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The solution for electric trucking has been obvious for 50 years - overhead cables on all major highways. It is the cheapest and most efficient solution, the t

The solution for electric trucking has been obvious for 50 years - overhead cables on all major highways. It is the cheapest and most efficient solution, the trucks only need enough range for local delivery and transport, and since they charge from cables, they dont occupy petrol stations. https://movemnt.net/uk-trial-to-electrify-30km-of-motorway-with-overhead-catenary-power/ https://movemnt.net/uk-trial-to-electrify-30km-of-motorway-w...

nimbleplum40 4y ago
> The solution for electric trucking has been obvious for 50 years - overhead cables on all major highways. Not necessarily disagreeing, but if the solution has been obvious for 50 years, why hasn't it happened?
- _ph_ 4y ago
  Germany is currently testing this on some selected sections.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  I mean, we still haven't even electrified all the railways, and the proposal for IceLink, a cable to import cheap renewable power from IceLand to UK, was sitting on the shelf for 60 years. Also we had trolleybusses in many cities and got rid of them
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    So why isn't it widely deployed in Europe where they do have electrified railways, etc?
- myself248 4y ago
  Same reason Detroit doesn't have useful mass-transit. Entrenched interests make more money by prolonging the problem. Arguably the solution would be economically superior (vastly so!), but the folks who'd profit from it aren't in power _now_, and government lacks both the technical competency to understand what to do, and the balls to do it.
- 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
  Because the logistics never worked, and won't work for at least another 10 years. 1. How do you use it? First you need an electric truck, or a truck where at least 50% of its wheels are connected to electric motors. Either way you'd have to retrofit existing fleets of all shapes and sizes, so one or more companies would need to specialize in doing that, which would be very expensive initially. So you have to have an electric fleet to retrofit, or retrofit an ICE fleet (which makes zero economic sense). 2. How often is it used? The truck might actually only spend 1/2-2/3 of its time connected to the system, what with time waiting to load/unload at ports and depots, time before/after you're on highway, dealing with traffic on the highway itself. 3. How do you pay for the energy? You need a company to generate the energy, a company to charge users for the energy, a way to identify the truck as it's receiving the energy, tariff management software, etc. 4. Where are you going to install it? What roads will or won't work? How long will that take before you have enough roads that you'd stop losing money? Mostly long haul, so this has limited application, even in trucking. If all the trucks were electric, all exactly the same size/type, the system were installed on all roads, all the companies needed to service it were in operation, and you trained enough service staff, and electricity was cheap enough that the portion of your ride would be offset by the amount of time you are charging that you could carry a smaller battery, then it would make sense. But first we need to roll this system out on all highways, then everybody needs a BEV, then we retrofit them all, then shrink all their batteries, and then it will make economic sense. Before that all happens we need enough chargers, enough grid capacity, cheaper cleaner power, and enough BEVs rolled out, which will take 10 years at least. Electric trams work in cities because they have short routes, a small identical fleet, need very little battery, and all the money comes from one pool (the city).
