[HN Gopher] Volvo Trucks to launch full range of electric trucks...
___________________________________________________________________
Volvo Trucks to launch full range of electric trucks in Europe in
2021
Author : BigBalli
Score : 197 points
Date : 2020-11-05 15:49 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| alex_duf wrote:
| 2020 is really a (good!) turning point for electric vehicles
| codeulike wrote:
| _The trucks will have a gross combination weight of up to 44
| tonnes, and, depending on the battery configuration, the range
| could be up to 300 kilometers, Volvo said._
|
| About 180 miles. Useful for some things I suppose.
|
| Wonder what the cost will be for a battery that can haul a 44
| tonne truck for 180 miles.
|
| My point being: Its easy to announce that EV trucks are on the
| way next year, its much harder to make them economically feasible
| and manufacture them in large quantities.
| merpnderp wrote:
| That range is perfect for doing deliveries all day long in a
| city like Denver. A few short runs on the interstate followed
| by city streets to deliveries is how most in city trucks get
| about, and 180 miles of electric sounds perfect. And while I
| can't imagine the cost being competitive, when you factor in
| smog reduction it could be.
| kungtotte wrote:
| Here in Europe they're experimenting with using EVs to
| deliver goods to restaurants and shops at night, since
| they're so quiet they can operate at night without disturbing
| anyone. This massively cuts down on the hours needed to get
| everything out since there's no traffic to worry about, which
| cuts costs too.
|
| It also alleviates traffic during the day by removing those
| trucks.
|
| It would be easy for governments to subsidize parts of this
| for the good of society.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| You can bet your bottom dollar the quoted range is not for
| start-and-stop trips making deliveries around town.
| toast0 wrote:
| EV range tends to be best at lower speeds and start/stop
| (assuming no climate control needs).
|
| That's in pretty big contrast to internal combustion where
| it takes more significantly more fuel to go the same
| distance if you go too slow.
| myself248 wrote:
| Disagree, possibly. The EV trucks I've worked on were
| intended for exactly that usage, and specified accordingly.
|
| I can't promise that's how Volvo is rating theirs, but A)
| their customers aren't stupid, and B) the aerodynamics of a
| truck can mean it gets better mileage around town anyway.
| Not so much with diesel because of idling and shifting and
| things, but an EV with regenerative braking is an entirely
| different animal.
| jabl wrote:
| Per-km cost of electrics should be a lot cheaper than ICE.
| Diesel fuel is AFAIK a big part of the cost for freight
| operators.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| They don't necessarily need to be economically feasible if they
| are enforced by regulations.
|
| If major city centres start enforcing tighter
| congestion/pollution bans, such that last mile delivery of
| goods to city centres can only be achieved with zero emission
| vehicles, then suddenly logistics businesses are forced to
| integrate EV or hydrogen into their fleets.
|
| I honestly don't think this is that unlikely in many European
| cities in the next decade.
| Someone wrote:
| I would even say it's highly likely. For public transport
| tenders in the richer parts of Europe, emissions are weighted
| so heavily that many, if not all, winning bids nowadays are
| for fully electric buses.
|
| Older Diesel cars also are banned from quite a few city
| centers, but I don't know whether that extends to large
| trucks.
| codeulike wrote:
| True, I think there are incentives like that in London
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > About 180 miles. Useful for some things I suppose.
|
| My wife drove rural postal delivery for years. The _longest_
| routes would be 150 miles, most of the routes were less than 50
| miles. This was rural, low density delivery areas. In cities
| and suburban areas, routes are even smaller, more like 10-20
| miles round trip.
|
| A contractor might have a job site 20 miles from home and make
| 3 trips to various suppliers during the day.
|
| Seems like that's the sort of service these trucks are
| targeting and they will have plenty of range for that. Longer
| haul routes would require a different type of vehicle, but most
| companies that do both long and short haul have dedicated long
| haul vehicles regardless.
|
| > Wonder what the cost will be for a battery that can haul a 44
| tonne truck for 180 miles.
|
| Big trucks are expensive to maintain. While the initial expense
| might be higher, ongoing maintenance is much lower and
| reliability higher. Not having to deal with vehicle downtime is
| a big issue when that vehicle brings your profits in.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| In the United States, the majority of cargo that is transported
| by truck is going less than 100 miles. I bet in Europe that
| share is even larger.
| fyfy18 wrote:
| Europe is actually a bit backwards here, 75% of goods
| transported 'inland' is by truck.
|
| https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
| explained/index.php...
| jabl wrote:
| Yeah, that's because the various national railway systems
| are poorly suited for international traffic. There are
| various EU efforts to improve the situation, but the
| governments try to protect their national monopolies etc.
| The end result being that in most cases it's easier to ship
| international freight by truck.
| Xophmeister wrote:
| I'm not trying to be negative, because I think electric vehicles
| are a good idea. However, what happens when a fleet of such
| trucks return to their depot and all need charging overnight?
| Wouldn't the depot need a lot of expensive infrastructure to
| avoid overloading the system? (I presume the same applies to the
| domestic/consumer electrical supply, once there's an EV in every
| driveway...)
| ogre_codes wrote:
| How much does it time does it take your drivers to fuel up
| every day either at a commercial station or at an in-house
| fueling station? Likewise, monthly oil checks/ changes, and
| other services that would be reduced/ eliminated.
|
| Yes, it will cost some money for companies to bring
| infrastructure online, but they will be eliminating a lot of
| ongoing expenses as well. There are a lot of expenses
| associated with driving ICE vehicles which people just ignore
| when they bring up the expenses associated with EVs.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Here's an article from a couple of years ago, about converting
| a bus depot to electric.
|
| https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2018/06/26/do-londoners-dre...
