Charging while Driving: Does it Work?
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- Опубликовано: 11 апр 2024
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Several European countries have done trials for electric highways , some of which have now been concluded. The results have been unexpectedly controversial. What are electric highways? Why are the results controversial? Could this be the answer to transitioning away from fossil fuels? Let’s have a look.
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So we reinvented trolleybuses?
Trolleytrucks
Are you trolleing?
jk, we have those here in Argentina in my city, Córdoba. We bought them from Poland IIRC.
We had those in Cleveland as late as the 1960's. We called them "trackless trolleys". They only worked in the downtown area where there were overhead lines for the purpose.
Yes,but worse.
@@davidg4288 Same in Ivano-Frankivsk, but we just call them trolleybuses. The ride costs only 0.24 Euro(10 UAH) for adults and free for children, old people, disabled people, victims of Chernobyl and veterans.
You can pay even less if you are from this city and bought a Galka card for ~1 Euro per 5 years. (sounds like I am advertising it)
As said on the video... we already have an existing infratructure that could be optimaly used for long distance transport. Problem lays on short distance. Meaning, small roads, not highways. Good luck wiring that.
Could be reloaded for short distance, no?
Issue with using rail is sorting out which cargo goes where. That could be fixed with individual powered and computer controlled one container wagons but you would need a complex government run rail system that could also be even more expensive.
I think that's why the thought that swappable batteries would be a better option. No wiring of various roads nor the problem of a major car accident taking out a chunk of the road wiring network that could stop transportation in a wider area.
This is just stupid. Sounds like some kind of "vegan driving".
Engineers have run out of ideas, and/or the level of engineers has collapsed.
Next comes the cesium-ion-bromine battery, which produces no carbon dioxide at all.
Plants will also learn to like cesium and bromine compounds, probably soon, since CO2 is so harmful.
The real problem is over-consumption of the earth. There seems to be too much carbon dioxide exhaled.
You don't need wires for short distances, because batteries are sufficient for that.
Right idea - wrong place. US 15, LA to Vegas. Constant line of trucks. Lots of low cost electric power. Build overhead power on steep grades, optimize batteries for long flat stretches.
Right situation. Wrong politicians.
Hey! This seems to make sense! Don't ever count on it! (said the cynic) :D
Unfortunately, no electric power infrastructure.
Lots of trucks on the German autobahns so still a good place for it if the costs can be managed.
Seems like a train would work better.
We've been using this technology for city buses in Seattle for 40 years.
We scrapped the tech in Winnipeg 50 years ago.
Pantographs were used in trolleybuses from the early 1900s. Some of the newer Chinese buses have pantographs and high-speed charging at the stops but not between them, allowing them to run continuously. This seems like a more economical route to go. More difficult for trucks which go long distances between scheduled stops. Just having high-speed charging at the local depot would work for local distribution, though, where the vehicles return frequently to restock.
And it was scrapped in Seattle for same reason it was scrapped everywhere else. The overhead lines cost a gargantuan sum to maintain and replace all the time as they wear out. Sure, the buses are cheap to operate, but the cost of the power lines is beyond prohibitive.
We have been using it for teams some 100 ears
Yes I saw them on a recent trip to Guangzhou.
“Build bigger worm holes and shove the trucks through” 😂😂😂
I just heard this and CACKLED!
Sabine makes me laugh so often, and also makes me smarter.
and a bigger supercollider while we are at it :) We always need bigger more powerfull ones :)
Truck kun : Origins
You wouldn’t need the truck or even the lorry
As funny as it is, it's similar to a quote by Neil Tyson. He tweeted something to the effect that if we had wormholes then we could skip the wait at the airport. Someone replied with something to the effect that if we had wormholes, we wouldn't need airports.
My response to that quote is: If we had wormholes, we wouldn't need to use a truck to transport the stuff in the first place.
You are so right about using of railways for transportation. Should be much cheaper to build goods handling points, where the goods can be reloaded from trains to trucks for the short distances. Instead of building more railways, the constuction of highways is given the priority.
Capitalists wont pay for it, so its gonna come out of government pockets.
Yes, this! And get those friggin' trucks off the road. They wear out the surfaces (which the rest of us have to pay for), cause accidents by throwing up snow and water blinding drivers of smaller vehicles, block road signs and take up a huge amount of space. That's just a small sub-set of my complaints about them. More important (but not more annoying) trains are efficient, trucks are not.
Railroads are monopolized by region so it means more MegaCorp and no more small to medium transport companies. If 2024 should show us anything its that MegaCorps will bleed us into poverty to keep the profits rolling in. Roads are for everyone but rails are privately owned and controlled, at least in North America.
The problem with trucks is that they are the only thing that solves the last mile problem. Also if you have a journey that takes an hour by road its very hard to make loading and unloading a train faster than just driving. I like trains too but they cannot function as an alternative to trucks.
It's already happening where it makes sense. Cost of transportation via rail is much cheaper when it's feasible.
That looks like the busses around here. Yes, this is a completely normal tech to power buses with overhead powerlines on streets where rails are not feasible.
Yes of course. They're called trolley buses. These new electric highways are just an adaptation of old tech.
