8 ms·

diesel engine mechanic here. ive been following the tesla "truck" thing for about a year now and it seems pretty miserable. i dont have the sources, but from

• wyldfire 2y ago
  > center-seating makes visibility, toll booths and logbook checks a chore. side mirrors are static and too high. What was the upside of this design decision? Why did they decide to be different here?
  • codydh 2y ago
    Presumably the same reason all Teslas have weird door handles: "Oooh, different!" Despite the fact that they're kind of miserable to use and less reliable than a standard handle.
    • 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
      Serial Chesterson's Fence violators due to arrogance and ego.
    • mynameisvlad 2y ago
      The door handles probably shave a percent or two battery life due to aerodynamics; most EVs have recessed door handles of some sort now.
      • gavinsyancey 2y ago
        From what I've read, since door handles generally are placed in the path of turbulent air that has beed disturbed by the mirrors, it doesn't really make much of a difference.
        • vel0city 2y ago
          Most door handles are considerably lower than the mirrors. Door handles are normally several inches down from the window line while mirrors are usually at or above that line. The Mach E's front door handle things are practically at the window line to take advantage of being in the mirror turbulence area, a handle several inches down probably wouldn't be in it very much.
      • gomox 2y ago
        I've read this trope many times but honestly I don't buy it. At highway speeds conventional door handles, which are absolutely tiny in frontal area and have fairly low drag shape to begin with, are behind the side mirror turbulence anyway. I wish some high budget Youtuber would test this in a wind tunnel so we can put it to rest.
• jojobas 2y ago
  Lot tenders use a significantly different design facilitating frequent entry/exit, don't they?
• api 2y ago
  If you want electric trucks it seems like the no-brainer is (in addition to lot tenders) local delivery vans. I already see electric Amazon vans everywhere. You go out, make the day's deliveries, then come back and charge while docked. It's an obvious fit. Long haul trucking is the worst fit for today's EV tech. Building more freight rail and electrifying it is another option for (some) long haul transport that isn't discussed enough.
  • HumblyTossed 2y ago
    > Building more freight rail and electrifying it is another option for (some) long haul transport that isn't discussed enough. Most are, it's just that the electric part is generated by a diesel engine. That being said, they're already several times more efficient per ton than a semi is.
    • TremendousJudge 2y ago
      >it's just that the electric part is generated by a diesel engine while technically correct, not a useful observation
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      • flextheruler 2y ago
        What’s the proposition to “electrify” trains? Batteries or a live wire everywhere there’s train tracks? Both seem really inefficient to me with our current technology.
        • TremendousJudge 2y ago
          Yes, around the world electric freight locomotives are powered by overhead lines, and more occasionally by a third rail. It is a mature technology and the US is an exception among industrialized countries (China, all of Europe, Russia, Australia, Japan, etc) in that they use only diesel for freight.
• barbariangrunge 2y ago
  Very interesting. People like you make this site what it is. Thanks for posting!
• iancmceachern 2y ago
  Lot tenders are the obvious place to start, so clearly.
  • nojvek 2y ago
    Not into trucking, what is a Lot Tender?
    • iancmceachern 2y ago
      It's those tiny little trucks that move loads around the freight depot. They're like the forklifts of the truck world.
• stetrain 2y ago
  I'm not sure OTR long haul was really ever part of Tesla's plan at least for this generation of trucks. The trucks are not designed as sleeper cabs, so regional was the only reasonable target.
• k1rd 2y ago
  was not aware of existence of "Lot-tenders". I played many hours of euro track simulator so i am pretty legit. "Lot-tenders" generally refers to services that involve the management and coordination of truck movements within a large parking lot or a distribution center.
• photochemsyn 2y ago
  The only solution to the charging time lag is swappable batteries: truck pulls in, drained battery lifted out with automated crane, charged battery swapped in. It would take some logistics and coordination, as well as a universal standard for heavy truck batteries, but that's what's making it work in China, although also as you note, long-haul trucking is the hardest sector. > "The second storyline is that battery swapping is also helping electrifying China truck sales. BNEF analyst Siyi Mi recently compiled data on all the battery-swappable vehicles sold in the country and found that while swapping remains a niche technology for passenger vehicles, almost half of all heavy battery electric trucks sold last year in China had swappable batteries. That’s up from 34% in 2021. Many of these trucks are operating in industrial sites, port warehouses, mines and steelmaking factories. Lighter commercial vehicles with swappable batteries also are being used in urban deliveries, an area where BNEF expects to see more growth as better economics and tightened emission requirements draw more attention to electric models. Long-haul trucking will be the last, and most difficult, segment to tackle." https://about.bnef.com/blog/chinas-clean-truck-surprise-defies-the-ev-slowdown-narrative/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/chinas-clean-truck-surprise-defi...