| mikeyouse wrote:
| "Expensive" is a very relative term -- running high capacity
| power is something we're very good at and scales well (it's not
| 2x as expensive to increase power availability by 2x). Even
| with dozens of trucks charging at 100+ amps, it's no more power
| hungry than your average industrial site - and it has the
| benefit of off-peak utilization so there's much more slack
| before it would require new generation from the power company.
| fyfy18 wrote:
| 100 amps at what voltage? At 220v that's only 22kW which is
| nothing. This year my city has installed 350kW EV chargers in
| the old town without digging up the street (other than under
| where they install it), so the infrastructure must have
| already been there. I assume in an industrial area it would
| not at all be an issue.
| [deleted]
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Yeah I meant 100kW, but you're right that even much higher
| power versions don't require much retrofitting. A company I
| worked for had to install power to support 5MW of equipment
| where there was previously only a few houses nearby and the
| cost to do so was under $1M which was something like 2% of
| the total project cost. Incremental upgrades are extremely
| reasonable from a "capex / useful life" perspective.
| myself248 wrote:
| It needs infrastructure, see my other comment in this thread,
| but the cost thereof can be considered part of the cost of
| fuel, in a way. You're currently spending money on diesel fuel,
| which is already paying for the expensive infrastructure to
| transport and store and dispense an energy-dense liquid. Just
| shift who you're paying for your energy, and now the electric
| utility uses that money to upgrade their infrastructure to let
| their customers buy more of their product.
|
| Companies are generally happy to expand their operations to
| allow their customers to buy more of their product.
|
| You may not be intentionally trying to be negative, but you're
| parroting the same FUD lines used against EVs for decades, and
| against horseless carriages a century ago. (And which,
| incidentally, became entrenched in Oregon and New Jersey in the
| form of laws prohibiting motorists from operating the
| dispensing infrastructure.)
| lsllc wrote:
| Gas stations, refineries, pipelines, loading ports, bulk
| tankers and of course oil wells & rigs represent trillions of
| dollars of infrastructure & investment that have to be built
| and maintained. So I think we're just shifting the investment
| from one kind of infrastructure to another (one that's
| hopefully more efficient and less environmentally damaging).
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| > (I presume the same applies to the domestic/consumer
| electrical supply, once there's an EV in every driveway...)
|
| I don't know about commercial vehicles but the British National
| Grid is adamant that there will not be any great difficulty in
| supplying electricity to charge electric cars.
|
| See https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-
| zero/5-m...
| stiray wrote:
| Actually I was quite surprised that those are ordinary trucks
| without superhero style exterior etc. I think that this is a
| recipe for success of electric vehicles (and they are hurting EV
| market on long run) - not that they look like from outer space
| (at hefty price mark) but comparable to prices of non-EV while
| driving on electricity.
|
| What companies like Tesla do is driving the hype for the sake of
| stock market, which is wrong - the target should be users of
| vehicles and the purpose they were purposed for.
|
| I would choose the Volvo over any newage design with huge waste
| of space for transport - they are meant to be a TRANSPORT
| vehicles not a design for driving to a shopping mall picking
| chicks (that dont care about transport vehicle anyway).
|
| And Volvo did it right. Targeting purpose, targeting users and
| business. Congrats. Finally.
| nfin wrote:
| I am not sure if I get your main point, but since your talking
| about Tesla and exterior looks, I think that it shouldn't be
| forgotten or overlooked, that Tesla truck is planned to have an
| amazing drag coefficient:
|
| "The Tesla Semi's drag coefficient of 0.36 is lower than
| today's trucks at 0.65 to 0.7, and even lower than the Bugatti
| Chiron at 0.38, one of the world's fastest sports cars" [1].
|
| Objects with good drag coefficients are usually good looking,
| or are not hard to make good looking (while not so true for the
| other way around).
|
| [1]: https://www.machinedesign.com/mechanical-motion-
| systems/arti...
| MagnumOpus wrote:
| It's odd to compare the drag of a truck with huge frontal
| cross-section and zero downforce with that of a supercar that
| has a tiny cross section but large drag coefficient to create
| downforce. An F1 car would have an even higher coefficient of
| 1.0...
|
| Compare it to a normal car instead, and it's the equivalent
| of an old Chevy Tahoe and far worse than normal saloon cars
| which are typically at 0.29ish.
| stoddur wrote:
| The weird exterior many electric cars have is to lower the drag
| coefficient to increase range. This is especially true for
| Semis as they have a notoriously bad drag coefficient. The
| range for the Volvo trucks could be up to 300 km as stated in
| the article, that is okay for some haul distances but you need
| serious charging infrastructure if you are going to be charging
| a Semi every 250 - 300 km. These trucks will probably need 0.8
| - 1 MWh batteries.
| nickff wrote:
| A large part of the distinctive EV design is to increase
| their value for signalling. There has been at least one study
| where they compared Prius sales to Honda (Civic?) Hybrid
| sales by geographical area, and correlated it with politics.
| In more 'green' areas, the Priuses sold much better, whereas
| in other areas, both cars had similar sales. The take-away
| was to make the hybrids and EVs look different, to encourage
| conspicuous consumption.
|
| There have been many very aerodynamic conventionally
| contoured gasoline powered cars, including one of my
| favorites, the Mazda MX-6 Mystere.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > A large part of the distinctive EV design is to increase
| their value for signalling.
|
| I've heard this too, but while Chevy and Nissan went the
| exotic route, every Tesla so far has been fairly normal
| looking. There were nice-things on them like the gull-wing
| doors and the handles on the Model S, but those were
| contained in a traditional design.
