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>I would bet my money on internet comments being wrong when it comes to predicting the future of heavy industry on a timeline longer than a couple quarters. Yo

>I would bet my money on internet comments being wrong when it comes to predicting the future of heavy industry on a timeline longer than a couple quarters. You're probably right, although I'd probably go short on hydrogen in trucks. It seems hard to store, transport, requires a new infrastructure, etc. I expect they'll use this new fangled technology called 'diesel'. I'm surprised when I don't hear more about the lower hanging fruit. The fact that Fedex/UPS haven't gone wholesale into electric is telling at this point, I expect they'll do it when some spreadsheet shows 10 cents in savings companywide. The champions for electric trucks should push for trash pickup, route sales, local delivery, etc. and not bother with long haul for now. You could argue that a good place for hydrogen would be non-electric trains. When the bugs get worked out of that perhaps long distance trucking might have a chance. edit: as an aside, I can see where large scale fleet decisions might be held back by fear of technology change. You'd sure hate to buy thousands of trucks only to have them made obsolete by some sort of large underlying change in design that's a no-brainer. It wouldn't surprise me if there isn't a certain braking effect on vehicle purchases generally because of the advances in EVs. There's a righteous fear in being an early adopter.

LeanderK 5y ago
I think quite a few countries will tighten their environmental regulations so that some solution will have to be found. Trucks running on Dieses crowding the highways will face strong opposition. The industry has to move somewhere. Germany might gain it's first green-party led government this year and they are racking up wins in a lot of countries in europe. I even see the rise of smaller "greener than green" parties here in southern germany. This might change the regulatory environment/taxes enough to fuel change. I don't think Volvo and Daimler make uniformed bets, so there must be some reasoning behind it.
- kingsuper20 5y ago
  > I don't think Volvo and Daimler make uniformed bets, so there must be some reasoning behind it. It's probably fair to contrast the EU vs. the USA for this. Given the geographic and political differences, I can see where a European market for trucks might be sufficient for the manufacturers to fund development efforts. I should have been clear that I was thinking primarily of the US, living here and all. It would be interesting to have a better overview on freight handling in the rest of the world. China tends to be left out of these discussions and I can't imagine wide swathes of Asia or Africa changing anytime soon.
  - ReptileMan 5y ago
    Indonesia reduced plastic bags quite a bit by a decree in a year. One of the great things about (semi)authoritarian states is how fast they can change. So China influenced parts of Asia could move quite fast when needed. And if they make the right bets - you can transform country in a generation. If you don't - well you have former communist bloc circa 1989.
  - Symbiote 5y ago
    The article is from a British publication and concerns two European vehicle manufacturers producing new vehicles, initially for Europe. "The Swedish truck-maker is aiming for half its European sales in 2030 to be trucks powered by batteries or hydrogen fuel cells" "About 300 high-performance hydrogen refueling points would be needed in Europe by 2025" I'm sure there's enough of a market in Europe for different trucks — there's already different designs and different fuel preferences (diesel/gasoline).
    - kingsuper20 5y ago
      >I'm sure there's enough of a market in Europe for different trucks Absolutely. Look at the heavy buy-in on diesel automobiles, and they sure weren't shy about subsidies/regulations to favor them.
      - EricE 5y ago
        Subsidies touting efficiencies that turned out to be fictional due to multiple manufactures committing pretty major fraud for decades that was only recently uncovered. Yeah, that government intervention worked out well :p
  - mywittyname 5y ago
    > China tends to be left out of these discussions Volvo is a Chinese-owned company. While the company is headquartered and led in Sweden, it is safe to assume that the Chinese market is a strong consideration in everything they do.
- bluGill 5y ago
  Volvo and Daimler cannot afford for someone else to get there and hold all the patents. If it doesn't work out at all they will lobby and get the laws changed. If it works out though they won't have a strong a position to lobby from (someone else proved it works, why can't you?) and risk losing that side of the business. That is enough reason for them to put money into R&D. It might or might not result in anything for many different reasons.
unethical_ban 5y ago
Who says Fedex and UPS aren't all in on electric? Are you in their corporate meetings? People act like the mammoth transition of a civilization (or even a huge logistics company) would be on the order of 2-3 years, and not a generation. Public transit in many places has already switched to propane/LNG. Same with lots of municipal work trucks. Your first sentence is the attitude he's responding to: That trucking/logistics/cityworks are able to make their own refueling stations, build their own support infrastructure, etc. in ways that the public cannot, on the short term.