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    > first we need to roll this system out on all highways, then everybody needs a BEV Essentially your complaint seems to be that we don't get a free lunch, but that's never been an option You have only 3 options: large expensive batteries on every truck, smaller batteries + overhead wires, or some kind of fuel like hydrogen. In all cases you need new vehicles, and in all cases you need new infrastructure to handle charging and/or fuel. Production of fuel from electricity and it's distribution is always under 40% efficiency. So if you want efficiency, the only question is cost of overhead wires vs cost of larger battery in every truck. Most of the battery would be spent travelling long distance on large, straight roads, and those are also the easiest roads to electrify. Also what's with the complaint about energy billing? We can put a 5g connection into every car and make it charge us for heated seats, but measuring energy is a problem?
- elihu 4y ago
  Because historically diesel has been cheap and the externalities have been ignored. It's also a major infrastructure project, and getting it installed widely enough to be useful on, say, the interstate highway system in the U.S. would require an act of Congress, plus buy-in from vehicle manufacturers and operators, plus widely-agreed on standards.
- xputer 4y ago
  Probably because you still need battery power for the non freeway portion of the trip.
throwaway894345 4y ago
Your link doesn't support your claims (that it has been "obvious for 50 years" or that it's the cheapest and most efficient solution). I don't doubt that it's cheaper and more efficient than large BEVs, but like the other commenters, I would like to know where this has been conclusively studied and why this hasn't been deployed at scale anywhere. > they dont occupy petrol stations In the US they usually have their own stations. EDIT: Downvoters, care to explain?
- upupandup 4y ago
  It's not really up to commentators to post links, if something irks you this much, google is there for you to verify. HN is not a court of law and you are gonna have a tough time making friends if you ask for citation for every statement you hear.
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    You misunderstood the context. I didn’t request a citation, I pointed out that the provided citation didn’t support the provided claims. I mentioned that I would be interested in learning more, but that’s not the same thing as insisting on a citation.
somethoughts 4y ago
Tom Scott did a video on it: The highway where trucks work like electric trains https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3P_S7pL7Yg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3P_S7pL7Yg Its interesting if it could be used in combination with self driving truck technology for long haul train style trucking.
panick21_ 4y ago
If that is the case, and I agree. We should actually put much, much more effort into cargo railway first. And the same for trams as well. But that shouldnt prevent us from trolly lines on highways.
elihu 4y ago
I very much agree we should be electrifying our major roads. There's a couple ways to do this though with pros and cons. Overhead lines are cheapest, but they'd need to be high enough that they'd be impractical for passenger cars to access. Rails embedded in the road are a technology that's being tested in Sweden[1]. It's a bit more expensive to install, but the advantages are that it can be used by both cars and trucks, and it's less visible than the overhead lines (which some people find unattractive). A third option is wireless, which is the most expensive and the amount of power you can practically transmit is a lot less than the other two methods. I think the rails option is probably best if we want to kill the range anxiety issue for trucking and personal vehicles at the same time, but there are good arguments for the overhead lines too. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/12/worlds-first-electrified-road-for-charging-vehicles-opens-in-sweden https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/12/worlds-f...