|
| The CyberTruck will obviously break that mold, but I
| suspect that much of the look of the CyberTruck is to keep
| costs down and efficiency up. It is extremely difficult to
| make a traditional pickup truck efficient.
| nickff wrote:
| Tesla is conventionally configured, with a number of EV
| design cues, such as the door handles on the Model S, the
| lack of a real grill on any car, etc. Tesla also has the
| advantage that its logo is known to signify 'EV'.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| The original Tesla Model S had a grill. Also, their name
| and logo weren't known when the Model S was launched, it
| is now, but it wasn't when they launched. Tesla wanted
| their vehicles to be "Normal" looking. If there was any
| signaling going on, putting a token grill on a car which
| doesn't need one was signaling _this is a normal car_. It
| was only after Tesla had built up a strong enough brand
| and reputation that they removed the needless grill on
| the trunk.
|
| The door handles are not an EV design cue at all. They
| are only on 2 Teslas and no other EVs. They are meant to
| look and feel luxurious and futuristic and would not be
| out-of-place on any higher end car. Like the gull-wing
| doors, I suspect they were done that way because Musk
| thought they would look cool.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > The weird exterior many electric cars have is to lower the
| drag coefficient to increase range.
|
| In Europe vehicle footprint is a big deal and for a box
| truck, minimizing vehicle footprint (and maximizing capacity)
| is likely more important than reducing drag. Particularly
| when you are looking at vehicles which will likely spend most
| of their time pushing 16+ tons and accelerating and
| decelerating to speeds around 30 MPH all day long.
|
| > you need serious charging infrastructure if you are going
| to be charging a Semi every 250 - 300 km.
|
| These trucks aren't designed for long haul/ cross country
| trips. There won't be charging every 250 km, they will go
| out, do their job, come home and park on a charger.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| About 15 years ago I rebuilt an old golf cart. What I
| learned was in the late 90's better motor controls lead to
| a resurgence of electric golf carts especially for fleets.
| In most use cases electric is better logistically. The
| electric ones just run and run and they don't require
| handling gasoline and oil. It's really quick for an
| employee to plug the golf carts in at night. Pain in the
| ass to run around with gas cans. Not to mention having to
| store fuel on site.
|
| Reason conversion to electric happened earlier for golf
| carts was electric golf carts only have about 4-5kwh worth
| of batteries. Interestingly historically lead acid
| batteries are about $100-150 per kwr. Which is close to
| where automotive grade lion batteries are now.
|
| So no surprise that delivery trucks are converting to
| electric. They have the exact some scenario going on.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| A friend of mine runs a business servicing fork-lifts and
| similar vehicles. Mostly old propane or diesel powered
| fork lifts. When people ask him for recommendations about
| replacing a dead machine, he recommends they go electric
| due to reliability. It's a bit counter to his self-
| interests because they do require a fraction of the
| maintenance.
|
| He also owns several electric golf-carts he's tunes up
| for speed and light 4WD.
| jabl wrote:
| Footprint is at least partially due to regulations. EU
| regulations are much stricter with dimensions, whereas in
| the US the limit is more the weight.
|
| Technical development might have some impact as well. I
| remember as a kid many trucks needing bigger engines (e.g.
| sand or concrete transport) had the cab-behind-engine
| layout, but nowadays those are more or less completely
| gone. Maybe turbochargers and intercoolers allowed a
| sufficiently powerful engine in the cab-above-engine
| layout?
| stoddur wrote:
| If that's the case, they'll make a single 300 km trip or
| day. I doubt that the business case for that is strong.
| With autonomous Semis on the horizon, the potential
| reduction in costs with the scaling of hauling in km / day
| will drive costs down. 300 km a day won't be competitive in
| that space.
|
| For a buyer of semis, the cost of running one is arguably
| the most important factor. Producers need to focus on $ /
| km and there range is quite important (as well as charging
| infrastructure)
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > If that's the case, they'll make a single 300 km trip
| or day. I doubt that the business case for that is
| strong.
|
| You might have heard of UPS? FedEx? Amazon? Maybe you've
| had a contractor work on your home or business?
|
| All of these businesses operate on less than 180 miles
| round trips per day typically _inside the US_. In Europe
| distances tend to be even shorter.
|
| Semis are by nature long haul. It's rare to see semis
| pulling 40 foot trailers through urban areas even in the
| US. Semis are usually limited to long haul or short haul
| freight from industrial or agricultural areas. The Volvo
| trucks are designed to operate locally and it's a huge
| market.
|
| > For a buyer of semis, the cost of running one is
| arguably the most important factor.
|
| There is definitely a market for semis--particularly in
| the US--but it's a vastly different market than what this
| targets.
| bayindirh wrote:
| > If that's the case, they'll make a single 300 km trip
| or day. I doubt that the business case for that is
| strong.
|
| Europe is much denser when comapared to US. You can do a
| lot within 300KM in Europe. Volvo openly states that the
| trucks are "to be used for regional transport and urban
| construction operations in Europe".
|
| The trucks in question and the possible range is very
| well suited to this kind of operation.
|
| Also, there's another important factor: Noise. Some
| European countries are more sensitive to noise than
| others. The Netherlands and Sweden comes to my mind.
|
| These trucks will be a huge win on that front because a
| 44 tonne truck is not exactly silent, especially under
| load.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > Actually I was quite surprised that those are ordinary trucks
| without superhero style exterior etc.
|
| It's part of Scandinavian culture and its aesthetic.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
| jacobush wrote:
| That's downselling Scandinavian aesthetics _or_ upselling the
| law of Dante.
|
| Maybe.
| johanneskanybal wrote:
| In my book (and garage) they always get it right.