- kingsuper20 5y ago
  >Who says Fedex and UPS aren't all in on electric? Because I haven't seen a single electric truck of any type by any service. Perhaps someone here has, love to hear about it. Since my wife is a shipping manager for a manufacturer, there is some anecdotal backing. (jeesh, why are people so religious about this stuff?). I don't doubt that they are planning a long term move at places like Fedex, but articles on it lead me to believe they are just dipping their toe in the water. A moon shot to accomplish something by 2040 is the opposite of all-in, they may not exist as a company in 20 years. In any case, as I was alluding to, short-haul trucking will electrify far before long-haul, for obvious reasons (and if it ever does)...at least for purely economic reasons. All bets are off if the hand of the state dictates a technology. > Your first sentence is the attitude he's responding to lol. What? That I doubt that you'll see hydrogen fueled long-haul trucking in the US? Care to make a bet on it? What is your time horizon on the bet?
  - callalex 5y ago
    I see electric fedex and ups delivery trucks all the time in several SF Bay Area counties. Anecdotes aren’t very useful in broad analysis.
    - kingsuper20 5y ago
      OK, I looked it up. The Fedex fleet is a little over 1% electric...and that includes forklifts and airport equipment. Like I keep saying, they'll be all over this tech when it really pencils out.
dv_dt 5y ago
I think there's plenty of hints that Fedex and UPS are going electric, but taking time and thought into how it integrates. Not everything is a cloud provisioning script away from rollout. Fedex Plans to Electrify its Entire Fleet of Delivery Vehicles by 2040" [1] "UPS Orders 10000 Electric Delivery Trucks..." [2] [1] https://fordauthority.com/2021/03/fedex-plans-to-electrify-its-entire-fleet-of-delivery-vehicles-by-2040/ https://fordauthority.com/2021/03/fedex-plans-to-electrify-i... [2] https://www.boston.com/cars/car-news/2020/03/22/ups-orders-10000-electric-delivery-trucks-plans-test-of-self-driving-vans https://www.boston.com/cars/car-news/2020/03/22/ups-orders-1...
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  They're talking about delivery vehicles (which lend themselves well to electric operation for the same reasons city buses do) not semi trucks.
  - dv_dt 5y ago
    Right, it takes time to rollout, and given battery factory constraints right now, even if a semi were 100% ready, you couldn't supply the batteries for the use for at least another two the tree years I would guess. So I think at best, right now, you'll see planning for delivery vehicles, with semis in earlier development.
    - xkjkls 5y ago
      Semis are an entirely different equation than delivery vans. They have more constraints around energy density, whereas vans have more constraints around price.
  - kingsuper20 5y ago
    Delivery and route trucks really are the interesting test case for battery-powered vehicles. Assuming that someone in a government meeting room doesn't dictate their technology via fiat or subsidy, it's a case based purely on economic interests. Double bonus points for being a tolerably straightforward to calculate decision. I really can't foresee how it turns out, hopefully the battery tech has some room to run.
dan_quixote 5y ago
> The fact that Fedex/UPS haven't gone wholesale into electric is telling at this point Both companies had a huge moat until Amazon came along blew their doors off. And Amazon has been investing heavily in electric delivery vehicles: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/18/amazon-begins-testing-rivian-electric-delivery-vans-in-san-francisco.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/18/amazon-begins-testing-rivian...
- xkjkls 5y ago
  This is very different from heavy trucks. These are electric delivery vans. No one is arguing whether electric vehicles can be effective in the small vehicle market; its the semi, 18-wheeler segment being discussed.
  - manquer 5y ago
    True, there is not a viable product that is scalable in the market. Both Nikola and Tesla are vapourware today. Perhaps they might deliver in a couple of years realistically. Delivery companies are in no hurry to shift and bet ahead of time, once the technology is readily available and well supported they will move their fleet
jsight 5y ago
I think that MCS will help greatly to accelerate things. Fear of building infrastructure for a new tech has to be a huge part of it. A lot of folks have toes in the water with Tesla semi orders, though. I expect that to grow pretty quickly if the first ones work well for regional distribution, and that is really their strength. That new fangled "diesel" stuff is really hard to beat for long distance trucking.
jabl 5y ago
> The champions for electric trucks should push for trash pickup, route sales, local delivery, etc. and not bother with long haul for now. Indeed, and earlier we discussed plans for battery electric trucks by Volvo (one of the company's described in this article): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24999239 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24999239 Batteries for short-haul, hydrogen (or something else) for long-haul.

