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California approves rule phasing out big diesel trucks and buses in 2036
- BigCryo 3y agoThat should lead to a great deal of weight loss in California
- olliej 3y agoOn the one hand, a ton of people have giant diesel trucks for no reason other than anatomy comparisons, on the other: diesels are more fuel efficient, and have greater torque than petrol. If you compare to EVs you have to consider the working scenario for a truck that does benefit from diesel: You have a fixed amount of time under load, after which you have significant charging downtime, in the order of hours if its in typical rural areas which don't have superchargers everywhere.
- gaadd33 3y agoYou know people who own big rigs to show off? I haven't really seen people driving those as personal vehicles before, the closest I've seen are F550 based RVs since smaller truck chassis wouldn't be legal or able to carry that much weight.
- olliej 3y agoI do know of it, but that isn't super relevant. In true commenter form I had not read the article :D I had assumed they were using "truck" in the US sense (e.g. a ute or pickup) rather than big rigs, because wtf would you want to force trucks to use bigger and less efficient engines, instead of oversized utes which are the bigger environmental hazard.
- wilg 3y agoI think as battery (and charging) technology improves the downtime will become a non-issue pretty quickly.
- Inityx 3y ago> starting in 2036 WAAAAAAY too late. Even if it were "by 2036", that would STILL be too late.
- Eji1700 3y agoUnless you've got a magic plan to snap your fingers and get vital infrastructure built overnight, I'd say they're going to be lucky if they can even hit this. I'm glad to see things forcing the issue, but I suspect this is going to lead to very awkward/stupid/worse workarounds rather than serious adoption. If we're lucky the tech will continue to progress at a pace that makes this feasible, but if they don't support this with massive rail infrastructure (which, spoiler, they won't) then there's going to be serious logistics issues.
- wilg 3y agoI think "starting in 2036" and "by 2036" mean the same thing here.
- jsnie 3y agoDiesel engines play a huge role in our current life (food, goods, trash, you name it) and the current electric offerings are essentially a joke compared to what a diesel engine can do… but here’s hoping that by 2036 things are different.
- Krssst 3y agoCould trains replace diesel trucks? Would require building and maintaining a large amount of railroad, but solves the energy supply issue. Though it would probably would not help for delivering goods to smaller cities which cannot justify their own railroad.
- blargke23 3y agoLot of last mile stuff done by diesel trucks, so probably not.
- dublinben 3y agoThere used to be trains running across just about every mile of the US. Certainly enough to make last mile delivery practical with electric trucks, or even more efficient vehicles like cargo bikes.
- blamazon 3y agoThe very first warehouse building that Amazon leased [1] in Seattle (549 South Dawson) was built in 1972 with a rail line running directly into it, this can be seen on satellite maps--the building is U shaped, for access to both sides of the rail siding. Amazon never used this siding and it's fallen into even further disuse since they moved out (not sure the tracks are even visible anymore or covered up) but it's interesting to consider what Amazon's logistics footprint would look like today if a twist of fate had instead inspired them to take the route of primarily direct rail links instead of over-the-road trucking. https://corporate.findlaw.com/contracts/land/549-south-dawson-street-seattle-wa-lease-agreement-pacific.html https://corporate.findlaw.com/contracts/land/549-south-dawso...
- umrcumrcu 3y ago[flagged]