| mulmen wrote:
| Volvo didn't do it first though. The approach at Tesla has
| always been to make a competitive electric vehicle market. They
| did that. Musk has even said he doesn't care if Tesla fails as
| long as it gets automakers to build electric vehicles. Teslas
| success shows automakers it is possible. Tesla has already
| succeeded in its original mission.
| [deleted]
| mikestew wrote:
| _Volvo didn't do it first though._
|
| Tesla wasn't the first with production BEVs, either. Or first
| with any kind of EV, production or not. Companies built them
| anyway.
| mulmen wrote:
| No but as I said, Musk's mission with Tesla was to make
| BEVs widely available. Tesla may never be able to make a
| cheap BEV but they have grown the market and driven
| economies of scale that allow others to make competitive
| BEVs.
| justapassenger wrote:
| > What companies like Tesla do is driving the hype for the sake
| of stock market, which is wrong - the target should be users of
| vehicles and the purpose they were purposed for.
|
| Tesla used to do that - Model S or Model 3 follow that idea.
| And that was big part of their success - cars, that look like
| cars (remember all fugly EVs in 2010s?), with few quirks here
| and there, but nothing out of ordinary. But as a company, they
| depart from this idea with things like cybertruck, and are
| focusing more on hype over last few years.
| durandal1 wrote:
| Europe also have much stricter total length requirements for
| trucks, which is why the more square trucks are preferred to
| maximize space-per-meter of length.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > I would choose the Volvo over any newage design with huge
| waste of space for transport - they are meant to be a TRANSPORT
| vehicles not a design for driving to a shopping mall picking
| chicks (that dont care about transport vehicle anyway).
|
| I would choose whichever makes sense for my business. Without
| pricing and reliability numbers, it's impossible to know which
| that might be.
|
| The closest vehicle in Tesla's garage to this is the Tesla
| Cybertruck which looks bizarre, but is about $20,000 less than
| the nearest announced competitor. If Tesla launched a butt ugly
| Cybervan which was similarly functional and cost effective, you
| can bet it would be popular with the class of buyer who are
| shopping for e-Vans.
|
| Right now I'm eyeballing the Cybertruck personally, _in spite_
| of it 's appearance. Spending $20k to get a more traditional
| looking truck just doesn't make sense to me. The only concern I
| have is whether those high truck bed walls will screw things
| up.
| johanneskanybal wrote:
| This article is about commercial trucks which I imagine would
| be 10x in cost of cybertruck.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| It is--as I suggest above--the closest thing Tesla has to a
| shipping product which competes here.
|
| Tesla will have at least some commercial trucks. Whether
| they will compete directly with this or not remains to be
| seen. I suspect if they do, they will be price competitive
| for reasons in my post above.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _but is about $20,000 less than the nearest announced
| competitor._
|
| Tesla has a history of claiming their products will be
| cheaper than they turn out to be. Pretty big claim to say
| it's cheaper when, as of now, they haven't produced or sold a
| single truck. I guess it works though, because every time a
| competitor puts an EV truck out there, someone inevitably
| claims that the Cybertruck is cheaper.
| mjamesaustin wrote:
| They announced the Model 3 at $35,000 in 2016. The price
| for the standard range model on their website has
| fluctuated between $37,000 and $40,000 since then, and it's
| currently $38,000 including significantly improved specs
| compared to the 2016 announcement.
|
| If the Cybertruck also ends up 15% more expensive than the
| original advertised price, it'll still cost dramatically
| less than any competitor.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > Pretty big claim to say it's cheaper when, as of now,
| they haven't produced or sold a single truck.
|
| They've taken pre-orders and accepted cash, it's a
| contract. Tesla will sell those trucks for the announced
| prices.
|
| Even using $38k as the base price of the Model 3[1], it is
| still a good value compared to competing electric vehicles
| which tend to have much lower ranges, slower charging
| networks, and worse performance. The Model Y competitors
| are also generally more expensive and have lower ranges.
|
| They are still a bit pricy compared to non-EVs, but
| compared to other EVs, Teslas are not priced at a premium.
| If you value performance, the gap is even more significant.
|
| > I guess it works though, because every time a competitor
| puts an EV truck out there, someone inevitably claims that
| the Cybertruck is cheaper.
|
| It works because as I mention above, Tesla has a track
| record of delivering decent value. It is extremely fair to
| say Tesla vehicles are often _behind schedule_ , but their
| pricing (again compared to other EVs) is usually extremely
| competitive.
|
| [1] It was possible for quite a while to get a Model 3 for
| $35k, it was just a little tricky without a pre-order.
| phaemon wrote:
| I like the look of the Cybertruck. It's like the truck
| Automan would drive!
| ogre_codes wrote:
| I was probably a bit unfair to the CyberTruck. The big
| thing for me personally is I'm not flamboyant by nature.
| Once the Cybertruck becomes more commonplace I'll get over
| it. It certainly didn't stop me from pre-ordering.
| stoddur wrote:
| The Cybertruck will be a beast to see on the road. I love
| the look.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| It's a marmite look. Either love it or hate it!
|
| Personally I hate marmite but love the truck!