  • orbisvicis 2y ago
    Instead of swappable batteries, would swappable trucks work? A relay of short-range, easily swappable trucks?
    • cogman10 2y ago
      It's actually the same problem, ownership. Who owns these batteries? Who owns these trucks? Who eats the cost on battery/truck degradation? If I pull in with a battery that has 70% of it's original max capacity and get a brand new battery with 99% of it's capacity how do you fairly assess that value add to the truck?
      • jauntywundrkind 2y ago
        Not seriously suggesting it, but what if the cab was easily swappable & the underlying truck was semi-standard? Still similar issues of ownership but at least truckers can bring their home with them, which seems to be important. Silly yes. The 90's vision of the skateboard platform has stuck with me a lot. I'd imagined rolling lounges & other passenger vehicles cabins being a way to start decoupling the car, reducing the number of batteries motors and wheels that a town or city had to own in net. The usage cycle of trucks is a lot higher, and the swappability just for sale of switching batteries seems silly, but I couldn't help but see at least one of the core problems of swappability being solved by disaggregation the compartment from the rest here.
• takeda 2y ago
  > Musk needs to come back to earth. OTR (over the road, long hauls of 1800 miles) is a non-starter and will never work with current technology. professional drivers can not lose 30 minutes every 400 miles on these routes to charge, they will miss all their drop times. Would it help if instead of charging, do what you do with a toy car - replace the batteries? They could then charge and be ready for the next truck.
  • kristjansson 2y ago
    Keep in mind even the battery in a Model S is half a ton, and integrated into the frame of the car...
    • saalweachter 2y ago
      I mean, technically you could swap out the entire cab every time it needed to be charged. The goal is to get the trailer to the destination, not the cab. There are several problems with that, you end up with a lot more idle equipment than just the battery pack, you've got to either be constantly switching drivers or drivers have to be constantly switching cabs, you need facilities to swap trailers and charge cabs, etc etc etc. But tractor trailers already have a convenient modularity built in, is all I'm saying.
      • kristjansson 2y ago
        Tesla-semi-as-pony-express would be interesting, but isn't really compatible with _selling_ the actual truck as a product; no one wants to swap _their_ truck with someone else's, except the guys with above-average wear on their truck. The same dynamic limits battery swaps.
    • Rebelgecko 2y ago
      What about this? https://www.tesla.com/videos/battery-swap-event https://www.tesla.com/videos/battery-swap-event Or maybe those weren't production cars?
      • 2y ago
• cogman10 2y ago
  Some regional routes could work. So long as they are short and involve charging while loading/unloading. But yeah, long haul was a stupid plan that would have never worked. Not without some massive batteries to kick the range way up to something like 800 miles and infrastructure to allow these trucks to charge overnight. I just don't think the power density is there currently for trucks.
• hedora 2y ago
  I think EV's (or similar, maybe hydrogen fuel cell, or carbon neutral methane/lpg; direct or used to charge a battery drive train) will eventually make sense for long haul trucking. In the worst case, route times will adjust, and 5 hour routes will turn into 5:30 routes. However, they really should look for low hanging fruit and then try to expand out from there. Trucks that are stuck in stop-and-go traffic all the time are an obvious candidate (low MPG / high pollution per mile with diesel engines, and those applications have low aerodynamic drag and are a huge opportunity for regenerative braking). I think commuter / local event busses are another obvious fit. I've started to see these around: https://www.vanhool.com/en/vehicles/public-transport/batteryelectric https://www.vanhool.com/en/vehicles/public-transport/battery... Even though these are replacing rear-engine diesels, some of the components will be common with semis. It'll help bootstrap the large vehicle battery + motor supply chain and fleet management logistics at the very least. One thing to note is that they're using standard form factors. There's no reason to couple the vehicle layout to changes in the power train. My guess is that Tesla's trying to replay the luxury -> midrange -> economy playbook that they used to bootstrap the EV supply chain. I don't see how that strategy will work a second time, since the supply chain has already been bootstrapped.
  • JohnMakin 2y ago
    > In the worst case, route times will adjust, and 5 hour routes will turn into 5:30 routes. I think you are very seriously underestimating the complexity and economics behind trucking logistics and what a nightmare this would become.
• thelastgallon 2y ago
  Can you explain lot tender? Can't find any info on google.