LeanderK 5y ago

I think quite a few countries will tighten their environmental regulations so that some solution will have to be found. Trucks running on Dieses crowding the highways will face strong opposition. The industry has to move somewhere. Germany might gain it's first green-party led government this year and they are racking up wins in a lot of countries in europe. I even see the rise of smaller "greener than green" parties here in southern germany. This might change the regulatory environment/taxes enough to fuel change. I don't think Volvo and Daimler make uniformed bets, so there must be some reasoning behind it.

kingsuper20 5y ago
> I don't think Volvo and Daimler make uniformed bets, so there must be some reasoning behind it. It's probably fair to contrast the EU vs. the USA for this. Given the geographic and political differences, I can see where a European market for trucks might be sufficient for the manufacturers to fund development efforts. I should have been clear that I was thinking primarily of the US, living here and all. It would be interesting to have a better overview on freight handling in the rest of the world. China tends to be left out of these discussions and I can't imagine wide swathes of Asia or Africa changing anytime soon.
- ReptileMan 5y ago
  Indonesia reduced plastic bags quite a bit by a decree in a year. One of the great things about (semi)authoritarian states is how fast they can change. So China influenced parts of Asia could move quite fast when needed. And if they make the right bets - you can transform country in a generation. If you don't - well you have former communist bloc circa 1989.
- Symbiote 5y ago
  The article is from a British publication and concerns two European vehicle manufacturers producing new vehicles, initially for Europe. "The Swedish truck-maker is aiming for half its European sales in 2030 to be trucks powered by batteries or hydrogen fuel cells" "About 300 high-performance hydrogen refueling points would be needed in Europe by 2025" I'm sure there's enough of a market in Europe for different trucks — there's already different designs and different fuel preferences (diesel/gasoline).
  - kingsuper20 5y ago
    >I'm sure there's enough of a market in Europe for different trucks Absolutely. Look at the heavy buy-in on diesel automobiles, and they sure weren't shy about subsidies/regulations to favor them.
    - EricE 5y ago
      Subsidies touting efficiencies that turned out to be fictional due to multiple manufactures committing pretty major fraud for decades that was only recently uncovered. Yeah, that government intervention worked out well :p
- mywittyname 5y ago
  > China tends to be left out of these discussions Volvo is a Chinese-owned company. While the company is headquartered and led in Sweden, it is safe to assume that the Chinese market is a strong consideration in everything they do.
bluGill 5y ago
Volvo and Daimler cannot afford for someone else to get there and hold all the patents. If it doesn't work out at all they will lobby and get the laws changed. If it works out though they won't have a strong a position to lobby from (someone else proved it works, why can't you?) and risk losing that side of the business. That is enough reason for them to put money into R&D. It might or might not result in anything for many different reasons.

unethical_ban 5y ago

Who says Fedex and UPS aren't all in on electric? Are you in their corporate meetings? People act like the mammoth transition of a civilization (or even a huge logistics company) would be on the order of 2-3 years, and not a generation. Public transit in many places has already switched to propane/LNG. Same with lots of municipal work trucks. Your first sentence is the attitude he's responding to: That trucking/logistics/cityworks are able to make their own refueling stations, build their own support infrastructure, etc. in ways that the public cannot, on the short term.

