3 ms·

A 30 minute charge means each charger can service a maximum of 48 tractors per day, and realistically probably less than that. I wonder how many trucks fill at

by aidenn0 6mo ago

A 30 minute charge means each charger can service a maximum of 48 tractors per day, and realistically probably less than that. I wonder how many trucks fill at a typical diesel filling station per day.

tiffanyh 6mo ago
~10 min to fill diesel semi. So electric can only service 1/3 of semi, when truck stop is at full capacity.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- mzi 6mo ago
  But you can go 1500 miles on a full tank, so with electricity you have to account for three times as many vehicles as well (given the stated range is correct)
  - aidenn0 5mo ago
    300 miles between charges if you are limited to a 30 minute charge, but semis probably refill much more often than every 1500 miles, particularly since they are required to stop every so often anyways.
Teever 6mo ago
My first job was pumping gas at regular neighbour gas station and one day a semi rolled in because he was low on gas. He insisted that we use both diesel pumps on the pump so that it would take faster and it still took forever. I can't remember if he filled both side of his truck but if he did that would have required him to go around the island to get the other side tank. I've only been to a cardlock station a few times but the pumps seem like regular pumps. I just looked it up and apparently regular gas station pumps in Canada are limited to 38 L/min (10 US gal/min) but some cardlock stations can have larger pumps with a higher rate on them. If a semi truck has two saddle tanks that's 200-300 gallons, but some trucks can apparently carry more? I'm not an expert on this, But I can reach out to a friend who owns a crane and trucking company if someone else doesn't chime in with a more detailed response. So at 200-300 gallons and 10 gallons per minute it can take 20-30 minutes to fill a truck.
- ticulatedspline 6mo ago
  stats vary. seems ~250 is common (2x 125 gals) and long haul ranges up to 2,000 miles. Though another way to think of filling up is miles per minute. At 10Gal/Min and 7MPG that's pumping 70 miles a minute into the tank. an 80% charge in 30 minutes on a 500 mile range battery is ~13 Miles a minute so roughly 5x slower
  - aidenn0 5mo ago
    60% charge in 30 minutes (20-80%) so 10 miles/minute and 7x slower.
- bombcar 6mo ago
  Truck stop pumps can do 30 GPM "on both sides" as they have two pumps connected to one bay. There are faster (600 GPM or more) but those are specialized for loading boats, etc; the air can't escape the tank fast enough to use those on a truck.
- shawn_w 6mo ago
  I don't know about exact rates, but diesel pumps in banks intended for semis have a larger diameter nozzle that flows faster than the normal sized ones, yeah. They won't fit diesel cars/vans/light trucks.
- ZeroGravitas 6mo ago
  Some Chinese EVs have charge ports on both sides and can be charged faster by using both at the same time. Not quite as elegant as the new flash chargers that rival the Tesla truck chargers with megawatt speeds but interesting.
defrost 6mo ago
Have you seen the demo's of "truck pack" batteries being removed from prime mover, transferred to charge station, replaced with already charged truck pack, all done with a mini fork lift? It's a 15 minute roll in / roll out kind of turn around. The game's not over and the big transport operators (eg: Rio Tinto mine fleets moving a billion tonne per annum, etc) are still doing the R&D pipeline and trialling pilots.
- zdragnar 6mo ago
  This has been tried before for public use and failed for all of the obvious reasons. It should get adoption from companies big enough to run their own fleets (such as the mining company mentioned) but it won't be a suitable method for a good percentage of the long haul trucks in the States. With that said, I would think chargers should be fine for a lot of those trucks if the infrastructure builds out for them. The drivers are already taking breaks every few hours by regulation, so they can top off rather than going from empty to full.
- tacticus 6mo ago
  Have you seen the demo of what you can get with some wires and low friction traction options :P
- DonHopkins 6mo ago
  I've seen Tesla's fake robots too. Maybe they can pay people who lost their jobs to DOGE to dress up in Spandex and dance like robots to replace the batteries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsNc4nEX3c4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsNc4nEX3c4
  - defrost 6mo ago
    Meanwhile, in Oz (and middle earth NZ), where the boring companies actually bore km's of usable tunnel: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTRHEtfdxOo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTRHEtfdxOo * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlOxqhWbsk4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlOxqhWbsk4 and at least one other battery swap prototype are all being actively piloted. You can keep Tesla, cheer's.
mlmonkey 6mo ago
Could they automate the "grab the charging cable and plug it in" part (as well as the "take the cable out and stow it away" part)? Trucks would then be able to just pull in, charge up and pull out quickly.
- solid_fuel 6mo ago
  Automating the part that takes 1 minute is not really going to make a difference when the charging takes 29 more.
  - mlmonkey 5mo ago
    But that is the only manual step in the entire process. If a driverless truck could just pull into a charging station, automatically get topped up and be on its way without any manual intervention, that would be a game changer. One could operate such trucks basically 22hours/day, doubling the ROI.
    - solid_fuel 5mo ago
      No? None of this follows? You're skipping straight to driverless trucks but we don't have autonomous driving yet.
HWR_14 6mo ago
Seems like about 10 minutes, and a single pump averages around 100 a day (although guessing that second one could have some serious rounding)
AtlasBarfed 6mo ago
I think we should do is have a second trailer that basically functions as the primary battery pack. The tractor's pack is back up or range extension So when a semi pulls into a truck stop, you swap that caboose cab with a fully charged one.
- danaw 6mo ago
  so you have massive batteries just sitting on chargers waiting for the next truck to come by? seems expensive
  - AtlasBarfed 5mo ago
    How's that different than a battery swap that every other person suggests but doesn't seem to really mechanically make sense.

by aidenn0 6mo ago

tiffanyh 6mo ago

~10 min to fill diesel semi. So electric can only service 1/3 of semi, when truck stop is at full capacity.

deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
mzi 6mo ago
But you can go 1500 miles on a full tank, so with electricity you have to account for three times as many vehicles as well (given the stated range is correct)
- aidenn0 5mo ago
  300 miles between charges if you are limited to a 30 minute charge, but semis probably refill much more often than every 1500 miles, particularly since they are required to stop every so often anyways.

