The website of American Trucking Associations had an interesting blog post last month concerning electric mandates for the Trucking industry. It is focused on the testimony of Andrew Boyle, ATA first vice chair and co-president of Massachusetts-based Boyle Transportation before a Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on the future of clean vehicles.
A cut from his opening remarks:
Boyle’s testimony demonstrated the disconnects between mandates and the real-world.
From the article.
After one trucking company tried to electrify just 30 trucks at a terminal in Joliet, Illinois, local officials shut those plans down, saying they would draw more electricity than is needed to power the entire city.
A California company tried to electrify 12 forklifts. Not trucks, but forklifts. Local power utilities told them that’s not possible.
Costs, sourcing and reliability are being ignored
Aside from the likely inflation these costs will impose will be issues caused by weight.
It’s not that we can’t overcome challenges, but we don’t overcome them by pretending they don’t exist
California standards will unleash supply chain disruptions nationally.
The order of implementation is important
Bottom line: The trucking industry starts with ‘yes.’ We are committed to protecting the environment and shrinking our footprint, and we have proven that. All we ask for is honesty and transparency about the road ahead. While we share the passion for EVs in cars and light-duty vehicles, projecting an automotive construct onto trucking industry dynamics is a massive mistake.
Success will depend on national standards with achievable targets and realistic timelines that enable innovation to flourish.
For the complete original article click here.
Start the doomsday countdown clock for the end of the trucking industry and millions of jobs. Send out the warning letters to all employees, suppliers, and the customer base. This is going to hurt.
If you thought the supply chain disruptions of the last 3 years were bad, just wait till these electric truck mandates take effect.
This is of course the money quote of the article.
The simple fact that electrifying a tiny fleet of 30 Trucks would require more electricity than an entire city, then 12 forklifts…sorry can’t be done. What’s going to happen when 250 million EVs are recharging overnight in 15 years?
That doesnt add up, Joliet is 150k city and part of the Greater Chicago urban area.
It sounds more like the increase in power drawdown is more than they expect to grow in a year or so
Or that its one of the two other Joliets, Texas and Montana
Heres the real problem in Joliet, but also Chicagos problem
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/utilities/nrgs-giant-gas-fired-power-plant-joliet-close
If you have 30 trucks with 500kWh batteries and you want to turn them around in 1 hour. That’s a 33 MW feed (10% losses are common).
If you want to match the turn around for diesel, that’s 15m, so 120MW.
Of course you won’t do all the trucks at the same time, but it would be rather typical to want to do them across the same hour and now you need to do some additional scheduling if they happen to all need charging and the times exceed 15 minutes.
While I agree that I don’t see this as exceeding the city’s electricity demand, people don’t seem to understand that the push for “faster charging” means that the amount of electricity needing to be available to meet the needs of a few parallel fast charges quickly goes beyond what make economic sense in terms of electricity cabling and power usage sizing that is delivered across a city.
It could be easily handled though by a moderately sized Coal generation facility powering the charging hub. This would also allow for the trucking company to install a quick charging hub and charge for Auto EV recharging to defray costs. Then you have Coal Powered Trucks
Cut out the middleman & burn the coal in the truck, like one of these …
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP._4BFm2z86HfRxlqbZi0CDwHaFj%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=a64080f74d5bcb8de5aaa7a0a1776905fc9536d1e803869c54c1c9b54daeeb56&ipo=images
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.KT2CH-4ToVBayeTe6UmM9gHaE8%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=82ff60109e12fb0dcaabe22f3a70adf9cd27879845de8a89e0566d4bfb7d064e&ipo=images
Back in the 19th century when Rudolf Diesel was developing his eponymous engine, Herbert Ackroyd-Stuart in Britain was simultaneously working along the same lines although, believe it or not, he initially tried to combust finely-powdered coal in the cylinders!
This must have slowed him up somewhat because, by the time he realised that a liquid fuel would be a better option, Diesel had already beaten him to it. Coal thus remained an external-combustion fuel as in these pics.
You have missed something. A big truck with a 500 kWhr battery. You must be joking. Larger trucks have engines of 5-700 HP, that is your battery for an hour when hauling up hill loaded. Realistically you probably need a 5MWhr battery, which will take most of the total load capacity. That is the real problem! Charging 30 x 5MW =150 MW, that is the city supply! Please understand the article properly, anything else is playing the Greens game. The fork trucks may well have been much larger than you expect too, a 2 tonne capacity one is fine, but a container handling one again has a big engine up to 500 HP. See truck batteries above! In this fork truck the weight might even be useful, but charging is not.
Typically, semi truck engines are 600 hp. Such trucks have 12 gears, 6 low range and 6 high range. Just google
Tesla semi has a 900 kWh battery, nine modules under the driver compartment
It would require about 2 hours to charge from 20% full to 80% full.
Tesla does not recommend charging 10 to 90, or 0 to 100, because that would significantly shorten the life of the battery of a semi and of an EV car/suv
20 semis charging, with fast chargers, would have a major MW draw.
