EV general discussion

The issues I see with electric trucks for most long distance haulage in Australia is that most trucks already operate with the maximum legal axle loading. This means that the difference in mass between the batteries + drive train and the fuel + drive train comes straight off the revenue load. And the power required for a fast charge of a B-double is so much higher than for cars that a truck terminal or recharge station will be a much more significant load on the local network.

I also do not remember seeing anything about tesla's trucks set up as B-doubles. Or, for that matter, road trains.

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Originally Posted by DiscoMick

Tesla says it will start production of its Semi in 2020 with an 800 km range. It claims to already have 2000 orders and prototypes have been tested. So we'll see.

Tesla Semi - Wikipedia

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I’m aware of all of this - 800km won’t cut it here..
And the price is insane.

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Originally Posted by Tombie

I’m aware of all of this - 800km won’t cut it here..
And the price is insane.

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Wonder what the range would be loaded 30T or so......

Price of goods will go through the roof.

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Originally Posted by W&KO

Wonder what the range would be loaded 30T or so......

Price of goods will go through the roof.

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Yep. [emoji41]

It's certainly going to cause changes. I think they're designed to operate between depots. Roll in, drop trailer, plug in and another truck picks up the trailer and moves out. Anyway, they'll make it work.

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Originally Posted by DiscoMick

It's certainly going to cause changes. I think they're designed to operate between depots. Roll in, drop trailer, plug in and another truck picks up the trailer and moves out. Anyway, they'll make it work.

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And by then you and I will be dead so wont see the enormous additonal costs piled onto goods.

This is farsical at this point in time, knowing several in the distribution industry and having been a part of it - its so cut throat - no chance of the fleets becoming this massively expensive to operate.

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Originally Posted by W&KO

Wonder what the range would be loaded 30T or so......

Price of goods will go through the roof.

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Forget 30 tonne - they'll need to be able to tow a B double at 64 tonne for 1000KM to become remotely viable here. And as Tombie mentioned, who's going to cough up for this when there is barely a dollar to be made in the industry already.

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Originally Posted by DiscoMick

Last time I checked transport produced about 15% of Australia's emissions.

Emission sources | Australia State of the Environment Report

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Anything that isn't nearly 10 years old before DPF's and Ad Blue? On Highway Road Freight Emissions are way down in the last 5 years.

As should car emissions with all these new fangled EV's on the road everywhere you keep speaking of. [bigwhistle]

All those bloody old garbage trucks taking garbage to queensland from NSW could not be helping.

It used to be 1000 a week , but I don't know what it is now that Qld has put a modest fee on dropping the garbage, but I still seem to see a lot of old dumpers on the M1. A lot look like grain trucks with a small trapdoor in the back , but there isn't that much grain on the east coast.

Regards PhilipA

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Originally Posted by Homestar

Forget 30 tonne - they'll need to be able to tow a B double at 64 tonne for 1000KM to become remotely viable here. And as Tombie mentioned, who's going to cough up for this when there is barely a dollar to be made in the industry already.

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There will be big fuel savings though.
It's certainly going to be disruptive.
Some places in Europe etc are already moving to ban diesel vehicles. Eventually only EVs will be allowed in.
Payload could be an issue though. The number of batteries needed to tow a full load could take up a lot of the payload.
Tesla isn't the only company working on EV trucks though. It will be interesting to see how they solve it.