@@moladiver6817 with a few potential upgrades, but yes. Trolley poles have issues with speed so pantographs are better so long as there aren't issues with getting on and off wire.
Electricity is also cheaper than diesel pr km driven. At least without taxes.
@@Jakob_DK Electricity taxes and subsidized fossil fuel is beyond my comprehension.
In Canada they actually dismantled the electric lines over railways so they could stack two cars on top of each other and transport more stuff (the freight trains are already as long as they can get).
Whaaat ? And running trains with diesel ? Battery ? Sideways electric lines ?
@@Winnetou17 Diesel - this also makes them compatible with the rest of the US and Mexican rail networks which are not electrified either, so they don't have to stop the trains and switch engines when the electrified portion of the track runs out.
@@gagenater Ok, so at least there's that.
cant they raise the electric lines so locomotives can still make use of it
Who cares? Rail is already very efficient.
I think is a good idea but, cost is always going to play a major role. I worked for a company back in the 90's,we looked at moving to rail transport. We had around 8 contains of stock per week coming in, however, it was cheaper to have a container placed on a truck at the docks and driven up the country, than it was to put it on a train, then have a truck collect it locally and deliver it to the warehouse. Shipping is all about costs, and companies are always going to choose the cheaper option.
Sure, but highways have huge subsidies compared to rail. Imagine if every road was a toll road and you get an idea of the subsidies involved.
@@zen1647 Yeah but the roads aren't tolled. And you still have to move your goods from the port to the railyard, then from the railyard to your warehouse. Anyway, it was a mute point because our closest railyard could only handle 20 foot containers not the 40's we got in. Furthermore, if you are shipping small quantities of pallets then rail makes even less sense. Right now if I want to send a pallet by rail it will cost about three times what it would cost to send the same pallet via the road, and take much longer. Rail is fantastic for moving bulk product from point to point, but when you get down to moving the palleted goods that have multiple destinations, you can't beat road transport. Especially when you factor in the costs.
@@cheyennedogsoldiers I'm not saying your companies decision was wrong, I'm saying that it relies on huge subsidies from the government. It would be smarter for the government to build more rail infrastructure than more roads because rail is more efficient.
@@zen1647 Yes but many of the subsidies come out of the road and fuel taxation that it supports. In fact if that taxation was removed then there would be no need for the subsidies to begin with. Furthermore, you cannot run rail lines into every part of the country. Many trucks these days do multiple drop off and pick ups, as they travel around the country. You pick up X number of pallets here, drop three off there and pick two more up. Drop them off somewhere else and pick five more while you are there. One of my buddies drives a truck for a living and in all the years I've known him he rarely is taking a full load to a single destination. You simply cannot do that with a train. Yes trains can be incredibly efficient, but, in the very narrow field of bulk shipping. In the modern transport infrastructure , trains are incredibly inefficient. So we need the flexibility of trucks.
That wormhole-through-quantum computer joke was so deadpan! Well done! Would we all become “quantum commuters” at that point?! 😂
Oh! Oh! If so, then I can go to work and stay home napping at the same time…but nobody will know which until …I guess we’d all find out which it was on pay day?
No, you just get fired and not fired, and end up on the quantum unemployment benefit.
Germany at large is in the same state as Academia, just without a need for post docs and grants while the taxpayer is being taken to the cleaners in a more direct way - with the politicians being the institute leaders.. (might not even be restricted to GER thinking about it a bit longer).
Yeah, Germany got rid of nuclear power so now they are the biggest polluters using bad coal to generate their VERY expensive electricity. Politicians are pure stupid.
All European countries seem like for-profit corporations to me, the way that the Dutch government presents itself is literally like a private corporation, but one that actively doesn't like to deal with its customers (citizens) and only likes its shareholders (corporations).
Like in Academia, most of our tax-funded stuff is behind paywalls, so you end up paying twice for everything and a very small group profits while the governments themselves parade themselves around to show virtue while producing very little of value to just "look good".
As a swiss, I immediately thought it would be easier to put the trucks on the trains for the long distance, and if the trucks do have batteries and electric drives, you can likely charge them up while on the train so that the last stretch to the customer, the truck can do it on battery power.
Increasing taxes on fossile fuel has to happen too... slowly but all that tax should be going into making electricity cheaper and renewable.
This idea is too pragmatic and down-to-earth. We prefer the truck-sized wormholes created with expensive quantum gigacomputers. /hums Stargate theme
there is no renewable electricity that can cover entire state. All this renewable/electric vehicles are utter bullshit. Very expensive and not providing enough power and value to be used everywhere. The only viable solution for a big country is nuclear, other sources like solar or wind can be used only as additional power for powering some smaller appliances (led lights, low power house devices). And for heating geothermal and gass.
Rails don't have unlimited capacity and they have not many unloading stations which creates bottle necks and increases transportation time. Getting freight on a trains takes time, getting trucks on trains takes even more time. The flexibility of trucks is crazy compared to trains. you can easily combine 5 different jobs and unload/load deliveries. We probably have to find ways to move more freight by train, but the majority will remain on streets.
Those power lines on the A5 are ugly as hell though. It looks like a "bridge-technology", something that is so flimsy and compromise riddled that it can't be the future. Like the first smartphones.