I would recommend a nearby, dedicated 100 MW combined cycle, gas turbine plant, about 60% efficient, to provide the electricity.
That way the grid would not be burdened.
And this is just one company in one small city running 30 rigs. How many companies are running similar or more rigs?
Safeway in Richmond CA has loading docks to accommodate more than 50 trailers.
In 2021 the US had 4,060,000 Semi Trucks registered and on the road with upwards of 284,000 added annually
At 900kWH per (roughly 1MWh), the Tesla Semi with its estimated 500 mi range would cause the necessity for the grid supply to be increased by 285MWh of daily capacity every year JUST to support trucking’s current yearly increase. Then an additional 4100MWh capacity increase would be needed to replace the current fleet
And now imagine that for all highway/motorway rest areas all over the country + Canada + Mexico.
No, the push for faster charging means that charging spot users would turn faster.
Unless you think the alternative is charging at night, or charging extremely few cars or trucks, it doesn’t change anything. Correct me if I’m missing something.
OTOH fast charge hurt batteries, but that’s a chemist thing, not an electrician thing.
Also hear the comments about the 25 nuclear reactors to wards the end of the last video
“What’s going to happen when 250 million EVs are recharging overnight in 15 years?”
“Texas”blackouts relocated to your front door.
I calculated the energy transfer rate from a normal petrol pump into a car tank.
It worked out to be about 1MW.
What do you mean by energy?
And ships and planes and railroads and cranes for loading and road repair and building equipment and mining and steelmaking and agricultural equipment and myriad other big energy users. Didn’t the aluminum industry in Australia shut down after aluminum froze in the electrolytic vats?
Yep. He said to convert the entire trucking fleet in US to BEVs you would have to commandeer the entire world lithium production for 7 years!
Imagine lots of other countries trying to do the same thing at the sametime. The lithium supply chain disruption will last for decades.
Then there are all the BEV cars they are wanting to build that need to be brought into the equation. Politicians seem to have no understanding of the real world.
“Yep. He said to convert the entire trucking fleet in US to BEVs you would have to commandeer the entire world lithium production for 7 years!”
And all those vehicles will need new batteries eventually, so the world lithium supply will have to be commandeered again in about 10 or 15 years.
Russia, and China, and India, and Brazil, and at least 19 other countries applying to join BRICS, have absolutely no intention to electrify their trucks, or even most of their cars, or even use a lot of heat pumps, or even use wind turbines and solar panels and batteries, other than for showing good “intentions”.
They will continue to use fossil fuels, as the world economy has done at a constant 80% of ALL WORLD ENERGY FOR THE PAST 45 YEARS
Commercial property assessors are now recommending specialized fire suppression systems for EV charging stations in underground parking garages. Triple FFF or dry chemical systems. The cost will probably be in the $100,000’s per Bldg, all for a small percentage of the parking spaces.
My opinion is cities that promote EVs should build dedicated parking garages for EVs, and prohibit charging in Bldg garages. A single event could render the Bldg untenable due to the hazardous smoke migration.
It is not a case of if, but when…
If the Australian regulation for fixed battery installations was applied to motor vehicles, they would not be permitted to be charged inside a fire connected garage. The garage would require fire rated walls or a separate building.
Wall Street begins with NO and the downgrades will begin well ahead of playing chicken on the edge of the cliff.
Talk to King Charles III. He has solved the problem. He has lots of horses to pull his coaches!
Charles has everything under control.
Hard to believe the same country that produced Churchill spawns this thing
The same country that produced Ronald Reagan spawned Joe Biden.
I believe you both have just proved that we operate from a zero sum gene pool!
Excellent point.😂
Reagan was elected with votes.
Biden was elected with “ballots” from whereever
Round two coming up.
I see where the latest Washington Post poll has Trump beating Biden by six points and DeSantis beating Biden by five points.
My son-in-law reminded me that polls don’t win elections, if the other side is cheating. I said you are right, son.
So preventing cheating should be our priority.
Things are not looking good for Joe, on the political front or on the criminal front.
Wednesday, the Republican House of Representatives is going to give the nation a rundown on their investigation of the corrupt Biden family and their influence peddling.
Or the same parents that produced the hard working and rational Princess Anne.
Who would have made a great Queen Anne II.
Still, I guess we all know families with very different siblings.
Hopefully, now he has the responsibilities of the top job, he will show that he has learned to shut up a bit. MPs from both major parties are not averse to telling Royalty to zip it when they step out of line.
The same country that produced Churchill also produced Chamberlain…
There is a very strong possibility that Chamberlain was buying time to re-arm.
Neville Chamberlain certainly was buying time to re-arm, his ‘appeasement’ gave us an extra 11 months ; going to war with Germany in 1938 (as Churchill wanted ) would have been disastrous as the UK was totally unprepared.
