Posted on 03/29/2024 8:45:14 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
Yep, the food supply chain is definitely something you want to mess around with. Before cars, trucks, the US population was around 75 million people. Today it’s 330 million, probably more like 350 million counting illegal aliens, so let’s eff with the spigot that’s feeding them all because a molecule that’s necessary for life on earth makes up 0.04% of the earths atmosphere.
What would the chicoms do?
You are partially right. Class 8 trucks right now are the largest source of tire particulate matter emissions and brake pad emissions. This is common sense they have the highest tire patch foot print psi of any vehicle on the road. They gave brakes on five axles as well as being the heaviest vehicles in the road. They do 16,000 times as much road wear and associated particulate matter from asphalt and concrete compared to a LDV.
Trucks cannot be 111,000lbs without a overnight permit making it a permit load. All trucks must be at it under 80,000 lbs or 82,000lbs for a EV semi by federal law.
So the practical difference by federal weight limit is 2000lbs. That said since there is a top limit the EV truck while not weighting more has less payload capacity while not being a specific permit load.
“Trucks cannot be 111,000lbs without a overnight permit making it a permit load. All trucks must be at it under 80,000 lbs or 82,000lbs for a EV semi by federal law.”
Stupid auto spell...
Trucks cannot be 111,000lbs without a overweight permit making it a permit load. All trucks must be at it under 80,000 lbs or 82,000lbs for a EV semi by federal law.
btt
Oh, good. Let’s see how many people starve when the reefers can’t move goods due to these rules.
I decided to look what Tesla has been doing with PepsiCo. They are doing full 81,000 lb loads they don’t specify what the dry weight of the semi is but people have calculated it should be 25 to 27K lbs this is 2000 to 4000 more than a fully fueled diesel semi since the Fed’s allow for a MAM of 82,000 lbs vs 80K for an ICE the real loss of payload is in the 2000lb range. Not so critical when you are moving palleted drinks which max out the volume of a 53’ trailer before you max out the mass. Tesla did testing pulling concrete L rails publicly and those max out mass before volume for sure. They were pulling 50,000 lbs plus of K rails on a flat bed trailer with a known tare weight that’s how the 25,000 to 27,000lb mass was calculated by subtracting the tare of the trailer plus the number of visible K rails payload the delta must be the mass of the truck since they had to stay under 82,000lbs and they admitted to at least 80,000lbs that’s where the 2000 lb difference between the truck weights comes from.
For those interested here are the test results with real world loads in commercial real world routes and service. Impressive tech. Will it replace three man triple team cross country OTH no it will not nor is it intended too. For that LNG, hydrogen, or Clearflame alcohol fuels is the only practical way to go. Clearflame and Cummins both have zero,zero,zero engines that would meet the zero emissions limits with soot free fuels those are methane,propane,hydrogen,ethanol,methanol,or.isopropyl.
If a CO2 limit per mile is implemented then methane is out unless it’s synthetic made from captured CO2 and hydrogen. All the alcohols can be biofuels and CO2 netzero or with biochar returned to the soils CO2 negative. Elon is already st doing synthetic methane for his starship Mars rocket the only way to make fuels on Mars is to use CO2 and water two things Mars has alot of.
The real world data speaks for itself.
PepsiCo is going to save a ton of money in fuel savings for those regional trucking routes. They are looking at $200,000 in savings in three years per truck. Given a price of 180,000 new for the 500 mile range. Packs have a 1500 cycle lifespan that’s 750,000 miles. 400 miles per day out and back for a regional truck is 146,000 miles per year driven 365 days per year. The Tesla semi then should last for 5 years with fuel savings of 200K/3 that’s $333,333 over five years at those rates of opex reductions you could buy a new Tesla semis for 180K scrap the old one at zero dollars value and still pocket 153,000.
Why? Because electricity is vastly cheaper than diesel. The Tesla semi has real world 1.7kWh per mile at 80,000 lbs commercial power can be had for 6 cents per kWh. That means to move a Tesla semi 100 miles it takes 170kWh that costs $10.20 worth of electricity.
Diesels get 6 to 7 mpg so that’s 14.2 gallons of diesel to.move a semi 100 miles. I just looked diesel is 3.73 cash price at the Love’s truck stop nearby. So 14.2 times 3.73 per gallon is $53.28 for 100 miles of range.
$10.2 vs $53.28 a factor of five cheaper. Now 400 miles per day is 146,000 miles per year in 100 mile blocks is 1460.
$10.2*1460= $14,892
53.29*1460= $77,797
A delta of $62,905.14 over a five year lifespan that’s $314,525 dollars not spent on fuel PepsiCo is taking it to the bank for its regional trucking routes.
Sorry type O. The K rails test was not.50k in K rails that would put it over 82,000. Tare weights on a empty flat bed are 13_15000lbs so there was 40,000+ lbs of K rails either way counting up the K rails , plus the tare weight gave a mass of the Tesla Semi as somewhere between 25K and 27K lbs since it is not known if they went for the 82,000lb fed limit they only said it was 80,000+ lbs total gross mass.
Drivers say they love the Tesla Semi it’s shift less and has torque for dayssss at zero rpm typical of triple phase induction machines.
The way forward for long distance is to just copy what the most efficient means of land transport already does the diesel electric locomotive. Every day ICE powered generators move mile long trains at high levels of efficiency.
