uptake.