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I could talk about how charging during a delivery is a no go. I could talk about the initial price. Or about battery life. Or infrastructure. As I know people

I could talk about how charging during a delivery is a no go. I could talk about the initial price. Or about battery life. Or infrastructure. As I know people in the transport business I'm just gonna shut up and wait for them to switch for economic reasons. Until then it's just words.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
- londons_explore 3y ago
  Road wear is one thing that won't be a blocker... Road wear is paid for by the taxpayers, and therefore has nil cost to any business deciding which type of trick to buy.
  - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
    But there are weight limits on trucks (atleast in most countries), which means less load taken in one trip.
toomuchtodo 3y ago
A combination of economics and policy will force this. California has outlawed new diesel truck sales after 2036, and other states aren’t far behind (you can drag the stragglers along). Diesel truck pm2.5 emissions are harmful. Carbon emissions are harmful. Adapt or die. PepsiCo and Frito-Lay are already running Tesla Semis in production. The learning curve is bending up. To get better at this, we’ll have to first suck at it, in the aggregate. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/04/28/california-bans-the-sale-of-new-diesel-trucks-by-2036.html https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/04/28/california-bans-the-sale... https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/barcu/regact/2022/acf22/acf15db.pdf https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/barcu/regact/2022... https://electrek.co/2023/04/12/tesla-delivers-fleet-tesla-semi-electric-trucks-pepsico/ https://electrek.co/2023/04/12/tesla-delivers-fleet-tesla-se...
- throwaway97345 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - soperj 3y ago
      > settled science There's no such thing as "settled science", that's the nature of science. Not that I agree with the throwaway account at all.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - lokar 3y ago
      And pm2.5 from diesel delivery trucks is a real problem.
    - aww_dang 3y ago
      [flagged]
  - ben_w 3y ago
    You don't lose freedom by switching fuel. Emphatically so when you didn't get a say in the old fuel either, and even more emphatically when the new one is cheaper overall than the old.
    - aww_dang 3y ago
      >California has outlawed new diesel truck sales after 2036, and other states aren’t far behind (you can drag the stragglers along). When the new fuel is cheaper and suitable for consumer's needs, there will be no need to "drag" them along or prohibit choices. I believe this is what the comment was referencing.
    - gautamdivgi 3y ago
bushbaba 3y ago
If you include the true cost of remediating the diesel’s pollution then the electric truck comes our way ahead.
- aww_dang 3y ago
  Who determines the 'true' cost? How much is that exactly? Are there any other figures or dissent in regards to the premise?
  - bertil 3y ago
    There are two things you can look at: 1. The consequences of global warming You could ask people how much they’d pay to keep chocolate or coffee, bananas, pineapples, or mangoes. Most of Florida’s coastline, about half of California. There are things that specialists disagree about, but all have no doubt that all those crops will not be cultivated (outside) if we stay the course. Florida and California are now seeing insurance companies bailing out, so we are moving from scientific certainty to economic reality. Naturally, there’s more: most people think that Cajou nuts, açai berries, passion fruits, agave, prickly pears, should be on this list (because of temperature) but if we start looking at that, then people think pollinator collapse or opportunist infection are going to be there first… So I tried to make a conservative list. Typically the answer to the question “What would you pay to keep those (chocolate, coffee, etc.)?” is that whatever cost to save those things is worth it. You can try to find numbers, but the US famously started wars to end democracies in several countries to grow just bananas (that gave us “Banana Republic”), so we are closer to amounts where it’s less money measured in many billions and more state-sponsored violence. All that long rant to say: whatever is the cost of not destroying those, that is the “true” cost. 2. The cost of CO2 extraction and storage With current rock-bottom electricity prices in Iceland, ClimateWorks research facility can extract CO2 for a bit more than $3,000 per ton (depending on accounting for research costs; that number is just OpEx IIRC). To convert that to the cost of transporting goods, you can apply a ratio of 50 grams of CO2 per tonne-kilometer [1]. A 40-ton truck will have to pay $600 to compensate for every 100 km. That sounds like a lot, even without considering the cost of storage. ClimateWorks hope to lower the price by an order of magnitude [0], which specialists think is unlikely. In truth, much cheaper electricity makes electric trucks that much more appealing. You will never save any money by burning fuel and then spending energy trying to re-capture that CO2 at low concentrations. It’s engineering nonsense. A better idea would be to have trucks carry a balloon with their emissions and that’s obviously a clownish idea. All that, again, before we even have a scalable solution for storage. A cousin works on that project for Statoil. Sure it might work (with the right salt cave) but it’s nowhere ready to scale to handle emissions from trucks all over the world. So we will never be even close to making ICE trucks a sound idea if we consider the environmental impact. [0] https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/carbon-capture-and-storage-plant-becomes-operational-iceland https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/carbon-capture-and-storag... [1] https://www.transportenvironment.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/202108_truck_CO2_report_final.pdf https://www.transportenvironment.org/wp-content/uploads/2021...
hedora 3y ago
The study took those things into account (fixed route deliveries, maintenance cost models and computerized scheduling address all your concerns and have been common place for decades). Anyway, I saw an electric ford van on a delivery run yesterday.
mywittyname 3y ago
People with a financial stake in the outcome have decided to invest a lot of money into electric semis despite knowing about all of these limitations (and many more) ahead of time. So they must have some plan for overcoming these hurdles. Perhaps these limitations aren't as rigid as people swear they are, or maybe shipping modalities change in order to play to the strengths of EVs. For example, there's nothing stopping shipping from becoming a relay-based, rather than point-to-point. Or maybe it becomes financially feasible to have drivers swap trucks. Yeah, that kills the "owner operator" long-haul trucker, but that model is pretty untenable anyway. Even industry experts can call an idea patently absurd, then have it become dominant over the next 20-30 years. Cable television is a good example of this, it's crazy to attach physical cables to every house in the USA in order to deliver TV, which can be sent over-the-air at a fraction of the cost. But we did just that. The benefits out-weighed the (tremendous) costs.
- johnchristopher 3y ago
  > So they must have some plan for overcoming these hurdles. Or maybe their plans is to get the first mover advantage and see what pans out ? Or get the whole market à la Uber by spending a lot of VC money and then figure out how to recoup ? See farming tech.
  - mywittyname 3y ago
    Uber had several long-term plans for making money. Surge pricing, predictive analytics, combined trips, tiered service, etc. Uber makes a gross profit of over $12 billion on a revenue of nearly $32 billion. They lose money on paper because they keep reinvesting profits and further investments back into the business. They've almost doubled revenue YoY. So even the most ludicrous SV startup you can think of pulled this off.
    - johnchristopher 3y ago
      Thanks, I bought into the uber for free because of vc money meme.
theshrike79 3y ago
Why is charging during a delivery a no go? Charging during loading would be the most reasonable solution, the truck will be stationary for 30-60 minutes or more anyway. The battery life issue is mostly offset by lower operating costs: electricity is a lot cheaper than diesel / 100km and electric motors are pretty much maintenance free

