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.
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.