For truly long range OTR trucks the 40% or so that need 1000+ miles per day with three man 24/7 driving teams. A range extender generator is the way to go. You get all the torque of the electric drive train and the range of higher density fuels. This simplifies the drive train as there are no gears,no drive shafts just motors ,a few fixed gears and electrons. One drive train for both regional EV and range extended trucks for true cross country needs. Added benefit is running a ICE or turbine at a single speed let’s you design that load point for peak efficiency doubling at least the MPG for unit of fuel. You use the much smaller battery pack only to capture regeneration braking energy and to deal with peaks if torque demand.
A 150kw very efficient ICE to power a small light weights radial flux generator outputting 800V DC directly to the motors and battery bus is all that would be needed. 1.7kWh per mile average load is 127kw as 75mph the upper limit of any legal truck speed on an American road.
The choice of engine for the generator gets interesting a small gas turbine makes a lot of sense if you only need to run it at peak power down to 75% load that is the heart of a gas turbines sweet spot for low fuel consumption. Plus the high power to weight and high output rpm makes for truly tiny machines.
Anyone who has ever seen the 170KVA integrated generator on a 777 the largest jet engine in the world knows how tiny that unit is. It’s the size of a one horsepower 60hz motor you can pick it up with two hands easy. 170kva is 170kw at a PF of 1.
Why can it be so small and light well over 10kw output per lb of mass and that includes the CVT gears to keep it at 24,000rpm constantly. That last point is why a two pole 400hz generator runs at 24,000 rpm generator output is logarithmic related to the number of times the rotor poles cross EMF fields. 400hz output means a truly tiny generator puts out huge power. There is no need for 60hz output and the huge mass of those archaic machines.
For HVDC volts at 800v you drive a high speed genset at 400hz plus and 800ACV at the output terminals right into Silicon carbide rectifier full bridge diodes the output is then 800V DC with virtually no ripples as you have 800 plus minus peaks per second on the DC side simple capacitors smooth that right out.
Now you have what the electric drive train needs at very high eff and a compressor and turbine the size of a automotive turbo charger.with a hand held sized radial flux generator. Single shaft no gears no oil lubrication air bearings work above 12,000rpm the generator is the starting motor as well. Everything is air cooled except the generator it needs liquid oil cooling due to its power density a small trade off as the oil radiator and pump are fractions of the mass of air cooled generators of equal output. The whole system has five moving parts, two stage compressor, two stage turbine one rotor and a MRBF measured in the 40,000 hour range.
Turbines can burn anything flammable liquid or gas with very low NOx,and PM2.5 no expensive catalysts needed if you use lean burn low NOx burners and soot free fuels. Here again methane,propane,hydrogen,any of the alcohols all run in a turbine with virtually no emissions.
This eliminates the DPF,SCR and DEF systems saving thousands in emissions equipment that no one can legally run without nor should they diesels make horrific levels of particulate matter emissions visible to the makes eye even. Anyone who has been to the Asian megacites can attest to the eye watering levels of soot,NOx and smog from all those unfiltered diesels. Those days are over forever in first world countries.
Having a micro turbine range extender cuts the total mass of the truck to under what a stock diesel would be. The 150kw turbine and genset could be picked up by a single person at least a thousand lbs lighter than a diesel engine. The pack size needed for peaks and regen brake duty which saves brake pads wear significantly is in the 50kWh range that’s 67hp for an hour or 670hp over 6 minutes. The pack handles the peaks and takes the full 600+ hp regenerative braking energy.
Electric drive trains also have the ability to resistive brake just like a train set the motors to max generation and dump the current to resistive banks in the grill as heat just like a locomotive. Think descending down the continental divide and never needing friction brakes at all.
Two stage gas turbines are 35% efficient at 75% capacity and 38 ish at 100% capacity. This is where you are going to run the turbine on the open road at speed anyway. When you slow down in the city you have 50kWh of pack full charged that’s 85 city miles before the turbine fires up again to charge the pack since city traffic is so much slower than hwy the kw per hour needs of the truck are way less than 150kw every bit of surplus is pushed to the pack as recharge once it hits full spin down the turbine wash rinse repeat until the fuel tanks run empty. Hydrogen is a near perfect fuel for a turbine it has zero sulfur so not SOx is possible, with lean burn there is ppm levels of NOx and no particulate matter emissions. 1400 miles worth of Hydrogen at 300bar fits where the existing tanks are now and in 8 12” diameter cylinders behind the cab taking one linear foot of air space behind the cab there’s ten plus feet there now. Refill rates if 14 kg per min have been demonstrated. 1kg H2 is equal to one gal of diesel well .9 close enough.
Anything you can do with hydrogen you can do three times better with methane as methane has three times the energy per unit of mass. So 14kg min of methane is three times the energy flow as H2 gas and also those tanks of H2 if filled with methane take you three times farther. You could in theory go coast to coast on 300bar CNG not stopping for fuel.
The DOE goal for electrolysis H2 is $3 Kg this needs $400kg or less capex for intermittent electricity and $1200 or less for nuclear 24/7 electricity. Current capex is $500 for 30000hr PEM hydrogen electrolysis cells. So nuclear is already economic if we built more nukes. Ask Canada for the tech and have the Koreans build them. Korea builds CANDU reactors for $2800 capex in 60 months from first pour to busbar power. China has built two CANDU for less than that and also in 60 months.
https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2022/fast-flow-future-heavy-duty-hydrogen-trucks.html
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SO LET IT BE WRITTEN; SO LET IT BE DONE!
Thanks for your replies, most informative though over my head for the most part! I get the idea of ‘energy used per weight unit moved’ however, the simplest part of the subject. I hope that comes to fruition.
No pay/registration wall
https://www.activistpost.com/2024/04/over-1300-layoffs-hit-logistics-companies-across-us.html
Insane.
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