Don Terrill’s Speed-Talk

The head of Daimlers US large truck maker Freightliner just made a presentation where he said unequivocally that diesel engines in the big over the highways semi trucks are coming to an end. Freightliner now is moving now to end the use of diesel engines. Their opinion also is that hydrogen powered and NG fueled engines are just a short term use until complete electrification of the fleets takes place by 2030.
When a company like Daimler and their Freightliner division ,the largest US maker of big trucks, makes an absolute statement like this that the future of EV semis is about to be set in stone!
Some might want to think about when their stock holdings in Cummins and Cat companies might want to be reallocated elsewhere?

Cummins has already been developing electric powertrains for some time. They'll be fine.

Caterpillar builds far more than engines. They'll be fine, too.

You can be certain that all engine/powertrain manufacturers are aware of this.

What kind of battery power will it take to move a rig down the interstate for 8 to 12 hours?

Ken

I hope that Cummins and Cat and Navistar and other good American diesel players are moving quickly to soften the blow that EV trucks will apply to their marketplace in a few years. They are all great companies and they don't deserve to become the Kodak, Xerox type vintage operators.

As for power for EV semi's to roll for 8-12 hours without 90 minute recharges will take battery technology they don't have yet, but it's coming fast from the battery technology industries and producers. "Necessity is the mother of invention" . They will get there with the batteries pretty quickly.

Remember that the braking big trucks need is substantial and the regenerative braking while rolling will help extend range. I think you may even see new high efficiency solar panel recharging systems with the panels on the box top! Another idea is to take the big air that trucks push at speed down the road and drive some wind driven axial fans on front surface intakes to power generator recharging. Take all the little steps and collectively they will help with recharging and range!

I know Toyota is pretty proud of their hydrogen to electric system that they are testing in an over the road truck platform. Charging time and the available charging stations will be interesting. They will have to put in impressive electrical infrastructure to support that need. I am sure you and I will end up paying for it in our taxes, but that is another conversation for another forum. LOL I look forward to seeing what the future holds for us. As I see it, reducing the demand on fossil fuels will only lower the cost for the dinosaurs that we enjoy building and driving. Time will tell.

Paul

I just read an interesting explanation of the use of hydrogen fuel in engines and it is definitely not as energy efficient as some in the industry would have you believe. The energy to make hydrogen into a dispensable fuel, the cost of transporting it (dangerous shit), the cost of building hydrogen fueling stations, etc.,etc. comes out in full calculations as almost three times more expensive per unit of energy produced than using electric battery power in vehicles including recharging versus refueling with hydrogen. Toyota can afford to experiment and possibly use hydrogen fuel vehicles in a fill the change over gap but it has no real future in my mind and many others.

Hydrogen is absurd to use as a motor fuel. From the automotive perspective, its main function has been to extract research and development funds from governments. Prior to the development and commercial availability of high performance lithium batteries, hydrogen was thought to be the only way to achieve zero emissions (at the tailpipe level - the generation of the hydrogen was, and still is, "someone else's problem").

I don't doubt that it will see some use in limited applications where there is no other viable choice, but it won't be mainstream.

As for battery power in big trucks, as mentioned above, necessity is the mother of invention ... and it won't be a wholescale flip-a-switch changeover to electric power. It will start with short-range delivery (already possible, already starting to become available in the market), and transit buses (already in use), then move towards wider application as technology becomes available.

Sounds like a wider application that won't be addressed until technology becomes available.

Nevertheless with sufficient energy to pull a heavy trailer long distances, I doubt the reverse cycle AC keeping the driver warm will make much of a dent in the battery charge.

Battery fires! Come on guys! If you check stats you will see that thousands of gas engine cars catch fire every single day (yep, every single day)and not from collisions. I see one or two a month just driving the interstate!

exhaustgases wrote: ↑Wed May 08, 2019 11:50 pmSorry batteries are not a good power source at all. Other sources exist but no one talks about them.

I guess no one can weigh up the pro's and con's as good as you.

The market and consumers will do that and a lot better job of buying what works! Time will tell.

Newold1 wrote: ↑Mon May 20, 2019 9:38 am The market and consumers will do that and a lot better job of buying what works! Time will tell.

The market has already accepted electric as the future and the consumers are excited about it.
I sell Porsche , Acura , MB , Rover and Volvo ... Volvo will be all electric in the next few years (so says Volvo)... customers are very receptive electric and Tesla is mentioned often by our shoppers. Even in conservative Boise Id !

My guess is that the industry will use modular battery packs that are exchanged at depots in minutes much like propane canisters for our grills .

The next quandary will be what to do with all the nasty old batteries.

Don´t kill the SI and CI engines so quickly.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/201 ... l-science/

Erland

Erland Cox wrote: ↑Fri May 24, 2019 2:09 pm Don´t kill the SI and CI engines so quickly.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/201 ... l-science/

Erland

That is amazing!

there is already a 0 emission diesel developed , and 2 separate companies that are making fuel from the co2 in the atmosphere at the same cost of fuel today , so why the jump , lets see these 2 technologies come together , you could be charging co2 taxes to drive around as you use it up