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| > The closest vehicle in Tesla's garage to this is the Tesla
| Cybertruck which looks bizarre, but is about $20,000 less
| than the nearest announced competitor.
|
| No, Cybertruck is competing with stuff like Ford F150. Volvo
| FH is a commercial truck. The nearest thing is the Tesla
| Semi.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| The Tesla Semi doesn't have any announced pricing or an
| availability date so it's impossible to get an idea of how
| competitive price-wise it might be. This is the big problem
| with comparing _future_ products.
|
| Tesla has also hinted at a passenger van eventually... but
| again no date, no details.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| From the size and purpose, the Semi would be what an FH
| truck is.
|
| Tesla hints many things. They need to figure out their
| supply chain. Commercial fleets require maintenance and
| spare parts.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| > Commercial fleets require maintenance and spare parts.
|
| Yep. But this is mitigated a bit by the fact that EVs
| tend to require massively less maintenance and spare
| parts.
|
| From what I've seen, Tesla does not do _service_ really
| well and that 's something they will have to get down if
| they are going to get into commercial vehicles. Even if
| Tesla trucks require vastly less ongoing service, they
| need to have that service be good. I've heard of Tesla
| owners having to wait several weeks for parts, for a
| commercial vehicle that's a no-go.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Running gear wear on trucks is where the costs are, and
| an engine rebuild every 200K-750 K km depending on how
| they are used (local routes vs long haul).
|
| EVs should have a substantial advantage over trucks in
| the brake wear department, battery overhaul costs will
| match or possibly be lower than the engine overhaul
| costs.
|
| Put it all together and for short haul trips EVs should
| have an advantage and for the longer haul they are as yet
| impractical. Keep in mind that a 1000 liter fuel reserve
| is a substantial amount of energy for relatively little
| weight disadvantage on a vehicle that already weighs 8
| tons, the equivalent in batteries weighs many times more.
| Some of this weight disadvantage will be compensated by
| regenerative braking, with a diesel vehicle that energy
| is converted to waste heat every time the vehicle comes
| to a stop.
|
| So, overall, I think short haul EV trucks will have the
| edge soon, long haul it likely will be diesel for quite a
| while to come.
| athenot wrote:
| The quirky design served a purpose. It helped target early
| adopters in a market.
|
| I had 2 Nissan LEAF from 2013-2018 and was keenly aware that I
| was enjoying a piece of the future. Part of the experience was
| simply revolutionary: quietness, no gas station, amazing
| torque.
|
| At the same time, being an early adopter had a steep cost:
| limited range, limited charging options outside of home. (As it
| turned out, that cost turned out to be less steep than
| perceived, and simple planning made it pretty much a non-
| issue.)
|
| This is obviously a generalization and there are exceptions but
| there seems to be a large overlap between those willing to have
| a radically different product that comes with severe drawbacks,
| and those who enjoy the quirkyness of it. And yes: the status
| (even if it's a subconscious thing for most people).
|
| It's worth noting that the 2019 Nissan LEAF was redesigned to
| look like regular cars, just as its battery doubled in capacity
| (tripled if you compare from the first models). It signaled
| that it was no longer cutting edge and ready for mainstream.
| Anecdotally, tax agencies agreed as most tax incentives were
| either dropped or severely reduced around that time.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Notably, Tesla didn't really go this route until the
| CyberTruck. The Model S and X are both quite normal looking.
| The Model 3 and Y as well. If they didn't have the smooth
| grill-free face, you'd never know they were electric.
| c0nfused wrote:
| Since the article is short on details here is the Volvo trucks
| page.
|
| https://www.volvotrucks.com/en-en/trucks/alternative-fuels/e...
|
| They appear to be in the testing stage
| alex_duf wrote:
| I wonder what kind of charging speed these will have. I'm
| guessing a refuse truck doesn't need to charge very fast as it
| sleeps in a depot, but a delivery truck might do a few shifts a
| day so that requires fast charging.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| specs in the brochures.volvotrucks link above.
| SimonPStevens wrote:
| Or easily swappable battery packs.
|
| There was a promo/concept video a few years back, from Tesla
| I think, showing cars pulling up into a battery swap station
| and a door slid open in the floor beneath the car and a
| contraption automatically swapped out the battery for a fully
| charged one without the driver leaving the car. Not sure
| whatever came of that concept.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| I wonder if battery swapping is a red herring which always
| will be talked about but never realized?
|
| Hugely increased complexity since the battery needs to have
| all mounting points easily accessed in any condition, rain,
| snow, ice buildup, whatever, from the outside and all the
| other accessing geometry forcing the design of the entire
| vehicle to allow for it.
|
| Combine this with battery technology improving allowing
| faster charging speeds lessening the impact. Like phones
| fast-charging today. No point having a spare battery when
| 15-30 mins in a charger easily gives you all the hours you
| need.
|
| Where I live we've had completely electric busses on a line
| for a few years now (Actually Volvos). Very different use
| case but also commercial vehicles with similar run hours.
| They have automatic over-head charging at the ends, filling
| up enough with a 10 minute stop to run throughout the day.
| Some longer lines are using hybrids with the same charging
| technology. They run most of the line entirely on battery
| power, only kicking in a smaller diesel when needed.
|
| Maybe battery swapping makes sense for some specialized
| applications? But then I would guess just straight biofuels
| simply takes the cake, although eating the cost penalty.
| nickik wrote:
| Yes it is. That is why Tesla dropped it, if you actually
| think threw it, it makes no sense for most cases.
|
| JB Struble just gave a great analysis of this at a
| Standford talk where he explained why the dropped it.
|
| It actually makes the vehicle more complex and
| importantly heavier.
|
| It also prevents further improvement, Tesla just showed
| of their new Cell-to-Structure concept, where the cells
| themselves have load on them. This fundamentally is
| incompatible with fast swap. Such a architecture is
| really great because it negates the 'penalty' of carrying
| around a battery compared to an ICE vehicle. In fact you
| might end up lighter, because you don't have the heavy
| engine and the battery is not so much heavier then the
| structural steel you would have used otherwise.
|
| You can charge trucks during breaks, or during loading
| and unloading.
| [deleted]
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| I honestly don't see the issue for industrial type
| machinery. It's not like some Tesla that has to have a
| sleek body and beautiful styling. Trucks are already big
| boxes that carry giant boxes behind them.
