Tesla semi

[Sodo]

As to the rest of them, let's just eliminate them all. Every single tax break, every single direct or indirect subsidy, to anybody and everybody. No picking favorites, no shaping" the economy. That's not a legitimate function of governments, and never was.

Your govt is protecting you more than you can possibly know. USA would be a polluted cesspool. Like Beijing.

 

[tungularafishcamp]

You don't need to add regenerative braking to the trailer. You get all the energy of the trailer as it is pushing on the truck as long as you don't use mechanical brakes. Electric motor has maximum torque at zero rpm so no gearbox is necessary provided you can cool it. If the motor uses shaft mounted fan for cooling than you will have only fraction of minute to speed it up to high speed. Therefore most EV motors are liquid cooled and have sinle ratio step down gearbox.

I have never driven a semi, but have towed more than a few times and a couple times with no trailer brakes. Having a heavy load pushing my truck around is unnerving and on the ice 4x so. But you might be able to get by with traditional brakes on the trailer that only kick in when needed?

 

[crazyal]

Oil and gas gets 15.5 billion/year subsidy in direct payment or tax breaks from federal goevernment and 3 billion from the states. Needles to say that it is not only O&G that gets those. If you add cost of defending of shipping routes the cost jumps to about estimated 52 billion/year.

This has been debunked over and over again.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/drillinginfo/2016/02/22/debunking-myths-about-federal-oil-gas-subsidies/#78a955126e1c
Even if it did cost the US government $.10/ gallon we pay $.184 a gallon at the pump. So the government is still making a profit off of gas sales.

 

[crazyal]

You don't need to add regenerative braking to the trailer. You get all the energy of the trailer as it is pushing on the truck as long as you don't use mechanical brakes. Electric motor has maximum torque at zero rpm so no gearbox is necessary provided you can cool it. If the motor uses shaft mounted fan for cooling than you will have only fraction of minute to speed it up to high speed. Therefore most EV motors are liquid cooled and have sinle ratio step down gearbox.

Have you ever driven a truck? The rear brakes on a trailer are the most important brakes when the trailer is loaded. Without them a semi would jackknife.

 

[toppop52]

Oil and gas gets 15.5 billion/year subsidy in direct payment or tax breaks from federal goevernment and 3 billion from the states. Needles to say that it is not only O&G that gets those. If you add cost of defending of shipping routes the cost jumps to about estimated 52 billion/year.

There are tax breaks, but can you prove both numbers you claim?

 

[toppop52]

I hadn't thought about local trucking, only long haul, maybe the time is now for that use of an EV to be more cost effective! The heavy urban areas have more problem with air pollution which would give EVs an extra leg up, plus you eliminate the problem with recharging, as long as you aren't running the trucks 24/7.

All you folks screaming about the true cost of EVs, what is the true cost of oil production? Are you taking into account all the subsidies the oil industry gets? V or any entity for that matter that can afford to buy its politicians! Don't forget to add in all the help the internal combustion engine has gotten the last hundred years with all the government funding directly and indirectly, both nationally and internationally. I can't imagine anyone every figuring out the 'true" cost of anything!

When the auto industry was born subsidies didn’t exist, they lived or died on their ability to perform.

 

[toppop52]

Plus not counting the fuel fuel costs which are obviously going to be way cheaper, the maintenance cost would be much cheaper, and if you added regenerative braking to the trailers as well, maintenance costs would drop even more!

Would you even need gearing with an electric truck or would properly sized motors for the full load take care of it???

What is that going to cost to build, I mean including taxpayer contribution? All this regenerative braking on the trailers sounds great, but it ain’t free. Who’s paying for all these lumber, log, reefers, freezer, car carrier, chemical, loose media, tankers, container, etc...trailers? There are going to be diesels on the road for at least decades, as the majority, are they going to have to sacrifice load to haul regenerative braking systems they can’t use? How will this work exactly?

 

[toppop52]

That can be estimated. In example average lenght of Fedex delivery route is about 160 miles. 5-7 miles/gal. Estimated cost of charging is about 10% of the diesel cost. 160 miles, day translates to about 50000 miles/year divided by 6 MPG times $2.5/gal of diesel plust 10 oil changes. Cost of fuel and oil is about $21500/year. Estimated cost of charging is about 2150/year. I am just guessing cost increase of electric truck be about 50000 (most likely it is less). So if the life of the vehicle is 500000 miles the saving on the fuel will be about $185000. Needlesto say the cost of oil based fuels is volatile so it might be way more or way less.

What about batteries, they are not lasting half a million miles? And again, where is your proof of what you post?

 

[toppop52]

It translates in about 0.10 USD/gal.

Proof?

 

[tungularafishcamp]

What is that going to cost to build, I mean including taxpayer contribution? All this regenerative braking on the trailers sounds great, but it ain’t free. Who’s paying for all these lumber, log, reefers, freezer, car carrier, chemical, loose media, tankers, container, etc...trailers? There are going to be diesels on the road for at least decades, as the majority, are they going to have to sacrifice load to haul regenerative braking systems they can’t use? How will this work exactly?

Like everything the first few hundred thousand are going to cost a lot more than the millions that follow. And like everything else, it won't happen all at once but one segment at a time. Probably starting with the companies that own a fleet of local delivery trucks.

I am not an engineer by any means but the wheel motors I have seen that capture the regenerative braking are tiny, while these would have to be upsized in a truck I don't think they would be any heavier than existing truck brakes.

And I totally disagree that diesel will only be around for decades, it will be around around a lot longer, in my opinion. The amount of concentrated energy in those dead dinosaurs is going to be hard( maybe impossible) to replace, at least until we have flux capacitors I think there will always be applications where it is the best and possibly only workable solution.

In my own industry, commercial fishing, while day boats could and will eventually become EVs or possibly hybrid, I can't imagine it being possible for the boats out fishing for weeks/months on end, power needed is just too large and the consequences of losing power are really too large!