Tesla Road Tractor

As a 40 year driver ed instructor and a lifelong farm machinery operator, I can see his points on visibility and operator position.
 
Well I drove for over Forty years, Pulling 40 ft.,53 ft., Doubles and Triples, Short haul less than 200 miles one way, I don't think fancy Electric Road Trucks will be up to that!
 
Hmm. None of his criticisms have much to do with the fact it's battery-powered. One would think that would be the most important consideration.
 
It's a good concept, and it will probably be a major game changer to the linehaul market. The range will allow it to actually be more useful than just a pickup and delivery unit. I don't agree with everything about it though. The visibility it good, but the driver position isn't very smart in my opinion. If you have to pass something moving slow, wouldn't you prefer to be sitting closer to the left hand side to be able to see around something, as opposed to sitting in the middle of the truck? I know I would. Also, a seat for a passenger comes in handy once in a while, i.e. training somebody or rescuing another driver that had major mechanical issues. And with no sleeper, its a day trip only truck. I'm also very curious on how effective the batteries are in sub-freezing temperatures.

For the type of work I do, it will be a long time before a fully electric truck becomes feasible. I run near 140k lbs. when loaded, and put on around 600-700 miles a day. Only at the home terminal at the start and end of each week. It's beyond the capabilities of an electric truck for a while yet.

What I would truly like to see, and I don't know why nobody has tried it, is a diesel-electric drivetrain, similar to a train. You get the benefits of the electric drive, with better fuel economy because your generator engine can run steady at it's most efficient rpm, and you get the freedom of mobility and range of still being a diesel. To me, it's a win-win first step.

Still, despite the current drawbacks (no pun intended), it's fascinating technology, and I'm keeping a close eye on it. As the technology improves, it will someday become the way to go in truck drivetrain.
 
I can find lots to argue about. Like . . . how much tax payer dollars were used for Musk's later project? How is the electricity generated to run these electric trucks? Looks to me it is just an expensive truck with an external combustion engine for power instead of an internal combustion engine. 70% of electric in the USA comes from burning gas and coal.
 
Ha, it would help too if I read the article first, lol! The writer has all valid points. Especially mirrors. Cameras are entirely useless here in the North after driving for a couple hours through snow. I can't be hopping out to clean cameras every 10 miles.
 
Has been on U'tube for a bit. Interesting but a truck is not a whole lot lighter than a car. It weighs a bunch more! Mass of battery to weight of trailer etc.
 
I can see the truckers point of view that it is not operator friendly. I think it is a self driven truck and doesn't require an operator. That's way I saw it on the news anyway.
 

Not practical except for a yard shunt truck or an in city delivery vehicle .
Batteries are too expensive , recharge time too long and range is too short . Tesla staring that only 2kw hr of power is required per mile is claiming an equivalent to 16mpg.
The range at highway speed is 125-150 miles .
Sure sounds wonderful to the general public , greenies and corporations who want the public to believe the corporation is green.
An electric class 7 or 8 truck is a practical as the all electric Olympia ice maintainers used at the Canadian Winter Olympics.
 
OK I can see lots of problems.

1. The process of making batteries is very environmentally unfriendly from mining materials through the manufacturing process.

2. The electricity to recharge those batteries has to come from somewhere. Out current power grid isn't up to supporting thousands of charge stations. And who'd going to invest in putting in the charge stations? Tesla can't get production of cars going. So getting trucks produced is a concern. A truck stop isn't going to install a charge station that may sit for weeks unused.

3, Tesla is bleeding money and has yet to post a profit. Every time the company gets close to being broke they announce yet something else new that fails to get onto the market. Like with the trucks and roadster, it draws in new investors. Eventually investors are going to get wise to this.

Rick
 
I say it would be impractical.
Everything that B&D said plus the cost. Like everything that Tesla/Musk makes costs 3 times what the comparable thing would cost if conventionally powered.

One simple thing keeps electric vehicles from becoming mainstream:

BATTERIES!!!!!

Unless and until battery technology is developed that allows quick charging times and longer range, electric vehicles will remain as they are: playthings for the rich and something for the greenies to praise. Nothing more.
 
Some more discussion here

http://www.redpowermagazine.com/forums/topic/110975-anyone-see-the-new-tesla-semi/

And here

http://joannenova.com.au/2017/11/weekend-unthreaded-187/#comment-1962166
 
Bingo, Lyndon.

Diesel/electric/hybrid sounds much more practical to me.

Add a Li battery pack to help on hills. The battery pack can be efficiently recharged on down hills avoiding the wastefull use of the Jac.

Dean
 
Bingo, again, JDEM, but, as we all know, these days, decisions are made mostly on the basis of how to transfer costs from whatever to the taxpayers.