|
| Why should one of those boxes not be a giant 300kwh
| battery pack that they swap out at the multitude of weigh
| stations they have to stop at along the highway already?
| Just run massive power to the weigh stations, put in a
| few massive DC chargers and some forklifts.
|
| Hell you could go further and have other parts of the
| drivetrain in there -- the controller, the charger unit,
| the DC to DC converter, etc. Then you have an upgrade
| path for the trucks as the tech improves.
| myself248 wrote:
| At some point aren't you just swapping the entire horse?
| Just transfer the rider and the saddle bags.
| spockz wrote:
| Who don't we do this? Driver makes it to the way station.
| Has a chat with the next driver while refilling and that
| driver takes it for the next four/six hours.
| signaturefish wrote:
| That /is/ how "we" do it with trains. The difference is
| that long-distance truckers generally live in their cabs
| for weeks on end, so they can't easily hand it off to
| another driver.
| spockz wrote:
| Ok. So then the lorry and the driver stay behind and the
| lorry/payload get switched. But apparently there is no
| such need for speed for road transport and otherwise they
| would use a plane?
| Symbiote wrote:
| It will depend on the cost.
|
| At some point, the cost of the mechanisms and staff to
| swap the battery is more than the cost of the rest of a
| second vehicle.
| Someone wrote:
| One specialized application is inland shipping.
| https://zeroemissionservices.nl/en/home-english/:
|
| _"ZES (Zero Emission Services) supplies interchangeable
| energy containers for new and existing inland vessels.
| These containers - called ZESPacks - are charged using
| renewable power."_
| noisy_boy wrote:
| I think standards about battery swapping will evolve which
| will make infrastructure around that to develop easier,
| quicker and be more interchangeable.
| kalleboo wrote:
| It wasn't just a concept - Tesla actually commercialized
| battery swapping because by doing so you got some
| California subsidy. Tesla drivers who applied could do a
| battery swap in 7 minutes at their one swap station. It was
| discontinued when the subsidy requirement ended.
|
| https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-shuts-down-battery-swap-
| prog...
|
| https://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-
| batter...
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Tesla drivers who applied could do a battery swap in 7
| minutes_
|
| Is there any video of the swaps actually working, outside
| of the promotional stage-show?
|
| YouTube doesn't have anything, which is odd...
| benplumley wrote:
| If you operate a fleet of trucks, battery swapping becomes a
| lot more viable because you don't have to worry about
| swapping your good, new battery for a worn-out old battery.
| [deleted]
| nickik wrote:
| If you have a fleet of trucks, having battery swapping
| batteries also means you need to have more batteries then
| trucks. Meaning extra capital cost.
|
| Secondly, battery swapping architecture of a vehicle makes
| it significantly heavier specially wants you consider
| battery packs or even cells with structural loads to make
| the vehicle lighter. For one personal luxury car that might
| be fine, but if you are operating 150+ trucks for 20 years,
| that adds up to a lot of missed payloads.
|
| This is exactly why Tesla, dropped this idea. JB Struble
| just gave a nice analysis of this at a Standford talk.
|
| Also, trucks, will spend some time on break and more time
| loading and unloading. During that time you can charge them
| or top them off.
| evgen wrote:
| Tesla is the last company I would look to for advice
| about the future of the market for haulage. Weight is one
| point against battery packs, but easy refill/swap and
| maintenance are two points in their favour. When you
| start to deal with volume commercial vehicles the cost of
| maintenance and repair adds up and is considered a part
| of doing business. If you try to tell me that your load-
| bearing conformal battery packs that are critical to
| making the truck move are an item my depot mechanics
| cannot touch or repair I am going to show you the door.
|
| If my truck are loading/unloading they are probably doing
| it at customer facilities so charging is unlikely to be
| an option. If they are loading/unloading at my facility
| then I can swap the battery pack at the same time.
| beamatronic wrote:
| Came here to say, I hope someone has given some thought and
| planning into the full life cycle of the battery -
| infrastructure is needed.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| I would assume the light delivery trucks, the ones that go
| door to door dropping off e-commerce parcels don't do much
| mileage at all.
| brewdad wrote:
| Largely depends on the neighborhood and existing
| infrastructure. My suburb is reasonably compact and Amazon
| and UPS have large facilities at the edge of town, right
| off the freeway. FedEx still has to process everything
| through a facility in the city center. It's a 30 mile RT
| for them just to begin delivering packages here.
|
| I'm sure this will change soon but until it does, there's
| still a lot of wasted transit time.
| myself248 wrote:
| The usage model they're targeting is trucks that return to a
| depot overnight. Local delivery and drayage routes have ample
| time to charge.
|
| Honestly one of the bigger issues is upgrading the electrical
| service at the depots to support the chargers. I worked on a
| prototype EV truck, and they had to software-limit the
| charger when first installed, because running flat-out it
| could draw more power than the entire rest of the prototype
| facility. They had to get the utility out to drop a new
| transformer before they could unleash the charger's full
| power.
|
| The power you buy in a few gallons of diesel fuel is simply
| staggering.
| ben_w wrote:
| > The power you buy in a few gallons of diesel fuel is
| simply staggering.
|
| 1 Liter per second ~= 38.6 megawatts, for diesel.
|
| I've never bothered paying attention to the flow rate in a
| fuel station, but it's really fortunate that electric cars
| are fundamentally more efficient than combustion engines.
| myself248 wrote:
| Quoth Wikipedia:
|
| > Image result for gas station pump flow rate Light
| passenger vehicle pump up to about 50 litres (13 US
| gallons) per minute (the United States limits this to 10
| US gallons (38 litres) per minute); pumps serving trucks
| and other large vehicles have a higher flow rate, up to
| 130 litres (34 US gallons) per minute in the UK. and 40
| US gallons (150 litres) in the US.