@@vanivari359 greetings.
The swiss population has years ago voted against "unlimited capacity" in the "initiative des alpes" as we don't want to become invaded by trucks polluting our beautiful country for goods that just pass switzerland. So a heavy tax is posed on road traffic, and an alternative is offered with loading stations to cross switzerland by putting trucs on trains.
in 2022, 74% of the goods transported through the Swiss Alps were moved by rail. This preference for rail over road is part of Switzerland’s broader transportation and environmental policies, which aim to shift freight transport from road to more sustainable modes like rail, especially for long and heavy loads across the Alps.
Yes, there needs to be made more investments. But it sort of works (if trucks don't catch fire in a tunnels or trains derail. That's why additional infrastructure is needed.
Oh you Swiss and your trains for cars!
🎶 I got locked in at the Heidelberg castle…
I used to pick chestnuts there when I lived in Bamberg for a few yrs as a kid
Sabine is such a brilliant communicator. So excited to hear her thoughts on all things! Most grateful for her recent video where she shared some of her journey and her challenges. We love and support you, Sabine!
Shup Kevin.
Not sure about the loving part...and how exactly do we support her? Because babbling such things is not much of a support, is it?!
@@chillfluencer It's probably a bot, building up a history of human-sounding messages so that it looks like a legitimate account when it starts spamming and conning people 😕
@@hellelujahh it's a real saddo of a bot in that case.
The good thing is: This will prevent trucks from hogging the middle or left lane.
As soon as they pull out to pass, they are on a timer.
This was tried in the USA port of long beach about 7 years ago. Trucks going from the port to local rail yards had the ability to use over head electric wires for power. The idea was that since the port had such a large volume of trucks making this short run, that it would be economical. I think it failed. It did involve the German company Siemens. I have also seen this type of system used on large(75 ton+) dump trucks at mines. Those trucks were already using diesel electric power systems, so not hard to tie in external electrical power.
Still going and growing "there were 213 zero-emissions trucks registered to operate at the San Pedro Bay complex by the close of 2023" They can charge 26 trucks at a time and planning new fast charges to charge trucks in 20 minutes. google "PORT, PARTNERS POWER AHEAD WITH TRUCK CHARGING STATIONS" to find the article.
It didnt fail, the only reason it failed is because no one wants to switch over and do anything. People are stuck and obsessed with using fossil fuels to fuel cars and the economy and dont want to change because they have all of their money in it.
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Noooooooooooo.
But seriously, we have an electric trolley bus system in Arnhem. That works fine, because those busses drive the same route everytime.
Yeah, but if you can finish the route (last 10 km or so) on battery then what is the problem?
Last time I checked, the A3 and A8 have not changed their location recently and are always clogged with trucks that could run on electricity. While the 500 mile 40 ton truck has so far remained an Elon Musk powerpoint, an electric drivetrain with similar weight and size to a diesel can get a truck 150 to 200km. let it top itself up with an overhead power line on the long haul and its working just fine. This wont be a golden ticket but aready could solve the energy supply for the thousands and thousands of trucks just going Stuttgart-Hamburg every single day.
@@BugMagnetthat part could be ran on electricity, but how big a part is that of the total route of the truck? But for that part, trucks will need to be specially made or converted. Or you could make special trucks that take over the cargo on those highways. Since they'll need to stay connected to the trolleysystem, we could make them drive on a special track only for those trucks. Then we could daisychain cargo containers so only 1 truck can pull multiple trailers and to reduce friction we could make the wheels and track from a more frictionless material like iron.
Oh wait, we are back at trains again.
I see lots of trucks doing short trip routes multiple times every day, 7,5t from Erlangen to Nürnberg and back. Those could easily run on electricity and charge over night. But if we keep finding excuses for one usecase, then in the end nothing will change
@@MrKOenigma Those are light trucks and those really should run on batteries. Same with most busses. Everything that hardly does 200km a day and parks in a depot is perfect for that.
All the 40 ton ones going from Stuttgart or Colone towards Hamburg? Not so much.
All the 40 ton trucks just passing through germany? Also no.
For those it is essentially Fuel cells, or overhead lines or build a completely new rail centered logistics network that can replace the trucks. 2100 maybe.
Many years ago, I saw a clip from an old magazine, I believe it was Horseless Age. Anyhow, this was just after 1900 and it showed a road going out into a rural farm area with power lines strung alongside the road. Farmers were fitting wagons with electric motors and pantographs to draw power from the line. So, the newest and hottest idea is something that some farmers had long abandoned about 100 years ago.
Many years ago they also built all these electrified trains... oh, wait, that was yesterday. :-)
I didn't the farmers abandoned the idea, it just never took off because of the fuel industry. Nothing new under the sun
@@andrewruiz7894 "it just never took off because of the fuel industry."
No, it was simply not viable - and still isnt.
@@ABaumstumpf you're supposed to watch the video before you comment. Spare the 5 minutes, will you?
@@666Tomato666 "you're supposed to watch the video before you comment. Spare the 5 minutes, will you?"
Clearly you didn't - but sure, go ahead, try forming and actual argument. But you can also continue to just spam.