  • ry4nolson 2y ago
    It's a truck that never leaves the warehouse or "lot". They're just used to rearrange/move trailers.
    • SoftTalker 2y ago
      a/k/a a "yard dog" They are often built with a single-person cab with windows on all sides and in some of them the seat, pedals, and steering column can pivot around so you can drive backwards without looking over your shoulder. https://typestrucks.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/13.jpg https://typestrucks.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/13.jpg
  • mattmaroon 2y ago
    Moves trailers around a lot. Useful at distribution centers, factories, etc.
  • Pet_Ant 2y ago
    Pretty sure this just means moving around trailers on a parking lot / loading lot etc. Because you don't have to warm up the engine, and you aren't far from a plug, you could use these to just reposition the trailers. Also, you are working in close proximity with humans so being zero-emission is more pleasant environment and better for long-term health too.
  • rascul 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_tractor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_tractor
• cpncrunch 2y ago
  >professional drivers can not lose 30 minutes every 400 miles on these routes to charge, they will miss all their drop times. Except, that isn't how it would have to work. It would make sense for the company to pay the driver for charging time. In BC a 400 mile drive would cost C$514 in diesel ($2/l, 40l/100km), or $112 in electricity (at 1.25kwhr/km and $0.14/kwhr), so presumably the driver could be paid $100 for the 30 min charging stop, and the company will still save $300 for each 400 mile leg.
  • sebazzz 2y ago
    For instance, in the Netherlands a driver can only drive for 4.5hr before having a 45min mandatory break. https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/werktijden/vraag-en-antwoord/rijtijden-en-rusttijden-wegvervoer https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/werktijden/vraag-en...
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • rich_sasha 2y ago
    Does this interfere with (a) regulation on max time a driver can work, and (b) just in time delivery times etc? Not a lorry driver so just asking.
  • mattmaroon 2y ago
    And some of the stops would have had to occur anyway because of bladders, drive time regulations, etc. You bring up a good point that fuel savings may be sufficient to compensate drivers for extra time with plenty left over.
    • unregistereddev 2y ago
      10h on, 8h off. A 400 mile trip does not require off-time or stops unless somehow you get so snarled in traffic that you're averaging less than 40mph. Drivers are really good at avoiding needing to stop the rig for bathroom stops.
    • creaturemachine 2y ago
• danans 2y ago
  > If you want to see something I think the actual trucking industry is getting excited about, check out Edison motors. They're running a hybrid diesel/electric design that would work wonderfully for things like clean-air city driving Serial hybrid seems like a great solution for trucking, since you don't need to oversize the engine in order to cover high torque needs (the electric motors would handle that), and during flat highway drives the generator could top off the battery using a narrower RPM range. Long distance trucking is also a place where I think green hydrogen fed fuel cell trucks could work, since range would a non-issue, and also the hinterlands, which long distance trucks travel through, is where most of the renewables are. If the renewables can be fed to an electrolyzer nearby, which supplies a hydrogen fueling station nearby, then you don't need to build much transmission/transportation to get the hydrogen to the trucks. This requires electrolyzer cost to drop a lot (and FC Semis to be available), but all the technology components of the system exist in some form.
  • thijson 2y ago
    It's the model that trains have been using for a long time now.
    • danans 2y ago
      AFAIK, diesel hybrid locomotives don't have traction batteries though. Many actually have big radiators to dissipate energy regenerated while going downhill by their electric traction motors. Hopefully, as batteries get less expensive this changes.
      • rstuart4133 2y ago
        There is always a counter example, and the counter example to trains not charging batteries is the infinity train: https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a39372219/self-charging-infinity-train/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a39372219/se...
        • danans 2y ago
• idiotsecant 2y ago
  Edison is just as much vaporware as any other of the small EV manufacturers. They built a single prototype. They haven't even begun to really deal with supply chain, labor, or service yet.
• r0ckarong 2y ago
  > Musk needs to come back to earth. The man doesn't even know where earth IS anymore.
• ed_balls 2y ago
  I, also, do thing diesel generators are way to go for trucking. What do you think about natural gas generators? They could be cheaper and cleaner.
• tim333 2y ago
  It's interesting with the logging thing that in some applications they may be able to get 100% of the power from the weight of the logs coming down the mountains and regenerative breaking https://www.biv.com/news/retail-manufacturing/move-over-tesla-bc-company-rolls-out-electric-semi-truck-8471726 https://www.biv.com/news/retail-manufacturing/move-over-tesl... By the way 30% or so of London busses are diesel hybrid so it works although they are planning to replace them by zero emissions eventually.