Daimler Delivers First Electric Trucks

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monkeymagick

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Reuters reports that the competition for electric trucks is heating up. At a New York news conference on Thursday, Daimler announced that delivery company UPS will be the first to receive three of its Fuso eCanter trucks (auto-start video warning), which have a range of 62 miles between charges. Daimler Trucks Asia chief, Mark Llistosella states "the game has started." Electric car auto-giant Tesla will reveal an electric semi-trailer truck on Oct. 26th.

Battery costs that are currently about $180 to $200 a kilowatt-hour could drop to about $100 a kilowatt-hour, Llistosella said. "This is the main lever" to move electric commercial trucks to higher sales volumes, he said.
 
Ultima99 said:
62 miles? Is today April 1st or something?

And here we were all ragging on Tesla's range....
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The trucks my dad drove before retirement didn't have much over 100 miles of range. Needing to fill up more than once a day was a complaint but it seems a cement mixer could be a fairly ideal candidate for electrification. Short trips, mostly city driving, lots of extremely low speed maneuvering, lots of time stationary at the plant, lots of time going nowhere on the job site...

It would be sweet to have a brick of batteries that get swapped out on the reg in place of the engine.

What surprised me is the most of these trucks (trash, construction, delivery, even lots of OTR) are ripe for hybridization but no one aside from a handful of UPS trucks has made the jump. You could knock back to a pickup truck sized diesel and enjoy all the benefits of electric motors with big range and huge fuel savings.
 
reprots? I used to give Mike Magee crap about this saying, "Don't want to make red marks all over your page. Oh wait, they are already there!".
 
Still not sure why we skipped over a full diesel-electric implementation on class 8 trucks. They are the perfect platform! More than enough room for a 500HP+ series-wound DC or 3ph vfd controlled SQIM with dynamic braking resistors or going full bore with a regen system.
 
alxlwson said:
Still not sure why we skipped over a full diesel-electric implementation on class 8 trucks. They are the perfect platform! More than enough room for a 500HP+ series-wound DC or 3ph vfd controlled SQIM with dynamic braking resistors or going full bore with a regen system.
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I'm curious too. You'd think diesel-electric would be ideal for tanks but even defense money doesn't seem to be enough to make a workable setup.
 
They could just design hot swap batteries. Like something that can be easily taken out/put in. I'd probably design it so you can wheel it in/out on a pallet jack. It clamps to the wall and floor, then plug in the cable. I definitely wouldn't want a truck sitting there idle, while it charges, nor would I want to buy extra vehicles.
 
Todd Walter said:
I'm curious too. You'd think diesel-electric would be ideal for tanks but even defense money doesn't seem to be enough to make a workable setup.
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Snip
The AGT 1500 turbine engine has become the primary engine of the Abrams family. Its compact design, cold-starting, instant power, multi-fuel capabilities, and stealthy operation made this engine the world standard for tank durability and survivability.
End snip
Another advantage, greater engine power density.

http://cset.mnsu.edu/engagethermo/systems_tank.html
 
krotch said:
They could just design hot swap batteries. Like something that can be easily taken out/put in. I'd probably design it so you can wheel it in/out on a pallet jack. It clamps to the wall and floor, then plug in the cable. I definitely wouldn't want a truck sitting there idle, while it charges, nor would I want to buy extra vehicles.
Click to expand...
This is the big failure of the EV movement, IMO. Quick charging batteries is stupid. Too slow, too much wear... It's a holdover from gas stations being the norm. Electric vehicles should be purchased without batteries and you pay for the use. This would make them more convenient, more accessible (what's the price of a Model 3 without the pack?) and longer lasting.

But muh quik cherg
 
Todd Walter said:
I'm curious too. You'd think diesel-electric would be ideal for tanks but even defense money doesn't seem to be enough to make a workable setup.
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It's probably not a problem with the technology, but the logistical portion or cost. I'm sure they did some kind of cost analysis to see how much it costs to run it per mission hour and how much downtime it has. They always seem to show that the new technology will save them X amount of cost, be deadlier, or any number of things making it better than what it would replace. Then...they look at the big bill for moving forward and producing/procurring them, at which point, the project stalls and dies out. With them only making like 3 prototypes.
 
