Battery based vehicles of today and tomorrow pt 2

[5030]

Don't have a clue Mossy. All I know is UPS tried electric delivery trucks (Freightliner chassis) some years back when I worked at the Freightliner dealership and I remember when they came in for something mechanical, they were sequestered to the back of the shop and roped off. never fiddled with them at all and then UPS decided they didn't work so they got rid of them. UPS also tried Hydrogen powered delivery trucks and that didn't pan out either because of the complexities in refueling them. The Toledo UPS hub is pretty aggressive with trying various technologies.

I see Amazon is trying out EV Transit Fords. Have not seen any yet however. Probably ok for urban deliveries but not out here. Too far range wise. been waiting for one of the Amazon drones to deliver out here, my dog would love that...lol

Problem with living in east bum fudge is it's too far to be impacted by new technology I guess.

 

[ultrarunner]

Back in the 80's Cupertino USPS had a fleet of electric neighborhood delivery trucks...

Cupertino is home to Apple Computer.

 

[5030]

Far as fuel costs are going, may be good or may be bad (deal) considering how electricity rates are climbing. Remember utilities are in the same canoe as we are with fuel costs and they are passing that fuel cost right on to their customers. Don't matter what they are burning to spin the turbines (except nuclear), it's all going up and up.

I just read that Massatowshits power and light did a 50% rate increase across the board to cover fuel costs. They generate most of their power with NG fired units.

I may at some point, install solar panels on the roof of the shop to offset my electric cost as we have the program here where excess power generated by solar, the utility has to pay us for.

 

[Dftodd]

So the EV could be the lower net cost choice for some perhaps.

That would make sense for local pickup and deliveries.

Infrastructure, faster charging (30 to 45 minutes) and triple the distance before long haul would be feasible.

Then they also have to figure out the extra features that some of these trucks incorporate as well.

Our two semis at work are set up with a PTO to operate a hydraulic pump. Hydraulic pump runs either a double rail trailer for roll off type boxes, as well as a dove tail (Landall equipment trailer). As well as a 30,000lb winch for lifting and attaching a frac tank to the fifth wheel.

Trucks have a pretty sweet setup, but I imagine those extra features would eat up some serious juice if they were EV.

I would imagine service trucks like I'm in would be a long time before they can go EV as well. But would still require some Dino fluid or gas. Would be ok to move it from place to place. But what happens when I need to use the air compressor, welder, or generator. Granted, mine runs off from a PTO and uses a hydraulic pump to spin it over instead of dedicated engine. But we would run into the same issue as the semis. The pto would take some serious juice.

 

[5030]

Back in the 80's Cupertino had a fleet of electric neighborhood delivery trucks...

Cupertino is home to Apple Computer.

Heck, back in the 60's General Electric marketed a electric lawn tractor called the 'Electrac' Love to find and restore one. Under the hood was an array of flooded cell batteries to power the motor and the motors on the attachments too.

 

[Dftodd]

Far as fuel costs are going, may be good or may be bad (deal) considering how electricity rates are climbing. Remember utilities are in the same canoe as we are with fuel costs and they are passing that fuel cost right on to their customers. Don't matter what they are burning to spin the turbines (except nuclear), it's all going up and up.

I just read that Massatowshits power and light did a 50% rate increase across the board to cover fuel costs. They generate most of their power with NG fired units.

I may at some point, install solar panels on the roof of the shop to offset my electric cost as we have the program here where excess power generated by solar, the utility has to pay us for.

My electric bill jumped $40 two months ago. Then another $100 this past month.

 

[5030]

According to Navistar, recharge on the medium duty trucks was 90 minutes on their proprietary 440 volt 3 phase charge that delivers over 220 amps and the trucks have on board electronic battery conditioning too. 90 minutes might work in a large fleet application but for an individual or small service fleet, that won't work. The other issue that bubbles up is safety. 440/3 can kill you or cook you in a second. Cannot imagine hooking one up in the rain... Why High pressure hydrogen don't work. You have to be certified to fuel one unlike diesel where you pull up to the pump, stick the nozzle in the tank and fill it. Even propane is questionable. One of my hunting buds owns the local propane company and runs his private truck on propane and 2 years ago we went to Nebraska for a hunt and took his truck and he had to fill the bed mounted bottle a couple times and that is a complex procedure in itself and the pressures are about 1/10th of Hydrogen.

 

[ultrarunner]

My electric bill jumped $40 two months ago. Then another $100 this past month.

Hospital had been paying 16 cents and now 24 cents which is entirely different and cheaper than residential pushing 40 cents at peak.

 

[5030]

My electric bill jumped $40 two months ago. Then another $100 this past month.

Going to keep going up too. My wife and I are pretty well set financially but we still try to conserve like everything here is LED now and we keep the ac at 72 instead of 70. We went from an average bill of just over 100 bucks, to 200 this month.

 

[DK35vince]

My electric bill jumped $40 two months ago. Then another $100 this past month.

June 1 our electric company (West Penn Power) raised their rates 45% here