In Genoa (Italy) we have electric busses that takes energy from the cable up above from forever
Sabine
A truck consumes about 6 times as much energy than a car, but weights at least 30 times more. This means a battery would be smaller and lighter compared to the vehicle weight and volume.
A battery that lasta for 4.5 hours and charges in 45 minutes is no big deal. You don’t need more because you are only allowed to drive for 4.5 hours before a 45 min break.
Swapping batteries are complex and unconvinient, charging is not
U would still need a 500kwh battery in optimal.conditions lol. Any idea what the weight is of such a massive battery? Over 3 tons only on batteries lol. And 500 kwhs recharching? Such a loading infrastructure is even more expensive then the 24 billion for wires on 12.000 kms of highway lmao.
@@KD-op4yz yes, that is true. A tesla 80kWh battery is 480kg. 7 of them is 560kWh and 3.3 metric tons. But these batteries does not need to be structural so lets say 3 tons.
3 tons of batteries in a up to 60 ton vehicle isnt alot. And you would probably save half of that by removing engine, fuel tanks, gearbox and drivetrain.
It’s therefor more advantageous the larger the vehicle. The battery has to be around 1/20 the weight of a truck but in a car it is 1/4 the weight
@@danielgranath2348 first of all a truck doesn't weigh 60 tons and not every truck pulls heavy goods.
It's total weight with freight is. A truck itself weighs around 13 tons. And
even then are tension wires on a highway cheaper even a bargain. You would need a giga lot of charging stations capable of charging those truck batteries with 500kw and more per hour. The infrastructure cost alone for that is enormous. Knowing well enough that truckers barely have parking spaces for the night to sleep. They are even parked at the side of highways and roads on busy routes let alone that there are even enough charging points...
Every truck stop would have to be specially rebuild for those high amounts of power needed to recharge such an amounts of trucks.
Electric trucks are only feasible for standard smaller distances and city traffic truck, not for going from the south of spain with fruit to northern germany.
@@danielgranath2348 60 tons? Most countries in the world have 40 tons limit for a semi-truck.
Electric trucks would work well for shorter hauls where you only have to charge at the origin and end points so no public infrastructure required. The value of removing all the engine components is significant in terms of maintenance alone. I'm not sure about the economics of longer hauls.
This system was used in open pit mine decades ago. As the mine eventually expanded, the infrastructure was scrapped and not reinstalled. I don’t know of any mines using it today.
anyone who is a fan of shows like Gold Rush knows that fuel is a MASSIVE part of their costs, so if these guys (and their much bigger brothers) aren't running it something has definitely caused them to rethink it.
@@anthonyhiscox The direct energy cost was actually much less than diesel. It was the infrastructure and maintenance. It can be cheaper to use the electric power and pantographs to supply it to vehicles, but you need regular routes like trains and trolley cars to really make it viable.
Something that wasn't discussed in the results was the massive amount of bleed-charge in the lines caused by them having to be so close together. I doubt this is as efficient as even building a two-flat-runner system for shipping and transport that uses its own special rail system
IIRC trains can transport one ton of cargo well over 400 miles using only one gallon of diesel.
Ehhh sorry, google does not know the terminology "bleed-charge" in this context... explain!?
@@johumm455 Basically, because the conductors are so close together over a long distance, they form one long capacitor. If you feed them AC power you'll lose some energy just to constantly pumping against that capacitor through the resistance of the wires. The same applies to all AC lines to some degree. No matter how high you crank the voltage the efficiency gets really bad at very long distances.
I don't know if that's enough to be a problem here though. There are plenty of ways to mitigate it, and it could be eliminated entirely with a DC system, but that would also be more expensive.
From what I've heard, the main concern would be continuing maintenance. Apparently slight damage can rapidly get out of hand on these kinds of systems if not caught early, and this is challenging enough on railways. A poorly maintained truck could chew up the lines, which in turn would chew up the ...thingies on other trucks and so on.
@fnorgen this isnt the same system for trains and actual trolleys its a similar idea with a modern approach. So I'm not sure if the impact with lossing energy would be the same.
This reminds me of a story told by my grandfather. When he was young he was travelling musician with a vaudeville show and found himself living in Atlanta USA. Being a young musician he didn't have enough money to pay the electric bill he concocted a scheme to get free power. He gung a wire out the window and across the hot wire for the trolley system and got electricity that way.
A clear example of a 3D scheme - Daring, Dangerous, Dumb.
But he apparently did this for a while without being either caught or killed.
How come this channel is the only one out of 100+ I’m subscribed to, which automatically starts Italian (?) cc??
There was an economics competition in the UK in 2017 asking questions about solving various road issues. A prize was awarded to an idea about collecting energy from vehicles travelling over harvester devices. Unfortunately, it ignored the issue of there being 'no free lunch' as that energy has to come from somewhere - namely the vehicles themselves which would be marginally less efficient as they lost energy to harvesters.
I think just offsetting as much of the fossil fuel usage as possible is easily doable with current technology. If solar panels are put everywhere - on the tops of lorries, in solar farms, using hydro electric, turbines, windmills.. whatever. As long as more and more energy is produced cleanly, the transition can be so much smoother.
