He's hoping for a low-scale rollout, he's getting one. Only a few countries (China, Norway) are really pushing EVs at large scale. However his "cars as fast fashion" concern is an overprivileged view of the car market. 3 year old cars don't "go away", they bubble down in the market, first to "value buyers" who understand the value of a 3 year old car, and then onward eventually to the working poor. And EVs are quite good for them, as the "car killing" $5000 rebuild is normally the automatic transmission which fails suddenly and is not DIYable. Now it's a battery that fails very slowly, and is usually DIY fixable (by using CANbus data to identify the failing module and swapping it).


Exactly! THAT is why towns outlaw the Jake Brake! If they didn’t, truckers would only ever use the Jake Brake and the regular brakes would rust solid.

Yes. That’s complete horsepuckey. So is yours, for the same reason :)


Correct. Regen is the first 1/2” of travel on the brake pedal - you know, that area that normally does nothing. They also give you a little regen when you completely lift off the gas pedal, to simulate engine drag.


Yeah, nothing says EV-truck batteries *have to be* 8 tons, that’s optional to let them go farther between chargers. With 18 minute recharges on tap, and humans having normal human needs, stopping every 2 hours/100-150 miles isn’t terrible. The free market will sort this out I suppose.


I’m using the Hyundai’s 18 minute charge claim (validated by you tubers) as a benchmark for what’s possible in trucks, to address all that stuff you’re thinking about, which is already pretty well-understood in the EV community. Can a truck charge in 18 minutes? Sure, make its battery pack out of exactly Hyundai packs. Now your only snag is the DC fast charge station big enough for the job; but that could just be ten car charge stations, with ten plugs on the truck, each feeding 1 battery. If you needed to do it *today* with COTS stuff, that’s how I’d do it.

Your point about cooling is interesting because Tesla is the only maker I know of who takes cooling seriously. Leaf has no water cooling at all, that’s why road-tripping a Leaf is a joke. You cook the battery fast-charging it, unless you do it in winter. Volt and Hyundai use coolant plates are only touching *the edge* of pouch cells - weak tea, but they compensate by using the air conditioner to chill the coolant below ambient. Tesla’s first-rate cooling would combine very nicely with that method. So I think *faster than* 18 minutes is feasible. And like I say how long do truckers spend a truck stops?

I’m not sure how important it is to charge above 80%. You could just bring along 20% more battery and save the wear and tear of “pushing it”. Some carmakers do exactly that, creating a “soft 100%” and they don’t let you charge to physics 100%. there’s a hurricane.


Well that’s just trip planning. As-you-sleep slow charging is like if faeries came around and gave you diesel while you sleep. It’s nice, but it’s not going to shut down the industry if you don’t get it. And those hours of service rules... are adjustable.


No sale. Anecdote about ancient tech < hard data about new tech. There’s nothing to guess: EVs log this data and you call it up on the console or get it through an app like LeafSpy. There’s a ton of this on the web. There is no information gap for your SWAGs to fill.

But since you like anecdote, here: https://www.quora.com/For-how-long-can- ... rked-Tesla


Mind you, this is the earlier Tesla that did not have the heat pump, so it was using an inefficient 7kW resistive heater. At very low duty cycle, clearly, since it averaged less than 1kW. If you recall I guesstimated “not even” a 1500W space heater, so spot-on. I do inform myself. And I guesstimated “not even” 500W for sustaining A/C.

So your answer is “the EVs would not be depleted and would not need charging any sooner than planned, despite running climate control while the drivers napped”.

Of course the huge slug of traffic all releasing at once will overwhelm downstream infrastructure, but if the market balanced EV and gas stations, it’ll be about equal pain. Also many will divert, or terminate their travel day at an earlier location and get a hotel, or just sleep at a rest stop in climate controlled bliss.

Yeah, wow. The ability to do that - run climate anywhere a low cost - is a killer app for EVs. In fairness, also for gas cars. That totally suits how I travel, vagabonding a lot. I hate having to get hotels because it’s too hot or cold to sleep.

[quote=Sandy]And I know of several roads in my area that have signs saying "TURN OFF AC TO AVOID OVERHEATING Next XX Miles.”[/quote]
Not an EV problem. Not a gas car problem either if you found a place for the A/C condenser *other than* directly in front of the radiator.


Yes, hill climbing is an annoyance but again, trip planning - the car’s nav system and other trip planners account for that - they even account for wind. You really should look at some EV travelogues sometime. Here’s an EV advocate’s first road trip. https://youtu.be/1Vm_ASm2zfs?t=146


Of course, but everything’s a compromise. They may not always want to throw unlimited fuel and maintenance at fitting a couple more pallets. If the sharp pencils say something else, they’ll do something else. Same with the Hours of Service regs, they can be adjusted. I bet NTSB, OSHA and a few other interested parties would love to see several forced breaks throughout the day and wouldn't mind adjusting driving hours favorably. IME a 30 minute break refreshes you for way more than 30 minutes of driving, so it's a win/win.