Even with that short breathing space
As a result of the 1914-18 conflict & the 1920s-30s depression Britain had no stomach for another war, In fact many of the royalty, aristocracy & MPs were in favour of Hitler as he had brought prosperity to Germany. (even in May 1940 more than half of UK parliament wanted ti sign terms with Hitler
When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer Chamberlain was not allowed by parliament to increase spending on rearming, but he saw what was coming over the hill, so in 1937 he quietly went behind the backs of parliament to the major manufactures – ( Steel, Shipbuilding, Automotive, Railway & Aircraft ) & persuaded them to start tooling up for war.
He also approached Roosevelt for help, but Roosevelt had an ongoing recession & congress was stuffed with pro-Germans, so UK was on its own.
Neville Chamberlain a much maligned man, was fighting cancer at the same time, handed over to Churchill in May 1940 & died 6mths later.
Because of Chamberlain the Nazis were defeated.
Neville Chamberlain knew the British army would be pulverized by the German army. So he appeased.
The feeble French caved after a few weeks
Game over in Europe, until the Russians attacked in the East, engaged 2/3 of the German army, and destroyed it, by killing and capturing it.
The other 1/3 was defending West Europe, but lacked sufficient ammo and gasoline/diesel.
Game over in 1945.
That is certainly a different take on the subject than what one normally hears.
Thanks for giving the other side of the story.
yes good example of how pop culture history distorts our impressions. There is a lot of behind the scenes complexity involving FDR ‘s decision making too.
The people singing in the church ceremony were all black, the royal people waving on the balcony were all white; an example of “true woke” at the tippy top.
But we the little people can’t have a dog or a cat. And the airports near the place must be full with private jets today.
Excellent! That’s what I’m taking about.
The bottom line always rules.
A fact that the left never manages to comprehend.
You don’t overcome challenges by sticking a gun to someone’s head and saying, “Make reality conform to my whims, or else.” And you don’t win on moral issues by conceding your enemy’s premise that he has the right to destroy you, and arguing only about how fast he’s doing it.
But they first will take your guns away. Than the slaughter starts. They have always operated like that.
Personally, I hate guns but I reserve the right in case I change my mind.
Right about not conceding your enemy’s premise. I notice the trucker said “We are committed to protecting the environment and shrinking our footprint…”.
Andrew Boyle is deluded. He actually thinks reality can stop legislators from legislating fantasies. Nothing gets in the way of saving the planet. The whole circus is based on a fairy tale about “greenhouse gasses” warming the planet. Reality has left the building. Why should the reality of trucking be any different to other real world realites. They have just not got the right academic to prove him wrong and cancel his misinformation – maybe they could second Michael Mann to the task.
I did an experment recently that verifies long wave EMR energy transmission at ground level is negligible:
Globe_Heat_Tranfer.pdf
In this simple experiment, I determined that convective heat transfer was more than 200X radiative transfer at ground level and that got me thinking about the power flux of the wind. We know wind at ground level can be powerful. However at altitude it gets really serious:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/250hPa/overlay=wind_power_density/orthographic=-47.59,-54.46,599/loc=-38.561,-51.900
At 250hPa wind flux at the selected location is reaching 124kW/m^2. I have seen figures above 200kW/m^2.
So wind power that convectively distributes the heat can reach 1000 times the power of the long wave flux leaving Earth and 100,000 times more than the fantasised “greenhouse effect”.contribution from CO2 doubling. A tiny change in the way the heat is distributed is going to have much greater impact on the surface temperature than any “greenhouse gas”. The wind turbines being scattered about to reduce the temperature are more likely to cause the temperature to increase as they slow the heat transfer.
I have to disagree with your first paragraph Rick.
Andrew Boyle runs a large trucking company and know what he is talking about .
The politicians are the deluded ones who have never run a business in their life .
If these dumb as politicians get their way they will cause chaos to the distribution industry .
The next person that should present a paper to them should be some one qualified to show these people that their is not enough electricity generated to power even 10% of your nations transport fleet .
Any thing to do with transport thought up by the Greens cannot work as they are all in fairy land.
They maybe useful idiots and know not what they say ,but what ever they visualize will never work.
They think that they are saving the world but how many have real life experience actually making any thing ,that actually works?
This is not a requirement in the USA while China is prepared to buy US debt. USA will have to relearn how to mine stuff and make stuff other then motion pictures if China declines to buy USD denominated paper..
Australia only needs a few iron ore mines, coal mines and gas wells to supply China in return for the manufactured goods that flood in from China.
Europe is probably giving away a bit more in terms of intellectual property but China will soon not need that as they learn from what they get and build on it.
Just stop using the dollar as the world reserve currency.
Remember that the Greens prefer that you live, work, shop, and play within a 15 minute walk. They also prefer that you eat locally grown foods, best grown in your own garden, without fertilizer. If you live their way, truck transport is not necessary.
Exactly but how much food is grown in side city boundaries.
The Greens are economic illiterates.
Half of the worlds food is grown with nitrogen fertilizer and 80% of the worlds food has some nitrogen fertilizer applied even in home gardens .