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

londons_explore 3y ago
Road wear is one thing that won't be a blocker... Road wear is paid for by the taxpayers, and therefore has nil cost to any business deciding which type of trick to buy.
- ajsnigrutin 3y ago
  But there are weight limits on trucks (atleast in most countries), which means less load taken in one trip.

toomuchtodo 3y ago

A combination of economics and policy will force this. California has outlawed new diesel truck sales after 2036, and other states aren’t far behind (you can drag the stragglers along). Diesel truck pm2.5 emissions are harmful. Carbon emissions are harmful. Adapt or die. PepsiCo and Frito-Lay are already running Tesla Semis in production. The learning curve is bending up. To get better at this, we’ll have to first suck at it, in the aggregate. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/04/28/california-bans-the-sale-of-new-diesel-trucks-by-2036.html https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/04/28/california-bans-the-sale... https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/barcu/regact/2022/acf22/acf15db.pdf https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/barcu/regact/2022... https://electrek.co/2023/04/12/tesla-delivers-fleet-tesla-semi-electric-trucks-pepsico/ https://electrek.co/2023/04/12/tesla-delivers-fleet-tesla-se...

throwaway97345 3y ago
[flagged]
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - soperj 3y ago
    > settled science There's no such thing as "settled science", that's the nature of science. Not that I agree with the throwaway account at all.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - lokar 3y ago
    And pm2.5 from diesel delivery trucks is a real problem.
  - aww_dang 3y ago
    [flagged]
- ben_w 3y ago
  You don't lose freedom by switching fuel. Emphatically so when you didn't get a say in the old fuel either, and even more emphatically when the new one is cheaper overall than the old.
  - aww_dang 3y ago
    >California has outlawed new diesel truck sales after 2036, and other states aren’t far behind (you can drag the stragglers along). When the new fuel is cheaper and suitable for consumer's needs, there will be no need to "drag" them along or prohibit choices. I believe this is what the comment was referencing.
  - gautamdivgi 3y ago

bushbaba 3y ago

If you include the true cost of remediating the diesel’s pollution then the electric truck comes our way ahead.