The march to electric vehicles is not driven by market forces but by political ideology. A sure indication of epic failure. "If" one actually follows the science and not the political/media hype one "must" conclude that recent temperatures easily falls within the range of normal temperatures when viewed against a 2,000 year mean *. CO2 is definitely "not" a pollutant.

A critical component of lithium-ion batteries is cobalt. Cobalt is highly toxic and currently in short supply. This has two implications:

1) The need to increase mining for cobalt as well as the need to dispose of the cobalt in spent batteries poses a risk to the environment and life on the planet. We may be trading a minor environmental problem for a severe problem.
2) It is likely that the price of cobalt may increase significantly. With the inevitable end of government subsidies for electric vehicles the true cost of operating electric vehicles are likely to be "much" more expensive than advertised.

Without major innovation in battery technology a transition to an all electric vehicle world is unsustainable. Long live the Internal Combustion Engine...

*
Holocene-Cooling-Northern-Europe-Esper14-copy1.jpg
 
alxlwson said:
Still not sure why we skipped over a full diesel-electric implementation on class 8 trucks.
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The cost messes it up.

Industry considered it but dropped it when they saw how the batteries are improving and they all seem to be expecting the batteries to be "good enough" even for the long haul stuff in 10yr or so. In the short term the inner city stuff that is shorter range is getting converted to electric, because its becoming more economical than diesel, while they allow the current diesel fleet and/or engine models to operate until they fall apart and then replace them with electrics.
 
Jim Kim said:
Another advantage, greater engine power density.

http://cset.mnsu.edu/engagethermo/systems_tank.html
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That is a tank turbine type engine....it'd be horrible for use in trucking either by itself or in conjunction with a electric motor.

The mileage is much worse than today's diesel's, the turbine motor is expensive, and is expensive to maintain. Plus the exhaust is super hot and is real dangerous. They use them in tanks solely because they'll run of nearly any thing that burns and they have very good power output for their size which is a must in a tank that has a ton of stuff crammed into it.

edit: woops my bad missed the context of the post jim kim was replying to here
 
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Epic| said:
Electric vehicles should be purchased without batteries and you pay for the use.
Click to expand...

We call those rental cars and they're fucking expensive. I don't want to pay for use, unless there's some kind of incentive. Like MS Office or something. Where I can spend a monthly/yearly fee, but I get to have like 5 copies of Office installed. I don't see Tesla letting me pay like $1k a month and getting to roll around in 5 different cars.

Now if you're saying you can have the option to purchase with or without batteries. I'd be down with that, if the battery packs were standardised. Like I could move a battery pack between a Model S, X, 3, or any future vehicles. Then I'd just buy without batteries and slap my old pack into the new car. Sell off the old car without batteries.
 
mesyn191 said:
That is a tank turbine type engine....it'd be horrible for use in trucking either by itself or in conjunction with a electric motor.

The mileage is much worse than today's diesel's, the turbine motor is expensive, and is expensive to maintain. Plus the exhaust is super hot and is real dangerous. They use them in tanks solely because they'll run of nearly any thing that burns and they have very good power output for their size which is a must in a tank that has a ton of stuff crammed into it.
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I know, I was simply responding to the posters comment about tanks. Hence the tank info and why they use turbines.
 
Epic| said:
This is the big failure of the EV movement, IMO. Quick charging batteries is stupid. Too slow, too much wear... It's a holdover from gas stations being the norm. Electric vehicles should be purchased without batteries and you pay for the use. This would make them more convenient, more accessible (what's the price of a Model 3 without the pack?) and longer lasting.