Greenpeace have been collecting signatures for a petition to governments to ban nitrogen fertilizer .
They have no thought of the hunger and misery that this would cause if dumb politicians agreed to this outrageous demand .
They believe hat nitrous oxide will warm the world so it seems to be better to starve billions of people than let the atmosphere maybe warm .0001C.
Nitrous oxide is about 1 part per million in the atmosphere but the claim is that it is 300 times as potent as CO2.
That might be in dry air in a laboratory but put one part per million of nitrous oxide in with 2500 parts per million (2.5%) of water vapour and how much difference could you measure over 2500 parts of water vapour ?
Problem is that to live off of the land you have [I say HAVE as Socialism will take what you OWN] you need at least an acre for a family of four to grow a years worth of all food and sunlight shining on that land. That will provide you with corn, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, eggplant, beans for protein, a few strawberries and maybe one fruit tree, maybe some eggs – meaning you are going to have to barter with neighbors to round out your meals and get meat. [Caution: IRS now considers “Barting/trading” of items of value as taxable income]. Not going to happen in the 15 minute walk to work, shop, play world.
Yes! KE stolen from atmosphere reduces evaporation, turbulence, and advection. All these things contribute to cooling.
I make the assumption that wind farms and solar farms increase global warming.
Rick, you are presenting this very “confusingly”, making it unclear if you know what you are talking about, leaving a reader with the impression that you are maybe MSU. You need to use the same terminology as say the “advective flux” example on page 35 of this textbook
https://www.eoas.ubc.ca/books/Practical_Meteorology/prmet102/Ch02-radiation-v102b.pdf
and advection starting page 65 here.
https://www.eoas.ubc.ca/books/Practical_Meteorology/mse3/Ch03-Heat.pdf
Thanks for the earth.nullschool link. Some digestion required !
Actually it is the legislators. When they legalized marijuana, they obviously started using too much of it. When they find out that the electric trucks cannot keep up with their increasing demand of farm to rolling paper, they will spring into action. But they will just mess it up further.
The upshot with all of these green mandates is that the people proposing them have never, ever done the basic arithmetic. And if you are rude enough to present them with the simple calculations then you are the spawn of the devil determined to kill the planet.
[Cue: Nick Stokes producing a special case of a lightweight electric truck running on 2 double-AA batteries for 300km because it’s only going down hill]
Please tell me I got something wrong here or that somebody somewhere is taking the piss.
(I opened an account at Aliexpress and they send me emails sometimes, this was down one of the rabbit holes)
What you see is an Aliexpress ‘shop’ selling replacement batteries for Hybrid Electric cars and this is the part for an old Honda (2009 thro 2014 vintage)
They Can Not Be Serious: £777GBP plus £114GBP shipping for a Nickel Metal Hydride battery of 14 Volts and 6.5AmpHour capacity.
(Once it arrives in UK, if HMRC ‘see’ it they’ll slap another 20% onto that)
As someone mentioned, it seems to be a case of A Legislator putting a gun to your head.. and those ever helpful, friendly and obliging China People will sell you a ‘bulletproof device’
Calling: Brandon, Snakkatak, Kalifornia, Micron and ‘Europe’ – this is what’s coming.
PS NiMH are the little cells inside cheap ‘garden solar lights’
Barely 3 or 4 years ago in the ultra cheap discount shops (e.g. Poundland) here in the UK, you could get a 4-pack of 1.2Volt 300mAh cells for 99pence = to use as replacements for when damp/rain got into your garden lights and wasted them.
Thus to buy the battery shown, using Poundland cells, would have cost £66GBP
We are sooooooo being made fools of
edit: There’s something odd about my picture – open it in a new tab else it blacks out your page :-/
Something very weird there.
The Honda Fit is a front-wheel-drive hatchback that seats up to five. It has a 130-horsepower, 1.5-liter four-cylinder engine that pairs with a six-speed manual or continuously variable automatic transmission.
Depends on the market – The Japanese Fit was available with Integrated Motor Assist (Japan), as was standard on the CRZ and Insight. A Dynastart flywheel hybrid, IOW. Manual or auto ‘boxes attached.
It’s actually a 144v battery as may be guesstimated by counting the cells.
So the Chinese are either fibbing, or Peta’s calculation is about right if once scales up by a factor of ten.
So 16000 extra lbs per truck and at least twice as many trucks. I drive from the Bay Area to Tahoe frequently and see the road indentations from trucks now. Does California have the plans or resources to build / repair the roads to handle this? They can’t keep up now.
We need to start with disbanding CARB. I wish Mr Boyle would not be on board with this anyway as this is all insane.
We are all attracted to a clean non polluting life style. No one I know would wantonly emit toxic emissions if there was a clean option.
Unfortunately the EPA has declared CO2 a ‘pollutant’?
The fact they are wrong to have done that, is clear to all who understand how life exists on earth. Sadly, that declaration has posted CO2 onto the naughty step, the Green zealots are fixated with reducing CO2, they are that lacking in awareness of life.
