The formula doesn’t matter. There’s no way in he11 an electric tractor trailer will ever be able to do more than 500 miles on a charge. The Rivian EV pickup couldn’t even tow a 6000 pound trailer 80 miles. Loaded Tractor trailers weigh 60-120 thousand pounds. Add in 25-50k pounds in batteries and you’re hauling at < 50% of a diesel tractors capacity. Never, ever, ever going to be cost effective. Anyone who says otherwise is incompetent or lying.
The formula cannot simply compare the cost of batteries and miles driven before a recharge vs. petro, but the comparative down time to recharge, and the cost of electricity to do so, and the comparative cost of manufacturing batteries and the drive system, and replacement costs and maintenance.
On a technical not regenerative braking should be used in EV trucks. And diesel electric. I think the latter would be the most viable solution, and most likely some owners will adapt to that. But the zero tolerance fossil fuel crowd wants all electric or nothing, even though the whole logistical train to manufacture EV’s involves diesel .
If it was less expensive to run semi trucks on batteries it would have been done already without the coercion.
This guy is a good starting point:
The Truth About Electric Cars Biggest Problem
Why Not All Transportation Can Go Electric Today - Energy Density
Why Gas Engines Are Far From Dead -
From a scientific standpoint, the largest challenge facing today’s electric cars is the energy density of batteries used. The batteries are both massive and heavy, and as a result have significant impacts on electric transportation feasibility depending on the scenario. This video analyzes today’s batteries energy density, as well as the efficiency differences associated between gasoline vehicles and electric vehicles. Even when accounting for efficiency, the gap between electric and gasoline energy densities is quite large.
To further illustrate this point, we’ll assess the feasibility of an electric powered semi-truck, and the weight of the battery required in order for the vehicle to have a range of 500 miles. The results will SHOCK you. Maybe not; that’s just a bad joke. But you might learn something! Have a watch.
It weighs 9000 pounds not miles.
How about this idea for Electric Vehicles. Eliminate the huge batteries. Instead, the EVs should be powered like a slot car. No...no long trenches in the road with live electrical rails on either side. I’m thinking something like miles of very flat induction coils, like the ones that charge our phones. No direct electrical contact. There would be a small battery on-board that would stay charged by the road coils and it would allow some autonomous travel away from the road coils to get into parking lots or your home driveway. You’d probably have a charging coil on your driveway or garage or wherever you car rests.
The road coils would be made of very thin high strength polymer that would be on a large spool and installed in the middle of a lane with an adhesive. They’d be so thin that you wouldn’t know they were there if you drove over them. The coils could be “printed” and produced I would think pretty efficiently in a huge, continuous roll, cutting off what is needed for each situation or pieces could be joined together and laid flat. These coils would have to be powered by an electrical grid that is no where near ready to power this idea or charge hundreds of thousands of cars at home. So this is down the road a piece.
I wanted to get rid of all the batteries, the weight, waste, expense of replacement and initial vehicle purchase, and hassle of charging. Ev’s would be so much lighter and efficient if they didn’t have to schlepp a heavy battery around with them. Unlimited mileage...never have to stop...like we do now for gas.
in general...
electricity costs nothing when
compared to a liquid fuel
........
but the are many other issues
In cold weather many times the batteries can't be charged. 🙂
How heavy is the load?
In warm weather the battery has far less life when it is towing something of weight. The more weight the less distance realized. 🙂
Solution, find a new job. 🙂
I had a Formula 292 fastech - it burned about 28 gallons an hour
The Nazis have it hidden on the dark side of the moon.
We're supposed to be sending Sarah Palin up to steal it for us.
Trust the Plan.
The answer is — it depends.
If you’re UPS and your trucks are “there and back” daily runs, this might make sense. IF you’re doing 10-day cross country hauls, not so much.
Putting aside concerns about range (and they are concerns) the EV’s will probably have a much lower cost of maintenance. Ask any trucker, and they’ll complain about their trucks always breaking down. With no transmission ($30k or so, give or take to rebuild) and no “Emissions sh*t” to fail (just try finding a DEF pump these days) you’ve eliminated 2 areas. You also don’t have to worry about noob drivers not checking the oil, etc.
I can see the use of the already-existent small generators (for providing heat and AC to the driver in off hours) used to top off the batteries in an emergency.
Prof Michaux looks at the big picture. Hour long presentation.
The quantity of metal required to make just one generation of renewable tech units to replace fossil fuels, is much larger than first thought.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBVmnKuBocc
The whacko environmental left will demand that the government add electric wire infrastructure to our highways and then demand that all vehicles have pantographs on their roofs to supply the electricity to run, just like with trains.
Imagine the boondoggle that presents the opportunity for graft and insider trading to become yugely rich on this scam.
-PJ
There’s one way this could work. Only drive the truck from eastern Arizona to California.
Y’all forgetting to bring another element into this “equation”. It’s called elevation. I wonder just how these electric rigs will do climbing the Grapevine, or Tehachapi, or Great Tejon Pass or even El Cajon just to mention a few.
The formula should include all the thousands of acres to accommodate 18-wheelers while they wait for hours to charge their batteries.
Current truck stops are not equipped for either the volume or the holdover and I sense that there will need to be 3x as many truckstops based upon towing range reports coming back from those with EV pickups.
When is NASCAR going to go electric???
It’s not hidden at all:
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=cost+to+recharge+electric+semi+truck
They’re generally estimating about 50 cents a mile.