But muh quik cherg
Click to expand...
The technology is in evolution. It had to start somewhere.
 
krotch said:
We call those rental cars and they're fucking expensive. I don't want to pay for use, unless there's some kind of incentive. Like MS Office or something. Where I can spend a monthly/yearly fee, but I get to have like 5 copies of Office installed. I don't see Tesla letting me pay like $1k a month and getting to roll around in 5 different cars.

Now if you're saying you can have the option to purchase with or without batteries. I'd be down with that, if the battery packs were standardised. Like I could move a battery pack between a Model S, X, 3, or any future vehicles. Then I'd just buy without batteries and slap my old pack into the new car. Sell off the old car without batteries.
Click to expand...

No.

You'd purchase the car and swap packs at service stations. You'd pay for the 'fill up' cost. If you charge at home you'd pay some minor fee for the wear imparted. No need for 20 minute charge sessions. In and out in 2 minutes. Batteries would be maintained ideally, last longer and it would quell the range anxiety and resale fears. It's a win for everyone.
 
Epic| said:
You'd purchase the car and swap packs at service stations. You'd pay for the 'fill up' cost. If you charge at home you'd pay some minor fee for the wear imparted. No need for 20 minute charge sessions. In and out in 2 minutes. Batteries would be maintained ideally, last longer and it would quell the range anxiety and resale fears. It's a win for everyone.
Click to expand...
No one can agree on the financial shenanigans needed to keep something like that viable nor a standard for the battery packs either.

Also the whole legal situation where you effectively don't own the batteries for the car you pay for is something that tends to keep people away too.

Battery swapping is just looking incredibly unlikely to say the least. And not really necessary either as battery costs drop and the battery tech improves.
 
WTF a range of 62 miles this along is a big failure at this movement.

Epic| said:
This is the big failure of the EV movement, IMO. Quick charging batteries is stupid. Too slow, too much wear... It's a holdover from gas stations being the norm. Electric vehicles should be purchased without batteries and you pay for the use. This would make them more convenient, more accessible (what's the price of a Model 3 without the pack?) and longer lasting.
Click to expand...
That not going to work do you have any idea just how min hot swap batteries they would need per stations believe me a lot of them there be no way for them to even met the demand even if got 5 year ahead start also EV are way out the reach of low and some middle income people.
 
Is that 62 miles LOADED or UNLOADED?
I suspect once you have a FULL truck that 62 miles turns into a figure much lower...
 
shspvr said:
WTF a range of 62 miles this along is a big failure at this movement.


That not going to work do you have any idea just how min hot swap batteries they would need per stations believe me a lot of them there be no way for them to even met the demand even if got 5 year ahead start also EV are way out the reach of low and some middle income people.
Click to expand...

It could actually relieve some battery manufacturing pressure in that you wouldn't need to constantly haul around 100kwh worth of juice if you're spending most of your time in the city. You could easily have 3 or 4 city packs for the battery cost of a single long distance unit. Save on mileage, save on consumables.

This strategy would make EVs within immediate reach or anyone who can or would buy any new car.
 
Epic| said:
No.

You'd purchase the car and swap packs at service stations. You'd pay for the 'fill up' cost. If you charge at home you'd pay some minor fee for the wear imparted. No need for 20 minute charge sessions. In and out in 2 minutes. Batteries would be maintained ideally, last longer and it would quell the range anxiety and resale fears. It's a win for everyone.
Click to expand...

Ah, okay. I understand what you're talking about now. You're thinking more like how you can hit up Walmart or something for a full propane tank. You pay a deposit, then you pay for the propane tank. When you need more propane, swap out the old, get a full one. If you want your deposit back, you need to turn the tank back in.

I can see that working, only if the vehicle manufacturers standardise the batteries or some government forces them to.
 
mesyn191 said:
That is a tank turbine type engine....it'd be horrible for use in trucking either by itself or in conjunction with a electric motor.