It might not be a net loss for the vehicles if (e.g.) the energy came from vortices which were shed from the vehicles and moving off the roadside. In other words, the vehicles are losing a lot of energy to drag anyway, so harvesting that energy specifically might still work.
No free lunch is another issue. Energy harvesting from for example passing vehicles is commonly done for small energy requirements. There are places with little infrastructure to deliver power to a device but many cars passing. Stealing a few joules from every passing car, nobody would notice, but it can be enough to power such a device.
@@AySz88 " if (e.g.) the energy came from vortices which were shed from the vehicles"
That can work for tiny amounts of energy but it is absolutely not worth it at all.
@@hanslepoeter5167 I don't dispute for small energy requirements. But this entry was for grid scale generation.
I haven't seen any of those trucks at all, but I could "enjoy" the traffic jams and slowdowns caused by the building processes for years. 😄
Roads need maintenance anyway so any kind of design change or addition can be incorporated into the regular schedule.
The road was fine there. I am not against such experiments, and I can tolerate the inconvenience it causes me. However, as Sabine said, it is sometimes not the best way to spend taxpayers' money. It was more of a painkiller project, which made some powerful people feel better, but did not cure the disease.
2:20 Dear Sabine, you say the "energy" needs to come from somewhere, but show a graph of the (electrical) power sources. I think it's important to not mix them up, because looking at our energy "consumption", things look way worse than in that graph. If we want to substitute e.g. oil and gas for heating our houses with heat pumps, power demand will skyrocket.
I can't imagine it's ever really going to be cost effective. I drive truck in the US and most of us try to avoid the big freeways.
A mix would be ideal. Electric trucks with the ability to charge directly while driving. So you wouldn't have to be wired every mile of highway. This would optimise the drivers' schedule. Compared to battery swap stations or static charging points, this could cover a larger area for the same amount of money invested. Similar logic to partial trolleybuses, which with smaller batteries will travel longer distances with less stationary charging time than electric buses.
The idea has been around for much, much longer. In the 1960s, for example, there were trolleybuses with overhead lines in many Eastern Bloc countries (in German: "O-Bus", from "O-berleitung"). But this was abolished after a decade of use because other things worked better and cheaper. It is not something new.
PS: Thank you for the great lecture at the IAI as well as the conversation with the philosopher and the interview, also there. Highly recommended!
In Western Europe as well, though they switched to diesel sooner than in the East.
@@katrinabrycebecause you make more money in the diesel and fossil fuel industry. If we could some how devalue fossile fuels and put more value into being innovative and coming up with environmentally friendly solutions everyone would hop in that train. But as of now and more than likely wont ever change because people dont like change
I have a great solution. We can build steel tracks that we can call rails. Then we can put all the containers from the trucks and load them on and run them. We can call these trains.
Merci du partage! Stéph.
The funniest thing is that the Germans turned off the cleanest source of energy - nuclear power plants.
funiest or scarriest- or both at the same time
Where does the waste go?
@@matthewthiesen6098 i would worry about it if it endangered anyone. It is kept safe and there is no urgency in dealing with it. Compact, secure and gets less radioactive fairly fast- it is a lie that it is dangerous for milenias when strong radio isotopes are gone in 300-500
Not funny at all.
Diesel IS cheaper - artificially so. Until the externalized costs of carbon are factored in, we are living in an artificial economy. A dangerous one, too.
Yes, corporations are out of control worldwide. I think They spread from the usa.
I don't know if "artificial" is the right word to describe it, but it's inefficient, and unfair to the people who have to pay the cost of the negative externalities (unless the value of positive externalities provides adequate compensation).
Diesel emits less CO2 than the alternatives - it's not just cheaper. The alternatives, like soy based diesel and palm oil based diesel have to account for CO2 emitted in the process of growing, harvesting, transporting, and processing the crop. Once you do that, they emit more CO2 per unit volume of fuel than extracting, processing, shipping, and burning the diesel does. At some point future advances in technology might mean the biodiesel alternatives improve to the point where they emit less CO2, but we aren't there as a civilization yet.
When a thing costs “x” but “x” does not factor in all costs, that is artificial. Your example of positive and negative externalities (and who has to pay them) illustrates my point.
>ericvanvlandren8987 : It's just your subjective judgment to deem it "artificial." Textbooks on microeconomics just call them externalities and explain why transactions with negative externalities are inefficient. Those who oppose regulations or taxes to internalize externalities -- they want to believe negative externalities aren't a kind of theft and aren't inefficient -- can just as subjectively use the word "artificial" to describe that "interference" with the unfettered free market by government.
Just a note about trains: That a lot of tracks already exist doesnt mean you could just shove more freight trains onto them. Many lines are already used at capacity and actually building more rail infrastructure is basically impossible as a private company, even ignoring the huge cost, just because of insane government regulation of it. You have the same problems with providing that electricity, although trains are more efficient than trucks at least. Plus you'd probably have to build more locomotives too since its not like there's just an infinite supply of them ready to use, just like electric trucks. So that probably leaves the biggest advantage just being that you wouldnt need any batteries.
Anyone remember trolleybuses? These also need two wires, and are an old invention, used to be common in European cities.