|
| So roughly 80 megawatts coming out of that diesel nozzle.
| Most impressive!
|
| I've heard of CCS chargers in development that'll push
| 350kW (920V, 500A), which involves crazy stuff like
| liquid-cooled connectors. They flow 3M Novec through the
| cable.: https://ittcannon.com/core/medialibrary/ittcannon
| /website/li...
| Symbiote wrote:
| For comparison, a high speed train is around 10MW
| according to a quick search.
| rkangel wrote:
| It's the new version of the old 'the fastest data rate is a
| truck full of harddrives'. Now we can say 'for transferring
| energy, you can't beat a petrol pump pouring fuel'
| dredmorbius wrote:
| MOX fuel pellets do slightly better. Tritium-lithium may,
| some day.
|
| But yes, hydrocarbon chains are damned energy dense for
| chemical reactions.
| Softcadbury wrote:
| This link is a bit hidden, but quite interesting:
| https://brochures.volvotrucks.com/hq/product-guides/electrom...
| qwertox wrote:
| These appear to be old trucks. In the brochure there is a
| link to a YT video which then links to a playlist. This
| playlist contains the following video "Volvo Trucks - Say
| hello to the future - Volvo FL Electric & Volvo FE Electric"
| [1] which was posted on May 14 2018.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIIhkqRc-_Q
| TooCreative wrote:
| As a web designer, I had to compare it to the Tesla truck page:
|
| https://www.tesla.com/semi
|
| Was not disappointed. The Volvo page is very Volvo and the
| Tesla page is very Tesla.
| Unklejoe wrote:
| The Volvo page is so much better in my opinion. It's neat
| with decent information density.
|
| I'm not a fan of pages that try to do the whole dynamic
| immersive full screen huge picture thing.
| TooCreative wrote:
| The Volvo page has a lot of text. But does it have
| information?
|
| On the Volvo page, I do not see a single piece of
| information before I scroll. Instead I see fluff like "We
| know that many transport operators work hard to reduce the
| environmental footprint..."
|
| On the Tesla page, I see four pieces of information right
| away. Acceleration, energy consumption, drag coefficient
| and that it has four independent motors.
| Someone wrote:
| On the other hand, I don't think any of the numbers Tesla
| gives is of direct interest to those who buy such large
| trucks (with the exception of the D energy consumption,
| which implies "cheaper to operate", but what fraction of
| a truck's cost is spent on fuel?)
|
| Volvo's 'fluff' at least hints at "this truck may be
| allowed to enter city centers" and "disability payments
| to drivers may go down".
| kungtotte wrote:
| Roughly 1/3 of the operating costs of trucking is the
| fuel, another 1/3 is wages, and then the remaining 1/3
| covers everything else (facilities, maintenance, repairs,
| purchase cost of vehicles, insurance, etc. etc.).
|
| So ~33% of a truck's cost is spent on fuel.
| [deleted]
| tpmx wrote:
| Video from Volvo Trucks:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UYA1PjEkH0
| mymythisisthis wrote:
| Ban diesel.
| grecy wrote:
| With more and more brands jumping on the BEV train, it really
| seems like battery cells are going to be in extremely short
| supply.
|
| Tesla are literally building enormous factories around the world.
| Are other brands?
| myself248 wrote:
| Yeahbut. The number of trucks on the road is minuscule compared
| to passenger cars, they just put on a lot more miles. A
| kilogram of lithium used in a truck battery will accomplish
| more than a kilogram of lithium used in a car battery. (Which
| also suggests the industry may be less cost-sensitive and able
| to tolerate price increases if they ever happen, although the
| trajectory is solidly downward.)
|
| Furthermore, secondary use of EV packs (when they're down to
| maybe 60% of nameplate capacity, they're replaced and the old
| ones are sold into stationary applications) means that there'll
| be _decreasing_ demand for purpose-built stationary batteries.
| Five years ago, if you wanted to put together a massive lithium
| backup system, you had to buy new batteries. Today, you can
| head over to batteryhookup and get BMW, BYD, Mercedes, and
| other ex-EV batteries for pennies on the dollar, in modules
| with the connectors on 'em and everything.
|
| The industry is actively pursuing this, by the way. Five years
| from now, it'll either be much easier and more official, or
| wrapped up in-house and out of third-party reach. But either
| way, the path from EV to stationary use is developing, and the
| packs which already did some service on the road, will fill
| much of the need for stationary batteries, displacing that
| market's appetite for virgin batteries.
|
| As the secondary market floods with ex-EV packs, at some point
| it becomes economical to "mine" the really-dead ones for their
| lithium, and the loop closes. Recycling plants aren't the same
| as virgin-lithium plants, but we'll see those developing in due
| time.
| jabl wrote:
| Yeah, people are harping about how much minerals we need to
| dig up for all those batteries. Yes, that's true, and we
| should certainly seek to mine those minerals with minimum
| environmental damage, and seek out new battery chemistries
| not needing critical materials (e.g. Tesla has announced
| their next gen batteries will be cobalt-free).
|
| But as you say, batteries can be recycled into new batteries.
| At some point we'll approach some saturation point, where
| most of the need for those minerals can be satisfied by
| recycling old batteries. As opposed to fossil fuels which
| just go up the tailpipe, and thus need new resources to be
| extracted constantly.
| [deleted]
| reportingsjr wrote:
| Yes, some quick searching will show you that quite a few major
| brands are in the process of either building battery factories,
| or about to be building battery factories.
|
| Reference for easier searching: Northvolt (new manufacturer) is
| working on a major factory with VW, CATL is building new
| factories, daimler is about to have a new factory come online,
| etc etc.