kingsuper20 5y ago
>Who says Fedex and UPS aren't all in on electric? Because I haven't seen a single electric truck of any type by any service. Perhaps someone here has, love to hear about it. Since my wife is a shipping manager for a manufacturer, there is some anecdotal backing. (jeesh, why are people so religious about this stuff?). I don't doubt that they are planning a long term move at places like Fedex, but articles on it lead me to believe they are just dipping their toe in the water. A moon shot to accomplish something by 2040 is the opposite of all-in, they may not exist as a company in 20 years. In any case, as I was alluding to, short-haul trucking will electrify far before long-haul, for obvious reasons (and if it ever does)...at least for purely economic reasons. All bets are off if the hand of the state dictates a technology. > Your first sentence is the attitude he's responding to lol. What? That I doubt that you'll see hydrogen fueled long-haul trucking in the US? Care to make a bet on it? What is your time horizon on the bet?
- callalex 5y ago
  I see electric fedex and ups delivery trucks all the time in several SF Bay Area counties. Anecdotes aren’t very useful in broad analysis.
  - kingsuper20 5y ago
    OK, I looked it up. The Fedex fleet is a little over 1% electric...and that includes forklifts and airport equipment. Like I keep saying, they'll be all over this tech when it really pencils out.

dv_dt 5y ago

I think there's plenty of hints that Fedex and UPS are going electric, but taking time and thought into how it integrates. Not everything is a cloud provisioning script away from rollout. Fedex Plans to Electrify its Entire Fleet of Delivery Vehicles by 2040" [1] "UPS Orders 10000 Electric Delivery Trucks..." [2] [1] https://fordauthority.com/2021/03/fedex-plans-to-electrify-its-entire-fleet-of-delivery-vehicles-by-2040/ https://fordauthority.com/2021/03/fedex-plans-to-electrify-i... [2] https://www.boston.com/cars/car-news/2020/03/22/ups-orders-10000-electric-delivery-trucks-plans-test-of-self-driving-vans https://www.boston.com/cars/car-news/2020/03/22/ups-orders-1...

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
They're talking about delivery vehicles (which lend themselves well to electric operation for the same reasons city buses do) not semi trucks.
- dv_dt 5y ago
  Right, it takes time to rollout, and given battery factory constraints right now, even if a semi were 100% ready, you couldn't supply the batteries for the use for at least another two the tree years I would guess. So I think at best, right now, you'll see planning for delivery vehicles, with semis in earlier development.
  - xkjkls 5y ago
    Semis are an entirely different equation than delivery vans. They have more constraints around energy density, whereas vans have more constraints around price.
- kingsuper20 5y ago
  Delivery and route trucks really are the interesting test case for battery-powered vehicles. Assuming that someone in a government meeting room doesn't dictate their technology via fiat or subsidy, it's a case based purely on economic interests. Double bonus points for being a tolerably straightforward to calculate decision. I really can't foresee how it turns out, hopefully the battery tech has some room to run.

dan_quixote 5y ago

> The fact that Fedex/UPS haven't gone wholesale into electric is telling at this point Both companies had a huge moat until Amazon came along blew their doors off. And Amazon has been investing heavily in electric delivery vehicles: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/18/amazon-begins-testing-rivian-electric-delivery-vans-in-san-francisco.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/18/amazon-begins-testing-rivian...

xkjkls 5y ago
This is very different from heavy trucks. These are electric delivery vans. No one is arguing whether electric vehicles can be effective in the small vehicle market; its the semi, 18-wheeler segment being discussed.
- manquer 5y ago
  True, there is not a viable product that is scalable in the market. Both Nikola and Tesla are vapourware today. Perhaps they might deliver in a couple of years realistically. Delivery companies are in no hurry to shift and bet ahead of time, once the technology is readily available and well supported they will move their fleet

jsight 5y ago

I think that MCS will help greatly to accelerate things. Fear of building infrastructure for a new tech has to be a huge part of it. A lot of folks have toes in the water with Tesla semi orders, though. I expect that to grow pretty quickly if the first ones work well for regional distribution, and that is really their strength. That new fangled "diesel" stuff is really hard to beat for long distance trucking.

jabl 5y ago

> The champions for electric trucks should push for trash pickup, route sales, local delivery, etc. and not bother with long haul for now. Indeed, and earlier we discussed plans for battery electric trucks by Volvo (one of the company's described in this article): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24999239 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24999239 Batteries for short-haul, hydrogen (or something else) for long-haul.