I think everyone remember it, its merely that pubkuc perception mixed with no on wsnting to adapt and change over to something different thats the issue
Electric highways? Did you mean: electric trains?
Electric trains? Did you mean:
Trains?
Most people don't realize that diesel engines power generators, which propels the train.
This is why getting our electricity from nuclear energy options would be so beneficial. Compared to the current situation that relies on fossil fuels for most of the electrical grid
Yes nuclear is better and has no problems - well except when war breaks out like in Russia/Ukraine.
I still think nuclear waste is a problem. A problem that we might not notice for a thousand years and who cares about that?
As a train driver I think best would be long distance focussing on railway. Medium distances and individual loads on Ro-La transport. Shorter distances on swappable batteries. Long distance trains and Ro-La isn’t something that needs to be reinvented but better organized.
My city has had electric buses for decades (trolleys) that get power from overhead wires. Many trains have used overhead electric lines to power their electric engines. No surprise that this technology works.
An e-truck consumes 120 kwh per 100 km or 30 Euros in Germany. A diesel truck consumes 30 litres or 50 Euros in Germany. So Sabine is wrong when saying diesel trucks are cheaper to operate, at least here in Germany the difference is massive.
Sabine is also wrong about the 50% fossil part in the electricity mix in Germany.
How much of the liquid fuel price is Govenment tax? In the UK it's more than half the price.
@@alanmon2690 It is also roughly 50% tax in Germany but businesses do not pay GST so maybe ~30% tax for them. Power is much cheaper for businesses though because the taxes are much lower (maybe 15%) and power costs in general are lower for large businesses and industry. It is probably less than half of what she showed in the map
@@devluz UK has a double tax -one is fixed per litre, the second is VAT on the final. Businesses would still have to pay the fixed fuel duty. I expect that the cost of electricity for the chargers will increase to compensate for the lower fuel tax income!
Tell me you want to resurrect cable cars without telling me you want to resurrect cable cars
They needed a LOT more clients using this to make it work, edison motors just makes diesel-electric-battery transmission trucks on their own and this would be nice for that.
having driven past this every day for a year , I think the problem is the short sightedness ... it seems like a good ROI if used alongside major investments in cheaper energy , and specially if you take whichever patents were generated and license them to select routes in the US... this has good economic potential in some specific cases... and frankly in the big scheme of things it seems quite cheap compared to infrastructure projects i've seen even in the third world
Those double patographs look like a short circuit wating to happen. The truck drivers would have to concentrate keeping to the centre, as well as watching the traffice. We used to have trolley busses that had 2 long poles contacting the overhead wires, which were rectangular in cross section and longer downwards for the trolley to slot onto..
Wait, you don't have trolley buses anymore ? After trains and trams (aka also trains) they're the next most carbon-free method of transport. No need of super big, super heavy, impossible to stop burning if it burns battery like electric buses. And because they don't have to carry the battery, they're more efficient too. Well, not a big battery, having one for 20-30 km or so is good to have. In Romania, and from what I know other Eastern European countries, we still have them.
GM bought and destroyed electric trolley in Chicago and worse
Actually all over America
sad, to hear that
The story of mass transit in LA is well worth exploring. GM has a hand in that too.
@@charlesboyer61That's called "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"
@@bartsanders1553"who electrified Roger rabbit"
There is a truck builder in Texas that is already testing driverless trucks (with a safety driver). But they are on track to eliminate humans SOON. Kodiak.
As a child in the sixties ((1960-1970) I remember the troleybus system (Public Transport) in the city... a better cheaper and more flexible system then the current tramsystem (expensive fixated railsystem that can get blocked by the slightest trafficproblem) because those buses can drive partially on 'electrified' routes and can switch to 'motor' (gas, H2, benzine, gasoil ...) on the other non-electrified parts. Sort of Hybrid-Public-Transport
European countries already have overhead power lines and pantographs on their trains so it's an extension from an existing market. It would be a lot more costly to do this in North America, at least till doing this in Europe develops and production in Europe underwrites the costs. I wonder how an inductive system using AC transmissions and trenching a cable into the pavement would compare in costs. I think South Korea had a pilot project with mass transit for this but we never heard of it again. The inductive system would've been easier for private cars to use as there would be no need for pantographs to reach the height of the overhead wires. When compated to building the supports for the overhead wires, the costs of trenching the cable into the road might be comparable though maintenance would probably be more costly however also less likely to be needed. Keep in mind that not every mile would need to be electrified, just enough to recharge the batteries while still enroute. To be honest, if I was to go with an overhead approach, I would be tempted to go with microwave beamed power from phase array towers especially since trucks have all that roof space over the trailer, sure the efficiency of the power transfer would only be 80% but the same is true with inductive cables under the road. Phased array beamed power could be selective to service subscribers instead of to all on the electrified portions. And yes, there are RF power transmission links in grids so wireless energy transmissions of that much power is possible and are being done.
Underground cables are more expensive and have larger energy losses. It is safer though and therefor better suited for use in cities.
Microwave power beaming is probably too new and will need decades of further research and testing before it can be used on large scale projects. But who knows sometimes things change fast.