| beamatronic wrote:
| I like to think that a lot of jobs will be created when it
| comes to recycling and refurbishing the batteries.
| nickik wrote:
| Car makers for the most part don't build their own cell
| factories. They do invest in battery pack factories.
|
| However, there are major supply contracts being signed all the
| time. The major battery producers, Panasonic, CATL, LG, SK,
| Samsung SDI and even BYD. GM and LG have a major partnership
| and are building a factory in Ohio. SK is trying to build a
| factory in the US as well.
|
| At the same time you have many new players coming onto the
| market. Tesla themselves are the most relevant. There are also
| major European projects, such as Northvolt (former Tesla guys
| from Giga Nevada) but also others like GigaVaasa. Northvolt
| will also build a large factory in Sweden, and a somewhat
| smaller one in Germany. CATL is building battery factories in
| Czech Republic and expanding existing factories.
|
| There represent long term off-take agreements between car
| manufactures and cell providers.
|
| Pretty much all of these have large contracts and are building
| factories all over the place.
|
| All that said, nobody is as aggressive as Tesla with their
| targets. In fact, a good argument can be made that everybody
| else is copying the Tesla Gigafactory as a model. Even calling
| them Gigafactories and targeting the same sort of output
| levels.
|
| In terms of car makers Tesla (and BYD) are the ones vertically
| integrating the battery.
| alliao wrote:
| dumb question, is it easy to redesign EV to use hydrogen? Isn't
| the whole premise of hydrogen being 1. world adopts renewable
| energy 2. to compensate for lulls, build way more capacity 3.
| excess capacity bought cheaply to create hydrogen ... 5. profit!
|
| for hydrogen vehicles anyway...
|
| seems like we're treading down on such path..
| LeonM wrote:
| Musk's mission to accelerate the adoption of sustainable
| transport seems to be working flawlessly.
|
| I can't help to think that the existing manufacturers would not
| have had any incentive of offering electric trucks anytime soon,
| until Tesla announced their plans for the Tesla semi.
|
| I am not in the transport business, but personally I am very
| happy to see electric trucks arrive in Europe. I live in a city
| and I can't stand the noise and stench of trucks with diesel
| engines. Not waking up from a noise of a diesel engine will
| seriously improve urban live.
| Scene_Cast2 wrote:
| I agree, I think that Tesla's biggest impact on the world has
| been the influence on car manufacturers, rather than the cars
| they have sold.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| True, but it's not just enough to prove the market and put in
| the effort to drive down the cost of batteries. Tesla gets
| paid credits from automakers who will not build EVs, but
| someone had to build and sell cars to be eligible for these
| credits, which is putting financial pain on legacy automakers
| [1]. This is important, otherwise these automakers would just
| cruise making combustion vehicles that further contribute to
| climate change.
|
| A former Tesla board member said about ZEV credits: "Tesla is
| eating the competitors' lunch and having them pay for it,
| that's a pretty cool trick" [2]
|
| [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-02/honda-
| joi...
|
| [2] https://youtu.be/YzztWieFqVM?t=239
| new_realist wrote:
| Not at all. Thus is entirely in response to government mandates
| and the Semi is still vaporware. These trucks are short haul,
| to boot.
| tenpies wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| Tesla is a huge benefactor of government credits and programs
| - not the reason for those programs. Competitors are not
| jumping in because the market is ready to pay unsubsidized
| prices for EVs, they're jumping in because the market will
| pay subsidized prices.
|
| We're only just going to see what the EV landscape looks like
| in the next few years without the hefty hand of the
| government tilting the scales.
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| Make ICE vehicles pay the price of their carbon emissions
| and then we'll talk about making price comparisons.
| NormenNomen wrote:
| The amount of rent-free space Musk is awarded is absolutely
| staggering. Tesla isn't even his company.
| speedgoose wrote:
| I think it would have happened anyway.
|
| Electric vehicles are not new. Electric cars are as old as
| cars. The first car to reach 100km/h was electric for example.
|
| In the last 20 years batteries and electronics have improved a
| lot, so electric vehicles are interesting once again.
|
| And I don't think Tesla can explain the Mitsubishi i-Miev or
| the Nissan Leaf, the BMW i3, or the Renault Fluence just to
| give a few examples. Sure these cars were not designed to take
| over the world, but eventually electric vehicles were going to
| become more and more common in my humble opinion.
| dahfizz wrote:
| >> Musk's mission to accelerate the adoption of sustainable
| transport seems to be working flawlessly.
|
| > I think it would have happened anyway.
|
| You could say that about literally anything. Space travel
| would have happened anyway. The internet would have happened
| anyway.
|
| The conditions of history are a prerequisite for any major
| breakthrough. The advancement in rocket technology made space
| travel possible, but that doesn't make Neil Armstrong's
| achievements meaningless. He was not passively riding along
| some wave of inevitability, he was a pioneer that actively
| pushed humanity further into the future.
| LeonM wrote:
| > I think it would have happened anyway.
|
| I didn't say it they would have never happened, I'm just
| observing that due to the competition (Tesla in this case,
| vaporware or not), the plans for EV trucks certainly seems to
| be accelerating.
| input_sh wrote:
| To add to your comment, plenty of EU members have set a
| target to replace a part of their existing truck/car
| infrastructure with electric vehicles. For example, Germany
| wants to have a third of its trucks electric by 2030.
|
| EU truck manufacturers like Volvo, Renault, MAN, and Daimler
| are all a year away from responding to market's demands. US
| manufacturers are behind a few years for a chance to respond
| to that initial demand.
| [deleted]
| legulere wrote:
| Why do you credit Tesla, when StreetScooters have been roaming
| the streets for years already?
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/StreetScooter
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