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).
“To collect enough solar power, on average, for just one truck’s worth of 700 kWh would mean 350 solar panels of 400W each. “
Interesting information. Thanks!
On the highway yesterday we passed a multi-acre solar farm. Don’t know its output. I don’t really think solar only will get the job done.
If you can, make an estimate of how many acres of solar panels it would take to keep the current number of big rigs running, say, along some route on an interstate.
I do like the idea of replaceable batteries on the big rigs.