Because they want to, or because they have to? I don’t know how important the cost of fuel is, but on the other hand you’re paying far less for fuel.

Talk to IRM. I mean if I understand the GG1’s electrical bits (I’d need to see the schematics/docs), it’s ~450 volts at motor level, universal motors that can do DC, and golly - that would require essentially no modification to the historic fabric outside of the transformer, which is gone anyway. The compressor motors would need an inverter. You’d need some silicon (Zilla controllers?) to simulate transformer taps and limit current. IIRC it’s functionally three locomotives so you could power one of the three and make a good showing hauling a passenger special. Not terribly far because the Class I’s aren’t going to let it come out and play.

Given the voltage I’d go Leaf pack for testing (it’s cheap) and an appropriately high stack of Tesla packs once the concept is proven (for the impulse energy). But the Zilla would solve the problem of putting a 5000 amp locked-rotor-amperage load across the pack, by bucking down voltage. The Zilla could possibly be programmed to deliver 16 Hz pulsed DC to allow the AC switchgear to snuff arcs; it may not be rated for DC interrupts.

I was employed in the long haul truck industry for a few years, decades ago. At that time, I understood that "working" and "driving" were different for hours of service regulations. That meant that time spent loading/unloading the trailer did not count in the driving hours limits. Under that definition, a two hour meal break at a truck stop would not count as driving time. And at that time, the sleeper berth time could be divided in two, so that gives you at least two long charging periods at a truck stop or rest area for each cycle of drive time.