@@Robbedem Larger capacitive energy losses true though underground power lines do exist so it's not prohibitive and less conductive road fill could be used as well as decent dielectrics, but shallow trenching in the established thoroughfare of an asphalt road is inexpensive versus construction of support towers which may be obstructions in themselves as well as vulnerable to accidents and weather and may require additional right of way besides and above the roads. Right of ways are always the most costly of issues and the supports must stand somewhere and it can't be in the road itself but cantilevered over the road. The costs may be comparable as the wire needs to be shallow. Also, as I've said, there's also beamed phased array RF power from fewer towers, likely existing telecommunication towers that can be targeted to subscribed vehicles.
Its all a fantastic way of stuffing vast amounts of tax money into corporate pockets...
It's the government who wants everyone to go green
Why should the companies burn profit for a government plan
Busses in Seattle were electric doing overhead power lines like this 20yrs ago when I visited.
Why would the electricity to power the trucks be „too expensive“? The cost for the power for my EV is roughly half of the cost for the gasoline for a comparable ICE car. In Germany, where electricity is more expensive than in most other countries.
Please explain.
Thanks!
We literally can’t even maintain decent roads and people want to start on electric ones? Lol
@Sabine That's honestly not all that expensive for a major roadway of that length, it's just a lot longer than the figures you're used to looking at for roadway projects. (Compared to a US Interstate highway, it's both short, and cheap.)
Is electricity more expensive than diesel?
While driving a car in Denmark, I don’t find that to be the case.
When I compare the Northpool elevtricity prices and the diesel price without tax, electricity is also cheaper.
I can't see how those power lines would actually be mechanically reliable to withstand continuous contact- and since the sample size was so small, we probably would have any real data for a long time!
I had to get off an electric train and take a diesel one because the overhead cables had been damaged by a plastic bag getting caught in a pantograph
Cities got rid of those overheads years ago. What a bunch of silliness.
Cities replaced those overheads with smoke-belching buses. We're trying to stop burning hydrocarbons and poisoning people now, so not totally silly, but probably not going anywhere either.
Your comment is beyond silly, congrats.
Swappable batteries have their own set of challenges. You gotta produce at least two times more batteries, they have to be larger, you gotta transport them according to traffic patterns and it's not going to smooth out peak consumption that comes from high power charging. Building swap stations big and versatile enough still seem cumbersome. Will it be cheaper/more expensive than hanging cables? Idk. But those railways you mention. They look awesome! What kind of alien technology is it?
I think a better solution might be to
1) build out charging infrastructure - especially at loading docks.
2) use electric trucks for shorter routes.
3) Anticipate the future based on declining battery prices, improving battery performance, and improving charging infrastructure.
4) Consider alternative ways to solve the problem. Like an extra set of wheels that can be mounted mid-trailer that has a battery and an electric motor. You get an electric-powered acceleration boost that is mostly fed by regenerative braking.
Etc.
It seems that in 3-5 years there will be no need for the wires because other technologies will have already solved the problem.
Arent we meant to start living in 15 minute cities? That way we dont travel so far and the goods can be efficiently delivered to us. We can then control how much people travel and reward those who live good lives.
@@robberlin2230 I cannot live without a Belgian beer.
The Port of Long Beach started doing this in late 2022. The San Pedro Bay complex has 213 electric trucks registered. The charges aren't at the loading docks yet, that will not happen until more of the trucks are electric and the cost of fast charges drops. There are 20 charges for trucks already planned for the port.
In general, the existing Electric trucks operate at a relatively low electrical efficiency. Miles per kWh is pretty low for all vehicles - but Tesla is noticeably better.
Tesla is so far ahead that other tuck manufacturers said Tesla was lying about semi mileage - that it was impossible due to physics.
Tesla is replacing its diesel trucks now and they have an exclusive arrangement with PepsoCo.
I think in 18 months Tesla will have learned what it can learn about how to manage electric truck fleets delivering cars and beverages.
Then they will sell trucks, charging stations, and huge batteries to all those who want a reduction in shipping-related costs...
I worked as a truck driver for a year. Electric cannot work because of infrastructure and weather. There is already a parking and fuel issue, add the need for long charge times. Also, another aspect is cold weather. It can be frustrating to be stuck in a blizzard area a few days at a rest stop, but dangerous with no way to get heat and power. Battery powdered trucks is solving the wrong problem. In order to make batteries viable things would need to be transported in smaller quantities over smaller distances and infrastructure be built for a lot of parking and charging.
Seemingly missed the point of the video
@@Furiends Probably, to be fair I commented this before watching just assuming things. I just mean that battery powered trucks are not viable at least the way the transportation industry is now.
"Every day, the Tesla Semi demonstrates that battery electric trucks can directly replace diesel trucks. With our own fleet of Semis, Tesla has shipped >20,000 battery packs out of Gigafactory Nevada to support Fremont vehicle builds. These trucks run the same route, carrying the same load (no load reduction for weight) as the diesel trucks running this route but at substantially lower operating cost."
Tesla Semi chief engineer, Dan Priestley
@@waynerussell6401 Okay, then I am a Nigerian Prince, if you send me 1 million my father will send you a billion. Also, Stockton Rush has some submarine tickets to sell you 😉
@@mysurfing3550 I GEET O! You join Daimler's head of trucks, Martin Daum, who told reporters that he has doubts about Tesla achieving specs better than their sad 125mile range eActros:
“If Tesla really delivers on this promise, we’ll obviously buy two trucks - one to take apart and one to test because if that happens, something has passed us by. But for now, the same laws of physics apply in Germany and in California.”