The mileage is much worse than today's diesel's, the turbine motor is expensive, and is expensive to maintain. Plus the exhaust is super hot and is real dangerous. They use them in tanks solely because they'll run of nearly any thing that burns and they have very good power output for their size which is a must in a tank that has a ton of stuff crammed into it.

edit: woops my bad missed the context of the post jim kim was replying to here
Click to expand...
Turbine engines are being compared to diesel and gas engines that have had decades and billions of dollars in research poured in to them. At a fundamental level a Turbine would be ideal the only real hold back is the durability and cost of turbine blades. With the right Transmission a Turbine would be more than fine for a Truck without a Electric Motor. the Electric Motor just solves the lack of an usable off-the-self transmission problem.
 
jpm100 said:
Turbine engines are being compared to diesel and gas engines that have had decades and billions of dollars in research poured in to them.
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Turbines have had billions of dollars of R&D thrown at them too. The fundamental problems that killed the Chrysler Turbine Car decades ago were never fixed.

jpm100 said:
only real hold back is the durability and cost of turbine blades.
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And the only thing holding me back from being a multi millionaire is a winning Lotto ticket but that isn't a practical solution to me getting my millions is it? Those aren't just trivial issues that are getting solved any time soon you're talking about there.

You're also ignoring the fuel efficiency issue. They're flat out worse than today's diesels. Like lots worse.
thejokker said:
My brain is broken? Without CO2 there is no life on this planet.
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Sure. But when there is too much of it life on the planet is negatively impacted too. When there is too much of something it can be considered a pollutant of sorts. This isn't hard to understand.
 
sfsuphysics said:
And yet you start by posting a picture from a website that's sole purpose is to attack any science on global warming.
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No... It is a graphic taken from an academic journal posted on a website that discusses the flaws in the so-called theory of man-made global warming. Here is a link to the study:
http://www.blogs.uni-mainz.de/fb09climatology/files/2012/03/Esper_2014_JQS.pdf

Why do I suspect you cannot name any of the leading scientists on either side of the global warming debate because you have not studied the science at all...
 
thejokker said:
No... It is a graphic taken from an academic journal posted on a website that discusses the flaws in the so-called theory of man-made global warming. Here is a link to the study:
http://www.blogs.uni-mainz.de/fb09climatology/files/2012/03/Esper_2014_JQS.pdf

Why do I suspect you cannot name any of the leading scientists on either side of the global warming debate because you have not studied the science at all...
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You mean a research field that has a $12 billion dollar research budget pumped into it from the US alone. Which if anyone successfully demonstrated AGW is not a crisis problem would be lucky if it only fell to $12 million research budget.

Yet, the skeptical scientists immediately get dismissed because they are 'corporate stooges' corrupted by money, whether they take corp. money or not. While the alarmist scientist are treated like they have no financial conflict of interest at all.

If you study the skeptics that goes nowhere they get dismissed outright whether or not they are corporate funded. Even though being corporate funded gives them the same conflict of interest as the alarmists.
 
mesyn191 said:
I was gonna do a serious post but hahahah your brain is broken dude.
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He's correct. CO2 is plant food.
Doubling the amount of CO2 would significantly improve plant growth and improve crop yields, while having little to no impact on animal life.

Even worse, if you where to cut current CO2 levels in half, it would cause a massive die-off of plant life, possibly ending all life on this planet :eek:
 
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mesyn191 said:
Sure. But when there is too much of it life on the planet is negatively impacted too. When there is too much of something it can be considered a pollutant of sorts. This isn't hard to understand.
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Wrong... CO2 is good for plant life:
https://phys.org/news/2013-07-greening-co2.html

Warmer climates mean longer growing season which means increased agricultural production which means more food for living creatures. You are "assuming" that today's CO2 levels are "too much" without any evidence to support that position. With increased CO2 levels we are seeing inhospitable desert regions becoming more hospitable. CO2 "is" life plain and simple. To suggest that it is a pollutant is absurd...
 
jpm100 said:
You mean a research field that has a $12 billion dollar research budget pumped into it from the US alone. Which if anyone successfully demonstrated AGW is not a crisis problem would be lucky if it only fell to $12 million research budget.

