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I really don't want to get invloved but... it will all change, as soon as cheap source of electricity will be introduced.
Lokhid Martin already has working prototype, so does British Tokamak company. then, batteries will become irrelevant as electricity will be cheap a bundle.
Don't look for any sea-change from Tesla. Tesla does assembly of "off the shelf" parts, and very little engineering. Look to Ford, GM and maybe Chrysler/FIAT to actually design a good truck from the ground up that is reliable and useful, and not just marketing hype. When Ford announces they have a mass produced electric truck, you will know the day has come.
The Fed Gov't has had many opportunities to clean up the air by ordering fleets of Natural Gas converted vehicles. They never followed through, even though the cost for each unit would have only been a few dollars more. Fed Gov't operates the largest "fleet" of vehicles in the US.
... then, batteries will become irrelevant as electricity will be cheap a bundle.
It's not the cost of the juice that's the problem, it's the efficiency of the battery that's holding things up....There's a theoretical limit to that efficiency, and we're almost there now.
Don't forget, we've been looking for the better battery since the Babylonians invented the Galvanic Cell 5000 yrs ago and we're still using their basic paradigm.
It's not just amazon that pays lip service to alternative fuels. Look at city buses, run by the all-caring governments, spewing black smoke everywhere. You can't tell me the technology isn't there for at least a hybrid.
We have hybrid buses here. Plenty of them, actually.
When electricity becomes dirt cheap, and that is not just cheap juice to charge batteries, it is, also, cheap juice to power anything you want to as, there pretty much is electric version of any ICE machinery, creating charging infrastructure is much lesser issue. It will, simply, be cheaper to build. Along that, comes old idea of wireless energy supply. The first birds are showing themselves, reviving Tesla's original idea.
It's not just amazon that pays lip service to alternative fuels. Look at city buses, run by the all-caring governments, spewing black smoke everywhere. You can't tell me the technology isn't there for at least a hybrid.
We have had CNG municipal buses for decades. The private contractor school bus lines were the last to shift over at about the time they were forced to install seat belts for the children. I think the holdup is the infrastructure to refuel the fleet which does not match the ease and widespread availability of using gasoline or diesel fuel.
Something like an urban post office whose trucks run ten miles a day would be ideal but then you wolud also have to buy a charging station for each truck to be recharged overnight. As opposed to just going on the economy and buying gasoline as needed.
Having the convenience of public filling stations for gasoline or Diesel fuel for public transportation is not a factor: buses don't stop to refuel-- they have their home maintenance yards at their terminals for that. Fuel can be bought more cheaply in large quantities.
NG (manly methane) is still a fossil fuel with a finite supply (as large as that mat be, it's still finite.) Burning NG still produces co2 (if you think that's important) and CO (not important when released to outside air). It's only marginally, and not significantly from the practical standpoint, "cleaner" (ie- no short-chain, unburned hydrocarbons in the exhaust) than gasoline or Diesel.
1. Initial investment replacing gas/diesel trucks that "they aren't done with yet". If they take initiative, it will be a gradual replacement. Some fleets hang onto their trucks for 20 years. (Telephone/cable companies, forest service, small fleets, etc.)
2. Not uncommon for vehicles to have to refuel mid-shift if running all day / long haul business.
3. Neither employers willing to pay employee to sit for 30 mins at DC Fast Charge, nor employees willing to sit unpaid at DC Fast Charge.
1. Initial investment replacing gas/diesel trucks that "they aren't done with yet". If they take initiative, it will be a gradual replacement. Some fleets hang onto their trucks for 20 years. (Telephone/cable companies, forest service, small fleets, etc.)
2. Not uncommon for vehicles to have to refuel mid-shift if running all day / long haul business.
3. Neither employers willing to pay employee to sit for 30 mins at DC Fast Charge, nor employees willing to sit unpaid at DC Fast Charge.
Agreed. If the economics were such that electric delivery trucks were 'No Brainers" over their gas and diesel counterparts, you'd be seeing more of them on the road already. Ford has announced an electric Transit van in 2022 or 2023, and while the Rivian / Amazon plan is "real", I have yet to see one on the road. UPS has been using a "hydraulic hybrid" truck for the past few years (you can hear the hydraulics pump up to store braking energy pretty easily, and they had decals on their sides stating they were hybrids). To make electric trucks "no brainers", we're going to have to see an increase in fossil fuel prices, or further improvements to battery charge density and cost, or prohibitions on fossil-fueled trucks in cities, as is being done in Europe (which I'm not in favor of, they need to be able to compete on their own merits IMHO). They are coming, but without a "boost" (pardon the pun) it will be a gradual replacement, as ddm said.
Agreed. If the economics were such that electric delivery trucks were 'No Brainers" over their gas and diesel counterparts, you'd be seeing more of them on the road already. Ford has announced an electric Transit van in 2022 or 2023, and while the Rivian / Amazon plan is "real", I have yet to see one on the road. UPS has been using a "hydraulic hybrid" truck for the past few years (you can hear the hydraulics pump up to store braking energy pretty easily, and they had decals on their sides stating they were hybrids). To make electric trucks "no brainers", we're going to have to see an increase in fossil fuel prices, or further improvements to battery charge density and cost, or prohibitions on fossil-fueled trucks in cities, as is being done in Europe (which I'm not in favor of, they need to be able to compete on their own merits IMHO). They are coming, but without a "boost" (pardon the pun) it will be a gradual replacement, as ddm said.
It's happening organically, just not at a rate that "some" are pleased with. By pure coincidence, there is considerable overlap with people who are generally hard to please.
Arbitrarily raising gas prices and banning ICE vehicles just lowers the bar for the EV lineup. EV's should compete on their own merits - they have it or they don't. EV's don't need any mulligans, ICE vehicles don't need any handicap.
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