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They're already "designed" for 18-wheel trucks which weigh 15-20 times that. Even heavy EVs are nothing compared to heavy transport.
by selectodude 6y ago
They're already "designed" for 18-wheel trucks which weigh 15-20 times that. Even heavy EVs are nothing compared to heavy transport.
- ThrowawayR2 6y agoTo use your own example, they're designed to handle a certain quantity of 18 wheelers but they're not designed to handle traffic that is entirely composed of 18 wheelers. Raising the average vehicle weight from 1.5 to 3 tons will definitely have an effect.
- selectodude 6y agoBut not as much as it would seem, since road damage is a quadratic function of weight and one truck does as much damage as 9600 1 ton cars. Doubling the weight of the car would maybe narrow that by a few percentage points, but vehicle miles for any personal vehicle at essentially any weight is a rounding error compared to one truck.
- Retric 6y agoBridges at least need to be designed for just 18 wheelers because over 50 years that’s going to happen at least once.
- war1025 6y agoRoads are designed for a certain amount of "axle weight" [1] which basically means to carry a heavier load you need to add more axles to distribute the load. I would guess electric cars are still negligible in that metric, though. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_axle_weight_rating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_axle_weight_rating