Reducing diesel particulate which is a real pollutant is a good thing. Many modern engines are orders of magnitude less particulate emitting than those pre 2010. No matter, in California they are determined to throw the good away and replace modern diesel with insanity and poverty. Starvation is likely to be the outcome as no one in California will be allowed to access diesel for transport or agriculture needs, as the insanity takes over.
Completely agree – and why is it that diesel hybrids with KERS type charging of electric motors ( developed at speed by FI as with other technologies…) don’t seem to be being manufactured at the same rate as BEVs…..I wonder why?
I love to ask the EcoGreen devotees of BEV who consider CO2 as an evil pollutant made by the Devil – what is the greater CO2 “polluter” a diesel or petrol engine of identical BHP/KWH output – once they have recovered their equilibrium, my non statistically robust survey participants – ~100% – say “diesel”‘ which we all know is NOT true as far as CO2 emission is concerned. The difference in fuel efficiency ( defeat devices apart ) of current generation Diesel ICEs is very marked – compare a Ford 2l TDCi and a BMW 2l 520d. I have the latter and can get 44/45mpg over an 800 mile journey by careful application of my right foot even with a full load; I have had the latter before that and got 60+mpg over the same distance. Therefore is it really beyond the whit of engineers to “solve” the NO2 particulate issue – I do not think so, the “Man on The Moon” argument being moot.
I came to the conclusion, long ago, that some of the EcoGreen CO2 vilifying fraudsters know that CO2 is not a GHG by any significantly measurable degree and their solution of intermittent wind/solar powered EVs, using battery technology that is easily picked apart, via a wholly unprepared Grid is a deliberate deflection hiding the “real” targets and the “rest” are simply deluded.
Am I indulging in a Sunday morning fairy story fantasy when I see a HGV EV, powered by diesel ( Ok, with some “eco” component, and a CAT converter to reduce or eliminate NO2 and other noxious participants ) linked to a ( hopefully more sustainable non lithium ) electric, KERS type, motor obviating PH technology and a solar panel in the truck roof “to boot”……”…perchance to dream..”
Yes agreed, the good CARB did is cleaning up those things that were true pollution. Also agree that saying CO2 is a pollutant was a huge mistake, a problem caused by ignorant politicians. However, with CARB mandates today like those on natural gas/stoves, Zero Emissions, and trucks, is way off target from what Reagan envisioned in the 60’s.
Also, look at the makeup of the CARB members, a very non-thought diverse group with little/no practical business or scientific experience, which makes them dangerous bureaucrats – as we see in their policies. Time passes for many government entities, unfortunately they never seem to go away.
Also looking at this post I appreciate Mr Boyle’s honesty, however I wish companies would stop saying they are on board with the net zero fantasy. I understand Mr Boyle wanting to placate here from a political angle, but these policies are hurting the country. Past time to start fighting back.
More people need to starting writing to CARB and their local politicians. Here in California, a state that is politically dictatorial, people need to change voting habits. It is a political fight that is being lost. I spoke to my local representative who encouraged getting local boards to oppose CARB rulings… It is a frustrating process that will need organization. .
I have driven the UK motorway network for decades and “truck rutting” has been a feature for all that time, which has got worse in the last 10/15 years – why? increased truck weights AND very poor road construction.
Anyone who has driven in Western Europe will recognise that motorways in western Belgium are truly dangerous – in places massively degraded surfaces. Netherlands and Germany much better. Maximum truck weights are greater than in the UK – although it appears TPTB in the UK are considering increasing HGV maximum weights. Truck BEVs and existing motorway carriageways are a disaster waiting to happen – but what the hell, the ideologues that make the regs are utterly clueless about the impact of their narrative…
So no different there, interesting. The roads here in California are general not well kept. The winter weather over those roads to Tahoe, is especially hard. Winters, especially like this one, have many chain control sessions. Local streets in Tahoe are a mess now. Yes Clueless ideologues.
Also, this winter was a great example of the need for fossil fuels, with the energy needed to clean those roads, with the constant snow, on full display.
Ayn Rand is rolling over in her grave. These political elite are delusional. Talking about pulling the cart before the horse. Has anyone bothered to sit down and discuss this in any detail on the realities of this pursuit? Apparently not. Same rubbish and insanity, just a different day. What happened to reason?
Reason?
Our Supreme, Beloved Leaders don’t need no stinking reason!
Where did you get that idea?
“Just get on with your job and SHUT UP!”
They explained.
Ayn Rand must have been a secret prophet. When I read “Atlas Shrugged” I thought it was an exaggeration, hyperbole to demonstrate the point – but the more time passes the more the book matches reality – except the industrialists and entrepreneurs who come up with way to create wealth and employment aren’t going on strike, they’re moving to countries like China and India, and so on.
Without the trucking industry our economy would collapse into locally sourced everything. Won’t happen, even with legislation people would not allow this.