nimbleplum40 4y ago

> The solution for electric trucking has been obvious for 50 years - overhead cables on all major highways. Not necessarily disagreeing, but if the solution has been obvious for 50 years, why hasn't it happened?

_ph_ 4y ago
Germany is currently testing this on some selected sections.
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
I mean, we still haven't even electrified all the railways, and the proposal for IceLink, a cable to import cheap renewable power from IceLand to UK, was sitting on the shelf for 60 years. Also we had trolleybusses in many cities and got rid of them
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  So why isn't it widely deployed in Europe where they do have electrified railways, etc?
myself248 4y ago
Same reason Detroit doesn't have useful mass-transit. Entrenched interests make more money by prolonging the problem. Arguably the solution would be economically superior (vastly so!), but the folks who'd profit from it aren't in power _now_, and government lacks both the technical competency to understand what to do, and the balls to do it.
0xbadcafebee 4y ago
Because the logistics never worked, and won't work for at least another 10 years. 1. How do you use it? First you need an electric truck, or a truck where at least 50% of its wheels are connected to electric motors. Either way you'd have to retrofit existing fleets of all shapes and sizes, so one or more companies would need to specialize in doing that, which would be very expensive initially. So you have to have an electric fleet to retrofit, or retrofit an ICE fleet (which makes zero economic sense). 2. How often is it used? The truck might actually only spend 1/2-2/3 of its time connected to the system, what with time waiting to load/unload at ports and depots, time before/after you're on highway, dealing with traffic on the highway itself. 3. How do you pay for the energy? You need a company to generate the energy, a company to charge users for the energy, a way to identify the truck as it's receiving the energy, tariff management software, etc. 4. Where are you going to install it? What roads will or won't work? How long will that take before you have enough roads that you'd stop losing money? Mostly long haul, so this has limited application, even in trucking. If all the trucks were electric, all exactly the same size/type, the system were installed on all roads, all the companies needed to service it were in operation, and you trained enough service staff, and electricity was cheap enough that the portion of your ride would be offset by the amount of time you are charging that you could carry a smaller battery, then it would make sense. But first we need to roll this system out on all highways, then everybody needs a BEV, then we retrofit them all, then shrink all their batteries, and then it will make economic sense. Before that all happens we need enough chargers, enough grid capacity, cheaper cleaner power, and enough BEVs rolled out, which will take 10 years at least. Electric trams work in cities because they have short routes, a small identical fleet, need very little battery, and all the money comes from one pool (the city).
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > first we need to roll this system out on all highways, then everybody needs a BEV Essentially your complaint seems to be that we don't get a free lunch, but that's never been an option You have only 3 options: large expensive batteries on every truck, smaller batteries + overhead wires, or some kind of fuel like hydrogen. In all cases you need new vehicles, and in all cases you need new infrastructure to handle charging and/or fuel. Production of fuel from electricity and it's distribution is always under 40% efficiency. So if you want efficiency, the only question is cost of overhead wires vs cost of larger battery in every truck. Most of the battery would be spent travelling long distance on large, straight roads, and those are also the easiest roads to electrify. Also what's with the complaint about energy billing? We can put a 5g connection into every car and make it charge us for heated seats, but measuring energy is a problem?
elihu 4y ago
Because historically diesel has been cheap and the externalities have been ignored. It's also a major infrastructure project, and getting it installed widely enough to be useful on, say, the interstate highway system in the U.S. would require an act of Congress, plus buy-in from vehicle manufacturers and operators, plus widely-agreed on standards.
xputer 4y ago
Probably because you still need battery power for the non freeway portion of the trip.

throwaway894345 4y ago

Your link doesn't support your claims (that it has been "obvious for 50 years" or that it's the cheapest and most efficient solution). I don't doubt that it's cheaper and more efficient than large BEVs, but like the other commenters, I would like to know where this has been conclusively studied and why this hasn't been deployed at scale anywhere. > they dont occupy petrol stations In the US they usually have their own stations. EDIT: Downvoters, care to explain?

upupandup 4y ago
It's not really up to commentators to post links, if something irks you this much, google is there for you to verify. HN is not a court of law and you are gonna have a tough time making friends if you ask for citation for every statement you hear.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  You misunderstood the context. I didn’t request a citation, I pointed out that the provided citation didn’t support the provided claims. I mentioned that I would be interested in learning more, but that’s not the same thing as insisting on a citation.

somethoughts 4y ago

Tom Scott did a video on it: The highway where trucks work like electric trains https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3P_S7pL7Yg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3P_S7pL7Yg Its interesting if it could be used in combination with self driving truck technology for long haul train style trucking.

panick21_ 4y ago

If that is the case, and I agree. We should actually put much, much more effort into cargo railway first. And the same for trams as well. But that shouldnt prevent us from trolly lines on highways.

elihu 4y ago

I very much agree we should be electrifying our major roads. There's a couple ways to do this though with pros and cons. Overhead lines are cheapest, but they'd need to be high enough that they'd be impractical for passenger cars to access. Rails embedded in the road are a technology that's being tested in Sweden[1]. It's a bit more expensive to install, but the advantages are that it can be used by both cars and trucks, and it's less visible than the overhead lines (which some people find unattractive). A third option is wireless, which is the most expensive and the amount of power you can practically transmit is a lot less than the other two methods. I think the rails option is probably best if we want to kill the range anxiety issue for trucking and personal vehicles at the same time, but there are good arguments for the overhead lines too. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/12/worlds-first-electrified-road-for-charging-vehicles-opens-in-sweden https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/12/worlds-f...