Posted on 03/25/2024 3:32:31 AM PDT by Sam77
Anew study by Roland Berger, a global consulting firm, estimates that it will cost over $1 trillion to build out the infrastructure needed to support electric medium and heavy-duty trucks. The study was funded by the Clean Freight Coalition, which includes a number of trucking industry groups.
Trucking fleets and operators of charging stations, according to the study, will need to invest $620 billion into new charging infrastructure. This includes the chargers, site infrastructure and utility cost service.
(Excerpt) Read more at justthenews.com ...
Charging with electricity is approximately 2.5 times cheaper per mile than refueling with diesel.* Operators can see estimated fuel savings of up to $200,000 within their first three years of ownership. With remote diagnostics, over-the-air software updates and fewer moving parts to maintain, operators will spend less time at service centers and more time on the road.
In Alabama that would be $1.50 X 3,000 = $4,500 per month added to the power bill, just for the demand charge, before paying for the per kWh pulled from the grid that month.
I'm not anti-EV. I own an EV because it's practical for my driving habits and warm climate, etc. I'm just saying EV's should be free market.
Just imagine an EV truck on I-80 in California during a blizzard!
“Operators can see estimated fuel savings of up to $200,000 within their first three years of ownership”
“operators will spend less time at service centers and more time on the road”
Until it’s NEW BATTERY TIME, then all that pie in the sky crap goes right in the toilet.
I ALWAYS knew that the Leftists intended to IMPOVERISH America, as they’ve been gunning for that goal for the many decades that I’ve been alive.
But I guess what surprises me is that they would hide their ambitions so effectively behind something appearing as altruistic as the ‘green movement’.
A trillion is not even close...the power has to come from somewhere.
Wind and sun ain’t it.
EV’s are just a wet dream that will harm all of us.
Trucking will never be electrified.
New battery would be a big,big deal, I think. But I have to question all the costs for an EV this big. Including all those charging stations. Wondering whether the smaller owner operators could even afford a startup. I don’t know how it would really work out, but I have lots of doubts for something like this. Call me...very dubious.
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If the cost is estimated over a trillion than call it 10 trillion and take at a minimum 3 times as long as they estimated. Now tack on the cost to every consumer product made going up 60 to 70 % and you get the cost of EV trucking.
Anyone forcing climate change initiatives as a solution to man made climate change should be exterminated. Useless F’n idiots of which we have an abundance of.
That was my reaction. It isn’t do-able absent an enormous effort on the electrical generation, transmission, and distribution side that no one is talking honestly about, for one issue. Another is the loss of carrying capacity. Batteries for a heavy truck would significantly reduce the carrying capacity by weight of the truck, given existing limits on truck weights that cannot easily be changed.
2.5X is patently absurd. Vehicle efficiency is the same. F = MA is still true. Except electric trucks weigh a LOT more so much more energy is wasted accelerating that mass. It is ridiculous to assert that electric power generation, transmission and distribution would cost that much less than refining and delivering diesel to stations. Especially when we don’t have anywhere near enough generating capacity or T&D capacity to power electric consumer and commercial fleets. Only magical EV unicorns could account for that 2.5X advantage.
Any reduction in fuel costs is more than offset by the combination of reduced payloads due to the battery weight and lost productivity due to excessive charging time
“Just imagine an EV truck on I-80 in California during a blizzard!”
With a large truck, the weight of a sufficient battery might be a smaller fraction of the total weight of the whole rig, and thus battery size and weight would not be a problem.
Maybe a big rig could “recharge” by swapping batteries, with recharging of the idle batteries done during the day by solar-produced electricity, or just drive the trucks at night.
If truck electrification is done completely by private funds, I’m for it.
“So in order to go 4,000 miles per week, you’re looking at spending well over 300 minutes sitting at a charging station - that’s AT LEAST 5 hours the driver won’t get paid for, vs. the 45 minutes for a diesel rig.”
EV for local maybe if the extra battery weight isn’t an issue but diesel is still better for over the road. (more at the link)
Electric drive is inferior for “work” uses like heavy hauling, towing or off-roading.
This is going backward in efficiency.
On that, you, I, and most ever FReeper is in agreement.
Maybe a big rig could “recharge” by swapping batteries, with recharging of the idle batteries done during the day by solar-produced electricity, or just drive the trucks at night.
I don't see how depending mainly on solar could be practical for a big rig EV. At best solar would help a little. Here are my practical experiences as both an EV owner and as having home solar (with it producing 80% of my home's power, including charging my EV, which we drove 16K miles last year just on home charged power alone, not counting another 10K miles charged elsewhere).
1. Assuming the diesel semi gets on average 10 mpg, with maybe 1/3rd of those miles unloaded and boosting the average. (Truckers help me with this.) This is what we're wanting to replace with an EV semi.
2. My own EV crossover gets a real world 3.2 miles per kWh (after some loss converting from AC to DC, with more loss charging and discharging the battery, plus running A/C, headlights, etc.). This compares to a similar ICE crossover getting a real world 30 mpg.
3. I'll use the ratio of my EV to it's gas version and assume the same ration for the semi. 3.2 ÷ 30 = 0.107 for my EV crossover. Using that same 0.107 for the semi we'll assume the EV semi gets 1.07 miles per kWh.
4. Assuming 10 hours of driving per day at 70 mph, we're talking driving 700 miles in a day, needing 700 kWh of power to do it.
5. My part of Alabama gets on average 5 peak solar hours per day. So a 400W solar panel collects on average 5 hours X 400W = 2kWh per day. To collect enough solar power, on average, for just one truck's worth of 700 kWh would mean 350 solar panels of 400W each. (Again, truckers help me in step 1 for if my average mpg for a semi is right.) Of course, this is just for most of driving being charged by solar (again the average 5 peak solar hours includes me getting 1 our so peak hours on a rainy day).
“Call me...very dubious.”
Me as well.....it’s already been well established that battery operated vehicles struggling extreme temperatures.
Change just for the sake of change with no improvement is foolish to say the least.
Battery weight -> less freight -> more trucks per delivered weight units -> more costs to firms and taxpayers maintaining roads
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