No wind turbines, solar panels or batteries from China fundamentally ends the transition. The whole conversion precess only happens while China is prepared to burn a humungous amount of coal to produce the stuff that the transition is based on.
But they will have a serious try…
I up voted you, however “locally sourced everything” is the mantra of restaurants and green shoppers everywhere, so the brainwashing is already in place to block the sanity and reality checks.
Why not diesel/electric hybrids?
The benefit of diesel/electric/storage reduces on the open road compared to stop/start innercity driving. So for intracity trucking it may be economic. For highway trucking of doubtful economic merit.
Some deep open pit mines and even underground mines have benefitted from using overhead wires for pick ups on electric trucks with batteries for short distance off the overhead power. And the big diesel electric trucks in mines use electric braking but it is not common practice to recover the energy. It just gets transformed to heat in resistors that do not wear out as fast as brake pads.
My son works in a deep mine. They drive diesel jeeps underground. The reason they are diesel is so they don’t have spark plugs which could trigger a methane explosion if the concentration ever got high enough.
Of course they carefully monitor methane, and extensively vent the mine, but it is just one more precaution.
Greens act as if Shipstones from Robert Heinlein’s novel “Friday” were real, and the standard for batteries.
For a spoiler, in the novel, the trade secret was valuable enough the Shipstone consortium basically ran the economy in that fictional society.
I am glad these guys spoke up however this guy could stand to be more honest.
“While we share the passion for EVs in cars and light-duty vehicles, projecting an automotive construct onto trucking industry dynamics is a massive mistake.”
So the grid can’t handle 30 trucks but it could millions of cars and trucks? Get real you joker. Good for thee but not for me, sound familiar?
More like throw the other guys to the alligators, in hopes that they will eat you last.
“California standards will unleash supply chain disruptions nationally.”
For the Lib/Prog Nazis in the CA government, that’s not a problem, it’s a blessing.
“Volkswagen (VW) calculates that a diesel car emits less CO2 than an EV for the first 70,000 miles it is driven … Fabricating one EV battery entails mining about 250 tons of rock to secure the minerals needed” (Mark P. Mills).
The CO2 ‘savings’ after 70,000 miles for EVs is only marginal and EV batteries are guaranteed for only ~100,000 miles.
Whatever applies to EV cars is even more pronounced for heavy vehicles.
What they should be asking is why the hell did it get to the stage of a full senate enquiry to be told the bleeding obvious?
Imagine all the trucks and fork lifts plugged in to recharge at night- when the sun ain’t shinning and the wind ain’t blowing. No problem, just do it during the day instead of making deliveries.
Don’t many truckers drive 12 hours a day or more sometimes? So, they’ll have to stop for extended periods to recharge? Or switch trucks like the Pony Express? They won’t like that.
Many long haul routes are covered by husband/wife teams that maximize the time their truck is pulling. These teams would have their business model destroyed by charge times.
These are lies.
I’ve spent my career in electric utilities. The answer is always in terms of dollars and time, not whether the upgrade is possible.
Maybe the utility said “we’ll add you to the queue, your upgrade will cost $1.5M and be in place in ~2026” and the truck company heard “no” because they were hoping for a free handout delivered tomorrow.
I have two salient points here.
1) the article saying a company wanting to obtain or convert 12 forklifts to electric was denied as there is not enough mains power – is implausible at best and utter hogwash at worst. There are 4-500,000 existing electric forklifts in N America now, in fact every Home Depot and Lowes has a half dozen of them, let alone tens of thousands of warehouses.
One of the first jobs I had in the 1970’s was as a mechanic in a hardware warehouse, repairing a fleet of 30 electric forklifts and picking “trucks”. They had 36V lead acid deep discharge batteries, each weighing 2,000 lbs and having 2,000 Amp-hour capacity, and the place ran 24 hours a day, with 3-8 hour shifts. Each forklift had 3 batteries – one in the truck, one on charge and one cooling after charge. The chargers delivered 36V at 400 amps, or roughly 16 kW each with losses. So the 12 forklifts in the article would draw 16 x 12 or 192 kW from the mains to charge batteries. A 3 phase, 600V service as is typical of an industrial mains feed, only needs a 200 Amp service to meet this demand (3 phase delivers 1.73 times more power than single phase)
This is a rather small mains service for commercial applications. I had a 2,000 square foot shop in a commercial plaza with a 600V 100A 3 phase service in one of my businesses. The space needed to require 12 forklifts would have at least a 3-500 Amp 3 phase service @600V.
So empirical data from real experience says something is wrong with this reporting. Either the grid in CA is seriously close to failure, or the facts being reported are incorrect. It is easy to run electric forklifts and it’s common place, and within the normal operating range of commercial or industrial building mains feeds.
2) electrifying road trucks as opposed to forklift trucks is simply stupid. Diesel has 15 times more energy density as the best Lion batteries today (accounting for engine efficiency). So the 200 gallons of diesel on a typical semi tractor weighs around 1,400 lbs. and can deliver at least 1,000 miles range. To get the same with batteries, would require 21,000 lbs of batteries and would take 10-20 hours to recharge. That would be orders of magnitude more power than the grid presently has available to replace all diesel road trucks with electric drive.
