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> In shipping and logistics, time is money. Fuel can be dispensed in the US at a maximum of 10 gal/minute. Factor that against the largest charger you can find
by p1necone 4y ago
> In shipping and logistics, time is money. Fuel can be dispensed in the US at a maximum of 10 gal/minute. Factor that against the largest charger you can find and see why the single cost difference doesn't matter yet.
If the time wasted charging/refueling is super valuable you can fix this by provisioning a few more vehicles than there are drivers, or having hot swappable pre-charged batteries and provisioning a few more of those than there are vehicles. Then your recharging/refueling time drops down to a couple of minutes max because you're either swapping batteries out or hopping in a different truck.
- mulmen 4y agoOver-provisioning vehicles has a capital penalty and requires staging areas that don’t already exist.
- p1necone 4y agoAll of this has a capital penalty and requires stuff that doesn't exist yet. We're discussing exactly what stuff might be worth said capital penalty. If the basic running costs of these are really 25% of ICE vehicles then there's a lot of wiggle room for some extra "capital penalty" while still saving a tonne of money.
- mulmen 4y agoI’m not convinced EVs have a capital penalty over ICE. If an operator already has a truck they aren’t going to be in the market for a replacement, EV or not, until it reaches EOL. The lower cost of operation may move the needle on when ICE trucks reach EOL but not by much. How does an owner-operator justify the cost of buying two trucks and staging them? Even for larger operations how do they justify buying trucks that will sit still? Once EVs can meet the hours per day limits they will be appealing without additional infrastructure or over-provisioning.
- nonethewiser 4y agohe’s suggesting using more trucks to counter the lower range. That’s the capital penalty
- nonethewiser 4y agoLogistics companies currently need 1 truck to go cross country. Why would they opt for 4 instead? That have to be driven to checkpoints and wait. It makes no sense
- anticensor 4y agoIf your load is cross country, railway might be a better solution.
- nonethewiser 4y agoThat creates more overhead, downtime, and complexity. Now you need 3 or 4 additional semis lined up and waiting for a cross country trip.
- oblio 4y agoThe thing in the article is a van, not a semi, though.