Yet, the skeptical scientists immediately get dismissed because they are 'corporate stooges' corrupted by money, whether they take corp. money or not. While the alarmist scientist are treated like they have no financial conflict of interest at all.

If you study the skeptics that goes nowhere they get dismissed outright whether or not they are corporate funded. Even though being corporate funded gives them the same conflict of interest as the alarmists.
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Bravo!!! A succinct explanation for the corruption of science by political activists masquerading as scientists.
 
jpm100 said:
Yet, the skeptical scientists immediately get dismissed because they are 'corporate stooges' corrupted by money, whether they take corp. money or not.
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Money is one issue but detailed debunkings by scientists of various anti-AGW studies have been done and steadily get ignored by people like yourself or jokker.

For instance here some information and studies on the tree ring divergence issue and the medival warm period that both get brought up time and again by anti-AGW's but are ignored time and again too by those types.

Its because they do stuff like that anti-AGW's have become viewed as fundamentally dishonest by most in the scientific and public community so yeah its safe to assume any anti-AGW'er is full of it by default and dismiss them out of hand. That is a treatment they've earned.
 
mesyn191 said:
Turbines have had billions of dollars of R&D thrown at them too. The fundamental problems that killed the Chrysler Turbine Car decades ago were never fixed.


And the only thing holding me back from being a multi millionaire is a winning Lotto ticket but that isn't a practical solution to me getting my millions is it? Those aren't just trivial issues that are getting solved any time soon you're talking about there.

You're also ignoring the fuel efficiency issue. They're flat out worse than today's diesels. Like lots worse.
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IC engines have a theoretical ceiling for efficiency that is not as good as Turbine Engines. You know Turbines, the engine of choice for power generation for this very reason. Diesels have approached their ceiling in cars better because of research dollars invested to make that happen there. Almost zero has happened for Turbines in cars by comparison. They have a practicality problem because of blade problems. Just like Diesels had practicality problems because of the extra strength required to survive the pressure of a diesel cycle vs. the otto cycle of gas engines. This improved over time to make them more feasible in cars instead of just heavy trucks because of research investments.
 
thejokker said:
CO2 is good for plant life:
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Up to a point. When the temp increases by green house gases like CO2 get too high they cause too much moisture to dry out of the soil which causes bigger negative impacts than the benefits extra CO2 can give.

Plants need water too. Here is a study on this related to soybeans. Another study about heat waves negatively effecting crop production.

thejokker said:
You are "assuming" that today's CO2 levels are "too much" without any evidence to support that position.
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Nope. I'm only doing minimal effort posting because that is all your broke brain is worth from me. There are plenty of studies on this too. You know how to google Skeptical Science if you want BTW.
 
jpm100 said:
IC engines have a theoretical ceiling for efficiency that is not as good as Turbine Engines.
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Who cares about what is theoretically possible when the real world actual turbines and motors themselves don't come close to those limits.

Years ago we were theoretically supposed to have 10Ghz CPU's but how did that turn out?

jpm100 said:
You know Turbines, the engine of choice for power generation for this very reason.
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Wait are we going to be putting full blown power plant size turbines in cars or trucks now or what?

No. Of course not. Scale can matter lots so talking about what works in a power plant sized unit is a very different story when talking about something that will fit in a car or truck.

jpm100 said:
Almost zero has happened for Turbines in cars by comparison.
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There has been tons of R&D into smaller turbines that would be able to fit and work in a car what are you talking about? They're putting them in drones and missiles instead of cars is all because those are the applications where there are practical reasons for them.
 
nutzo said:
He's correct. CO2 is plant food.
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He is correct in the most obtuse and/or fundamentally dishonest way possible.

Plants need water to survive too but if you give them too much you can drown the plant as well. Same goes for humans. Amount matters because amount changes the effects.
 
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