Dean
 
"The process of making batteries is very environmentally unfriendly from mining materials through the manufacturing process."

DOUBLE BINGO!

This is the elephant in the living room that none of the greenies even recognize, let alone are knowledgeable enough to talk about.

Go to the head of the class.

Dean
 
Dean, that's exactly what I was thinking with the battery pack. Acts as sort of an accumulator in the system so to speak. With a battery pack to help on the hills and acceleration, you can run a little bit smaller generator, further improving overall efficiency.
 
"Unless and until battery technology is developed that allows quick charging times and longer range, electric vehicles will remain as they are: playthings for the rich and something for the greenies to praise."

Bingo, again.

Since the late 1970s, I have advocated super capacitors, rather than batteries, for electrical vehicle (not necessarily heavy trucks, but why not) energy storage.

Of course, additional development of super capacitors is obvious, but consider the concept of stopping at your local Duke charging station for a 10-20 second 50K+ Amp recharge while you buy coffee, soda and snacks and sign your CC form before moving on.

Of course the recharge station would be connected to a HV line and have much larger super capacitor banks for the temporary storage of energy rather than underground fuel tanks. Such stations would receive power from efficient generating plants operating at optimum efficiency from coal or nuclear prime energy sources. Again, of course, NG plants could be implemented, as is the situation today, to supplement the primary generating plants during peak periods.

Dean, who is a retired patent attorney and wonders why no one is pursuing this.
 
Cummins released one months ago. Got to look at it ,after the big release, they let us have a peek.
 
I think Hybrids and dynamic braking make a lot of sense in stop/go and uphill/downhill, much less on open road
 
Where I work most of our trips around the DC Baltimore metro area rarely exceed 150 miles in a day. With all the daily traffic congestion these trucks would do very well in this operation. Where they would really excel is the lack of emissions equipment that render a new $150k tractor worthless for days at a time. Heard the price tag is supposedly 100k. That makes it a no brainer for our situation, they'd be perfect. Long haul though, they just wouldn't work. Wonder what they electric cost would be for daily charging and infrastructure to charge 10+ trucks at once.
 
They claim at least 500 miles with 80,000lbs max load, a million miles before "breaking down". It will have auto pilot that will assist braking and steering, individual wheel motors/brakes on each wheel to eliminate jack-knives. Mirrors are replace for far superior tv monitors on each side of the centrally located drivers seat. There are no gears to shift and the elec motor will out pull and out accelerate any other diesel truck big time.

I hope he can back his claims up, better yet guarantee them. I think Tesla is a gimmick and maybe even a ponzi type scheme. He not only grabbed a bunch of money from big corporate donors he is milking the .gov (our taxes) for serious money too. Keep in mind Tesla reported an over 600 million dollar loss last quarter.
 
Musk is a good talker and salesman, he will say his revenue or sales have doubled, this is his best year, its getting better, blah blah etc. What you often don't see are the financial reports. When the operating losses are so large, your revenues don't mean squat. It doesn't look like expansion is going to lead to profits, if he doesn't make some major changes fast. I also read somewhere the ZEV/EV tax credits are going to be reduced in the near future, that will put the binders on sales too.
Here are a couple graphs up to 2016 showing profit/revenues , and this year doesn't look better.

mvphoto6495.png


mvphoto6496.png
 
Read today that Musk is now working on a car that can fly for short distances. As if worrying about getting hit from the front, back and sides by crazy driver isn't enough--we would have to deal with overhead bozos also.
 
Won't work until a better/cheaper battery pack is developed. Until then "Diesel/electric/hybrid sounds much more practical to me too"

Charging terminals will be built with taxpayer dollars with huge overruns, politicians/buddies will make huge profits........ as usual! Musk is already negotiating that.

Electric vehicles (coal burners) are the future, but we better be ready for bigger power plants and will have to look back at nuclear, coal and natural gas. Wind and solar won't ever do it!
 
Also as the demand for electricity goes up so will the cost.The better idea would be to wire up some Interstates so electric trucks could run like electric trains do now on long hauls
 
Picture one of these hauling a heavy load of steel up a mountainside with the motor overheating. They are untested in real applications. This is Electric Road Truck 1.0. Tesla can afford to have it's $100k sports cars built for the elite to have problems, the rich kids will just buy the next better model. Different story for vehicles that need to be stone reliable.
 

Telling the public through the media that Loblaws is using electric trucks is the most cost effective corporate advertising on the market. Doesn’t matter if the trucks work after the photo session is complete and the media leaves .
 
(quoted from post at 08:58:15 11/21/17) Also as the demand for electricity goes up so will the cost.The better idea would be to wire up some Interstates so electric trucks could run like electric trains do now on long hauls

Gee, doesn't that still require electricity???
And who pays for it.
 

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