A few years ago the FMCSA that is the US Goverment agency that regulates the OTR industry rewrote the HOS regulations for the OTR industry. Well without seeking driver input as to what would help them be more productive instead they listened to groups like CRASH PATT and other anti trucking organizations as to what they wanted in HOS. These big groups were demanding things like a clock on the HOS and no ability to switch between on duty and off duty when loading or unloading or fueling. They one they could not remove that was in there was the 34 hour reset however they tried to make so that it became a 58 hour one. That got thrown out in court. They also got their dream of ELD's on the industry also. Now they are seeing the aftermath of these dreams. Accidents are UP over the prior HOS and higher still than the first ever HOS rewrite of the original HOS regulations that they screamed made driver's fatigued way to often. Why well when you force them to run balls to the wall for 14 hours never let them get a break to relax then punish them with no parking and other issues it makes drivers even more tired than they ever were before. So now they have a problem they can not admit they screwed up without redoing the HOS regs yet again and the current ones are tied up in court and more than likely will be thrown out agian as the last 2 were.

````On the subject of battery cooling, as an example, I designed a pack for someone on the NY Resistor tech group who was building a world-record-attempt electric motorcycle.

The cells get individual heat pipes to their heat sinks (sides and edges of the sealed cells) where coolant is forcibly circulated in multiple loops to heat exchange with a serious external sink. Note that for a commercial road vehicle (or locomotive) where ludicrous ++ mode isn't a major requirement, this external sink runs at optimal battery-chemistry temperature, summer and winter. Some battery chemistries, notably sodium-sulfur, have to be held and operated at elevated temperature... the battery has nanoinsulation, so there is little actual thermal gain when idling or charging, and the external "cooling" is arranged to deliver the elevated temperature. Whjich is... not that great.

Remember that 7kW number for campling out night after night... in a Tesla? Let's bop over to Switzerland and look at the converted Kriegslok 2-10-0 8055. That has a 35kW set of elements in what is basically a glorified bypass heater... and that is demonstrated to hold 300psi pressure on the boiler indefinitely. In winter, possibly not in a controlled-atmosphere shed.

When I referred to truck parking, I wasn't talking about yards or docks. I was talking about those roadside 'rest stops' reserved for trucks, or parking at truckstops and the like. To me, "100-200-mile" effective max range for a class 8 truck is showstoppingly non-starting for anything... well, anything long-distance that is supposed to be competitive with COFC/TOFC with expedient block-swapping to regional transfer terminals like Rotterdam, NY. In my opinion the correct model for a truck is similar to the Fisker Karma: a suitable relatively small 'sustainer' combustion engine sized to deliver average power to move the truck at, say, 62mph (chosen to be 100 km/h) on typical level pavement with typical atmospheric quartering resistance. The battery serves as the 'charge bank' for all the vanity-cushion or emergency accelerations, is sized to absorb even sustained regenerative braking (for example on long downgrades -- you truckers know many of them by name -- in that "80% to 100% reserve" (buffered through the supercaps, but I've already covered that). Assume blended brakes between the air spring brake system and regeneration; assume motor design that will provide braking torque all the way down to zero mph without allowing wheelslide (it's easy to do even if you don't use the Tesla method of assigning battery 'slices' to different rotating angles of the motor armature). If you run out of charge, somebody brings you a few gallons of appropriate liquid fuel and away you go -- no 10-wheel Brandt-unit-size FEMA emergency-recovery vehicle expensively cruising the roads with first-responder personnel drawing wages necessary (although I assure you they would be available as a technical alternative if the market warrants...)

I am anticipating that the correct zero-carbon locomotive is going to use blue-hydrogen-with-sequestration as the organized source, battery-charging fuel cells as in the iLINT trains at appropriate scale, the ability to MU seamlessly with any suitably DC-linked AC locomotive power, and either Iden's tender or Wabtec's FLXdrive for the traction battery array. It's been fun to watch the Canadian financiers try to figure out which half of the technology... probably unworkable solely by itself... is going to "own this segment" -- you already knew that most financiers don't have a clue about actual railroading. As I noted, this also gives you a seamless bridge to electrificatiojn, for helping/snapping, for air-quality management districts, for wack politicians, and ultimately for more efficient flexible railroad operation.

And when it gets to preservation, it will be a cinch to keep running. Designed that way.

A GG1 'batter repower' isn't "three locomotives"; it is 'two armatures' in one twin motor. As I recall somewhat bitterly, the people who did the White Wonder GM10B had a planned suite for the GG1 rebuilding program, two suitable AC induction motors in a compatible twin frame (let's say, designed to mate up to the historic fabric without required modification). A set of suitable SiC IGBTS, a little OTS AC drive control, and some software to give proportional actuation from the 26-or-whatever-you-want controller, and away you go.

The 6 twin armature motors in a GG1 are wired in 3 pairs for cutting out purposes. If you cut out 2 pairs, you only need a power supply to run the remaing pair.

Do any electric vehicles or locomotives come with Overdrive, to allow the engine to disengage and coast until very slow speeds. My General Motors cars from 2000 and 2005 have that feature.

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Coasting is a fundamental strategy in modern train operation. Our simulation software (OpenTrack) has settings and output measures to evaluate different coasting strategies.

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Most EVs, and every electric drive in the rail industry share the trait that their motors are hard-geared to the axle. Anytime the unit moves x inches, every motor rotates 1 RPM. (Well, don't know about 2-motor EVs, it's possible their fore and aft motors are geared differently.)

If you de-energize the motor fully, you're in neutral. The armature is spinning but nothing is acting on it. On a locomotive you could hypothetically get a trickle of energy from residual magnetism in the field or armature, and I suppose a clever design could use that energy for excitation to make more, and bootstrap itself into full dynamic brakes. (Not aware of any equipment designed to do that*). In EVs this is much easier, as most rotors are permanent magnet rotors with strong neo magnets. Weber Auto does teardowns of these motors using factory approved procedures and jigs, and John is like "watch this thing, it will kill you".


* though there's an emergency-stop procedure in streetcars called "slugging the motors" where I believe they self-excite and then regenerative brake very hard. You're using the motor windings as the resistor grid, so don't do this for longer than it takes for an emergency stop.

Kelly a fully wet weight aka Cummins ISX 15 liter which is the heaviest engine in the USA with the cooling system is less than 4k pounds. The transmission is about 800 pounds rear ends for the pair are 3k and that includes the driveshafts. Fuel is 6 pounds a gallon and a 100 aluminum tank is around 120 pounds. And most trucks carry 2 so right at 1500 pounds or so. DEF tank and equipment is 400 pounds plus 300 pounds for 40 gallons of DEF we carry 1 gallon for every 5 on board. So roughly 10k pounds for the entire drive train cooling system engine fuel and emissions system for the truck. 3 tons lighter than the battery pack of the Tesla semi. Most sleeper equipped trucks have a ready weight of around 19k nowadays. 25 years ago it was 16k. The extra 3k of weight gain is all the emissions reduction regulations equipment required by the government. Equipment that actually has reduced the MPG of the industry and increased maintenance costs by 300 percent. There's some trucks out there called glider kits that have modern-day aerodynamics but a pre emissions requirements engine that get well over 10 mpg. Most fleets celebrate if they break 6.5. I was getting 8 in 2000 with a test engine for Detroit Diesel that pulled like an SD40 in the hills but sipped fuel like a 2 cylinder John Deere st the same time.

This article specifies the battery weight of a Volvo truck, and then says the combination is within 4.000 pounds of the diesel equivalent.

https://www.trucknews.com/equipment/volvo-extends-vnr-electric-range-explores-options-for-battery-life/1003165632/

2 tons is 5% of the max gross weight that is allowed which means your giving your competition a reason to tell your customers to leave saying we can carry your cargo on fewer trucks. Why do you think the COFC reefer container has not made any major inroads into the US market. Weight is a huge issue for them also. So say your trying to be the ultimate green company. You decide to run Battery powered trucks doing drayage on COFC containers that are also battery powered. Your losing almost 7 tons or 14K pounds of cargo. That is a prescription for bankruptcy in a hurry.