That 200 gallons of diesel delivers roughly 600 kW-hr of energy (delivered to the driveshaft). Whereas the electric forklifts hold around 70 kW-hr, of which only 50 kW-hr is usable. (discharge any battery below 20% charge and you destroy it’s lifespan significantly) And the number of road trucks vs forklift trucks is staggering. There are 850,000 forklifts in the US, of which 50-60% are electrics. There are 4.1 million semi trucks in the US. So 4-500,000 electric forklifts compared to 4.1 million semi trucks. And the semi trucks require 10x more energy storage capacity as do forklifts.
So yes it is a fools errand to believe you can replace diesel road trucking with electric propulsion. (not even considering cost or driveability issues with regards to low temperatures in cold climate regions – batteries must not be allowed to freeze, and loose up to 60% of their capacity when cold)
Finally, note forklift trucks still use lead acid batteries, as they also form the counterweight in the overall design for either high lift, reach or simple counterbalance truck designs. And they don’t spontaneously combust and are proven technology. Electric forklift trucks are eminently fit for the purpose they are designed for – use indoors for bulk material handling. Transplanting this tech to road trucks is just dumb.
He’s a very good speaker, addressing the issues clearly and directly. A Congress full of truckers might be a distinct improvement.
Very informative. Would like to know if Mr. Boyle truly believes in the Net-Zero mission or is he just giving lip service to appease the likes of Markey. At some point, those in his position need to stop appeasing and be bluntly honest about the stupidity of that mission and be honest about how unnecessary it is.
Don’t ask me to be the trucking company scheduler-
To what degree does temperature impact EV range? | Geotab
Interesting article. After reading that I would never, ever buy an EV.
Here is a quote from the Extend Your Range section:
Pre-condition your vehicle
Just like you would before exercise, warm up before a long trip! If it’s hot, cool down. Turning on your car’s heaters while it’s still plugged in will minimize the auxiliary load by warming (or cooling) your car before it starts its trip. Take advantage of the guilt-free pre-conditioning that EVs allow.
Is this how EV owners think? Clouds of guilt hanging over their heads?
Ewww.
Don’t feel guilty. Grab a battery Ford while the shareholders are kicking in over $66k a car at present and you too can be a proud early facilitator for saving the planet-
https://thedriven.io/2023/05/04/ford-loses-big-in-electric-vehicle-race-with-massive-deficit-for-model-e/
Join the tribe with the vibe.
I hear Ford is going to start making the Lincoln model in China now.
I won’t be buying any Lincolns.
Leftist legislatures rarely try to find out what is possible, they normally just issue edicts in the form of laws directing engineers to invent what isn’t possible.
That’s what we have here with the climate change “crisis”.
All the leaders have to know is CO2 must be reduced, since that is what they are told. The consequences of doing so are not considered.
The notice in my garbage bill said it all. Their fleet of diesel-powered trash trucks were soon to be mandated with retirement and replacement with $500,000 electric trash tuck as mandated by CARB–California Air Resources Board the unelected and unaccountable political hacks here in California Air Resources Board which is both unelected and unaccountable to no-one and now is the flea on the dog wagging the tail to half the USA.
Can’t wait until CalFire has to fight a major fire using both the newly-mandated electric chain saws and finding a place to plug-in the all-electric fire engines…
“CARB–California Air Resources Board the unelected and unaccountable political hacks here in California Air Resources Board which is both unelected and unaccountable to no-one”
I’ve heard a rumor, don’t know if it’s true, that they’re unelected and unaccountable.
It’s mostly true. The board members are appointed and can only be removed by impeachment. In theory, they can be removed; but how many impeachments succeed?
It’s not just trash trucks in California. The EV truck mania is nation-wide.
“Mania” is a good description.
“The trucking industry starts with ‘yes.’ We are committed to protecting the environment and shrinking our footprint, …”
That is a pre-emptive surrender. It is actually – but not currently politically – possible to be committed to protecting the environment without making that the only concern. Most everybody appreciates nature, but a few of us aren’t committed to running the world as if the unlikely possibility of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is the overruling concern of everything.
As for shrinking the footprint, of course you would. Get the job done more efficiently and you are able to compete. The mind kind of skips over the important fact mentioned in the first video that they’re going to need many, many more trucks to move the same cargo more slowly due to range and charging realities.
One more time – the US Government needs to lead the way – electrify the USPS first. Make the Postal Service produce a budget and timeline to electrify their (our) fleet. The timeline must meet the dates the government is imposing on everybody else.
Give California exactly what it wants. Operate the diesel trucks like they’re electric vehicles. 300-mile range, 10-hr charging times, limited charging stations. Take all those costs off they’re taxes. And stop deliveries to all CA governments.