aww_dang 3y ago
Who determines the 'true' cost? How much is that exactly? Are there any other figures or dissent in regards to the premise?
- bertil 3y ago
  There are two things you can look at: 1. The consequences of global warming You could ask people how much they’d pay to keep chocolate or coffee, bananas, pineapples, or mangoes. Most of Florida’s coastline, about half of California. There are things that specialists disagree about, but all have no doubt that all those crops will not be cultivated (outside) if we stay the course. Florida and California are now seeing insurance companies bailing out, so we are moving from scientific certainty to economic reality. Naturally, there’s more: most people think that Cajou nuts, açai berries, passion fruits, agave, prickly pears, should be on this list (because of temperature) but if we start looking at that, then people think pollinator collapse or opportunist infection are going to be there first… So I tried to make a conservative list. Typically the answer to the question “What would you pay to keep those (chocolate, coffee, etc.)?” is that whatever cost to save those things is worth it. You can try to find numbers, but the US famously started wars to end democracies in several countries to grow just bananas (that gave us “Banana Republic”), so we are closer to amounts where it’s less money measured in many billions and more state-sponsored violence. All that long rant to say: whatever is the cost of not destroying those, that is the “true” cost. 2. The cost of CO2 extraction and storage With current rock-bottom electricity prices in Iceland, ClimateWorks research facility can extract CO2 for a bit more than $3,000 per ton (depending on accounting for research costs; that number is just OpEx IIRC). To convert that to the cost of transporting goods, you can apply a ratio of 50 grams of CO2 per tonne-kilometer [1]. A 40-ton truck will have to pay $600 to compensate for every 100 km. That sounds like a lot, even without considering the cost of storage. ClimateWorks hope to lower the price by an order of magnitude [0], which specialists think is unlikely. In truth, much cheaper electricity makes electric trucks that much more appealing. You will never save any money by burning fuel and then spending energy trying to re-capture that CO2 at low concentrations. It’s engineering nonsense. A better idea would be to have trucks carry a balloon with their emissions and that’s obviously a clownish idea. All that, again, before we even have a scalable solution for storage. A cousin works on that project for Statoil. Sure it might work (with the right salt cave) but it’s nowhere ready to scale to handle emissions from trucks all over the world. So we will never be even close to making ICE trucks a sound idea if we consider the environmental impact. [0] https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/carbon-capture-and-storage-plant-becomes-operational-iceland https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/carbon-capture-and-storag... [1] https://www.transportenvironment.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/202108_truck_CO2_report_final.pdf https://www.transportenvironment.org/wp-content/uploads/2021...

hedora 3y ago

The study took those things into account (fixed route deliveries, maintenance cost models and computerized scheduling address all your concerns and have been common place for decades). Anyway, I saw an electric ford van on a delivery run yesterday.

mywittyname 3y ago

People with a financial stake in the outcome have decided to invest a lot of money into electric semis despite knowing about all of these limitations (and many more) ahead of time. So they must have some plan for overcoming these hurdles. Perhaps these limitations aren't as rigid as people swear they are, or maybe shipping modalities change in order to play to the strengths of EVs. For example, there's nothing stopping shipping from becoming a relay-based, rather than point-to-point. Or maybe it becomes financially feasible to have drivers swap trucks. Yeah, that kills the "owner operator" long-haul trucker, but that model is pretty untenable anyway. Even industry experts can call an idea patently absurd, then have it become dominant over the next 20-30 years. Cable television is a good example of this, it's crazy to attach physical cables to every house in the USA in order to deliver TV, which can be sent over-the-air at a fraction of the cost. But we did just that. The benefits out-weighed the (tremendous) costs.

johnchristopher 3y ago
> So they must have some plan for overcoming these hurdles. Or maybe their plans is to get the first mover advantage and see what pans out ? Or get the whole market à la Uber by spending a lot of VC money and then figure out how to recoup ? See farming tech.
- mywittyname 3y ago
  Uber had several long-term plans for making money. Surge pricing, predictive analytics, combined trips, tiered service, etc. Uber makes a gross profit of over $12 billion on a revenue of nearly $32 billion. They lose money on paper because they keep reinvesting profits and further investments back into the business. They've almost doubled revenue YoY. So even the most ludicrous SV startup you can think of pulled this off.
  - johnchristopher 3y ago
    Thanks, I bought into the uber for free because of vc money meme.

theshrike79 3y ago

Why is charging during a delivery a no go? Charging during loading would be the most reasonable solution, the truck will be stationary for 30-60 minutes or more anyway. The battery life issue is mostly offset by lower operating costs: electricity is a lot cheaper than diesel / 100km and electric motors are pretty much maintenance free