Teever 6mo ago

My first job was pumping gas at regular neighbour gas station and one day a semi rolled in because he was low on gas. He insisted that we use both diesel pumps on the pump so that it would take faster and it still took forever. I can't remember if he filled both side of his truck but if he did that would have required him to go around the island to get the other side tank. I've only been to a cardlock station a few times but the pumps seem like regular pumps. I just looked it up and apparently regular gas station pumps in Canada are limited to 38 L/min (10 US gal/min) but some cardlock stations can have larger pumps with a higher rate on them. If a semi truck has two saddle tanks that's 200-300 gallons, but some trucks can apparently carry more? I'm not an expert on this, But I can reach out to a friend who owns a crane and trucking company if someone else doesn't chime in with a more detailed response. So at 200-300 gallons and 10 gallons per minute it can take 20-30 minutes to fill a truck.

ticulatedspline 6mo ago
stats vary. seems ~250 is common (2x 125 gals) and long haul ranges up to 2,000 miles. Though another way to think of filling up is miles per minute. At 10Gal/Min and 7MPG that's pumping 70 miles a minute into the tank. an 80% charge in 30 minutes on a 500 mile range battery is ~13 Miles a minute so roughly 5x slower
- aidenn0 5mo ago
  60% charge in 30 minutes (20-80%) so 10 miles/minute and 7x slower.
bombcar 6mo ago
Truck stop pumps can do 30 GPM "on both sides" as they have two pumps connected to one bay. There are faster (600 GPM or more) but those are specialized for loading boats, etc; the air can't escape the tank fast enough to use those on a truck.
shawn_w 6mo ago
I don't know about exact rates, but diesel pumps in banks intended for semis have a larger diameter nozzle that flows faster than the normal sized ones, yeah. They won't fit diesel cars/vans/light trucks.
ZeroGravitas 6mo ago
Some Chinese EVs have charge ports on both sides and can be charged faster by using both at the same time. Not quite as elegant as the new flash chargers that rival the Tesla truck chargers with megawatt speeds but interesting.

defrost 6mo ago

Have you seen the demo's of "truck pack" batteries being removed from prime mover, transferred to charge station, replaced with already charged truck pack, all done with a mini fork lift? It's a 15 minute roll in / roll out kind of turn around. The game's not over and the big transport operators (eg: Rio Tinto mine fleets moving a billion tonne per annum, etc) are still doing the R&D pipeline and trialling pilots.

zdragnar 6mo ago
This has been tried before for public use and failed for all of the obvious reasons. It should get adoption from companies big enough to run their own fleets (such as the mining company mentioned) but it won't be a suitable method for a good percentage of the long haul trucks in the States. With that said, I would think chargers should be fine for a lot of those trucks if the infrastructure builds out for them. The drivers are already taking breaks every few hours by regulation, so they can top off rather than going from empty to full.
tacticus 6mo ago
Have you seen the demo of what you can get with some wires and low friction traction options :P
DonHopkins 6mo ago
I've seen Tesla's fake robots too. Maybe they can pay people who lost their jobs to DOGE to dress up in Spandex and dance like robots to replace the batteries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsNc4nEX3c4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsNc4nEX3c4
- defrost 6mo ago
  Meanwhile, in Oz (and middle earth NZ), where the boring companies actually bore km's of usable tunnel: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTRHEtfdxOo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTRHEtfdxOo * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlOxqhWbsk4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlOxqhWbsk4 and at least one other battery swap prototype are all being actively piloted. You can keep Tesla, cheer's.

mlmonkey 6mo ago

Could they automate the "grab the charging cable and plug it in" part (as well as the "take the cable out and stow it away" part)? Trucks would then be able to just pull in, charge up and pull out quickly.

solid_fuel 6mo ago
Automating the part that takes 1 minute is not really going to make a difference when the charging takes 29 more.
- mlmonkey 5mo ago
  But that is the only manual step in the entire process. If a driverless truck could just pull into a charging station, automatically get topped up and be on its way without any manual intervention, that would be a game changer. One could operate such trucks basically 22hours/day, doubling the ROI.
  - solid_fuel 5mo ago
    No? None of this follows? You're skipping straight to driverless trucks but we don't have autonomous driving yet.

HWR_14 6mo ago

Seems like about 10 minutes, and a single pump averages around 100 a day (although guessing that second one could have some serious rounding)

AtlasBarfed 6mo ago

I think we should do is have a second trailer that basically functions as the primary battery pack. The tractor's pack is back up or range extension So when a semi pulls into a truck stop, you swap that caboose cab with a fully charged one.

danaw 6mo ago
so you have massive batteries just sitting on chargers waiting for the next truck to come by? seems expensive
- AtlasBarfed 5mo ago
  How's that different than a battery swap that every other person suggests but doesn't seem to really mechanically make sense.