In many parts of the world, electric trucks are already in operation: They’re called TRAINS.
It is so much easier to plan the future when you ignore facts, economics and the physical rules that run our universe. The enviro-mental-nuts who are pushing net zero want to receive their awards and accolades for “saving the earth” now, long before anyone gets to see the devastation of their actions, because they know they have nothing real to base their decisions on. It’s all promises destined for disappointment.
The insanity isn’t limited to legislative bodies and agency bureaucrats. At this particular time and in this particular place what is the rational reason for the use of EVs? In no way do they have real advantages over the existing IC technology. The consumers that purchase and use EVs can’t be doing so for actual reasons of improved utility. It must be an effort to be part of a new and fashionable technology. The symbol on the back of a Tesla must have the same cache’ as the patch on the rear of a pair of designer jeans or the embossed trademark on an expensive handbag. There’s no other reason.
Sad, that such a common sense presentation, fell on ears, that only hear EV, EV, EV, EV ……..
Speaking of a heavy dose of reality, has there been any word on the progress
of the Scottish couple that were going “pole to pole” in a EV? A google
shows nothing. It’s been over a month now.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/03/20/scottish-couple-plan-to-drive-from-pole-to-pole-in-an-electric-vehicle/
WOW… The facts really hit home…If I were a trucking company, I would simply say no more deliveries to California. Not quite that simple for some firms I know, if there is trucking owned, Californian based infrastructure. Depots etc.
The general public is totally clueless on the practical realities of business and the lefties and greens are willfully ignorant because otherwise they would have to change their thinking.
Compact Fuel Dispenser / Diesel Transfer Pump
240vAC, 60L/min
Includes flow meter, nozzle, hoses and suction strainer
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/06/20/evs-fossil-fuel-economy-no-better-than-ice-vehicles/#comment-3540281
The entire hearing. Worth a listen.
https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/hearings?ID=E5270C1D-EAC2-4B48-B3D6-1E864EDC589A
Let the show trials begin with confessions of crimes committed against the climate crusades.
From the article: “After one trucking company tried to electrify just 30 trucks at a terminal in Joliet, Illinois, local officials shut those plans down, saying they would draw more electricity than is needed to power the entire city.
A California company tried to electrify 12 forklifts. Not trucks, but forklifts. Local power utilities told them that’s not possible.”
I heard a reporter say the other day that he is hearing from lots of city/county officials who are saying the same thing.
Obviously, the wholesale electrification of the U.S. fleet of vehcles is not even close to being realized. Politicians can mandate electric vehicles all they want, but they can’t get the infrastructure in place to handle those changes. These are climate alarmist pipedreams, that are going to completely screw up our economies. We are being led by people who don’t know what they are doing.
Mr. Boyle’s comparison of electric school buses with long-range trucks was extremely interesting. School buses only travel a limited range (usually less than 20 miles) twice a day, to take children to school in the morning and back near home in the evening, with maybe an extra trip to and from a sporting event. The buses can be all gathered to a central location in any given school district and recharged at night. Even the weight of the batteries is not much of a problem, considering that a “payload” of 40 high school students might weigh only about 3 tons or so (maybe 4 tons for a football team).
But replacing long-haul trucks with electric motors is a completely different proposition. I have seen some diesel-powered trucks hauling three trailers hitched together, comparable to a short freight train on the road instead of on rails. How big of a battery would be needed to haul that much weight uphill for any reasonable distance, and how long would it take to recharge? In some western states, even diesel refueling stations (or truck stops) along interstate highways can be over 50 miles apart. The driver of a diesel truck can check his fuel gauge and plan his refueling stops accordingly, but what if an electric truck’s battery dies 30 miles from the nearest charging station in a blizzard?
Those planning to ban diesel trucks in California are extremely shortsighted. Do any of them remember the supply-chain crisis during Covid, when hundreds of container ships were floating near the port of Los Angeles or Long Beach, because too few people were willing to risk catching Covid to unload them? If a diesel-truck ban went into effect in California, there would be a worse problem–no trucks to haul the containers out of the ports and into states with more reasonable regulations.
Someone would have to build, over the next 8 months, enough electric trucks to transport all the freight that comes into those ports, with a range long enough to reach the Arizona border, after which the containers would be loaded onto diesel trucks to take them where they need to go. Would there be enough water in the Colorado River to recharge the electric trucks using hydro?
Why doesn’t the car industry have an Andrew Boyle who can tell politicians (legislators) what the reality is, and how ‘political aspirations’ are a total fantasy?
At the hearing, Senator Markey demonstrates his deep understanding of energy density.
Markey : That is going to the grid, but again, it is the larger size battery technology that can be developed. For example, I heard Mr. Boyle talking about how when the truck fills up, it goes 1,200 miles, but if you take out that 1,200 mile capacity for oil, that leaves a lot of space for a battery and innovation that can develop that battery that could fill in, because that is a lot of weight that is taken off the truck if you could then replace it with a battery that could use it.
Dear God.