They lost Jerome Guillen, their lead truck designer of their best truck, the Cascadia to Tesla.
independent
"The Semis in Sacramento run two different types of routes: long-haul routes that transport between 250 and 520 miles per run and with a gross vehicle weight plus load of up to 82,000 lbs, as well as other routes under 75 miles per day, hauling a diminishing beverage load that leaves nearly full and lightens throughout the day as deliveries are made."
The three specific Semis reporting data to the Run On Less program "are driving slip-seated long-haul transport routes" totaling 19,122 miles since the start of the program on Sept. 11. Pepsi.
"Approximately 65% of miles driven during the first two weeks of Run on Less were loaded to a gross vehicle weight plus load of over 70,000 pounds."
Mike Roeth of NACFE
A truck driver should not doubt the abilities of a team lead by the man who lands reusable rockets weekly!!
Trolly buses. Been around for ever.
This is not required. The Tesla Cybertruck has a fully loaded (80,000 lbs) range of 500 miles. Plenty for even a large country like the U.S.
No - its the Tesla SEMI!
Currently hauling cars and battery packs from Nevada to Fremont - 269 miles over the 7,200-foot-elevated Donner Pass.
"Every day, the Tesla Semi demonstrates that battery electric trucks can directly replace diesel trucks. With our own fleet of Semis, Tesla has shipped >20,000 battery packs out of Gigafactory Nevada to support Fremont vehicle builds. These trucks run the same route, carrying the same load (no load reduction for weight) as the diesel trucks running this route but at substantially lower operating cost."
Tesla Semi chief engineer, Dan Priestley
Excellent, video. Excellent channel. Subscribed.
Congratulations! The pilot project managed to convert 11 trucks into coal burners.
Are people stupid?
Trains exist
These are the same people that phased out nuclear power instead of coal. So yeah they are stupid.
I now it was rethorical, but yes, they are. And it seems we're training (no pun intended) for some kind of Idiocy Olympics somewhere.
I saw the title and it didn't even cross my mind that it was about charging electric vehicles.
Living in Sydney, the only thing I though of was tolls.
I’m in the swap out the batteries column. I use power tools every day and when the battery dies, you have one in the charger ready to go. You could have the battery mounted under the chassis and come in a standard size so it would fit all cars.
Guys I have this new, innovative, unique idea that nobody thought of before.
It can transport goods and people fast, cheaply and at very little (e-) fuel cost.
TRAINS, but free for everybody so we can rebrand it to: hyper-loop light.
Tesla has already proven that electric semi trucks with good range and practical charging times are commercially viable, operationally practical, and in demand. So this seems like a bad idea. The demand for the Tesla semi is already sky high, and it's only going to grow as it becomes clear that this is a far cheaper way to transport goods
Tesla did proof that they are good scamers
I think we’ll also see a correlation between the widespread acceptance of fully autonomous cars and some form of in-motion EV charging.
EV trucks might be the future, but so far, with only ~100 trucks sold/delivered, they only proved it as a concept.
Please reference your sources already proven, wrong.
@@hotbit7327 There are already 213 registered electric trucks operating at the San Pedro Bay complex hauling freight.
There is a much more practical way for charging cars on the way: inductively from the road without any direct contact. This technology is under research near the old Transrapid Test-Site in Germany. This maglev used a similar power transmission to the train.
To make it more efficient and safe we could string hundreds of cars together using set routes with an overhead cable and pantograph system so the cars are always charged.
First
Greetings, First One.
😁
The uglification of the planet in order to not do anything significantly helpful to save it ... Continues apace.
So we need rental garages with an electronic network. Have them near a conglomerate of all public transit. Transfer as many of the downtown roads into pedestrian only. Electrify major routes. The vehicles would still require small batteries for different amounts of range off-grid.
My understanding of power generation; small engines are less efficient than large engines, so power plants capture more energy from fuel than a car or truck. Making a power grid to support them is extremely expensive and time consuming, but in the long run would reduce overall emissions. Its also easier to maintain emission equipment on facilities, than to make sure the people do on their own vehicles. Where i'm from, many vehicles dont even have catalytic converters after they fail because there are no regulations
In the mean time in Sweden, we enjoy an electricity mix of about 50 g/kWh compared ot Germany's about 500 g/kWh (source: WWF "Climate Score Cards", 2009)... since we get most of our electricity from hydropower (8-10 g / kWh) and nuclerar power (3-5 g / kWh). Unfortunately, we have a sortage of power capacity meanng that we have not been able to get rid of the reserve power capacity for high demand days, and those kick up the emissions since they are fossil fueled.
This is a helpful video. It highlights the same issue that has challenged electrification from its beginnings, a very long time ago. The cost of the infrastructure is very high and it isn't cost effective, unless there is enough revenue from the traffic using it to pay for it in the long term. We hear everyday about electrification of road vehicles, but they only make up a relatively small part of total CO2 emissions (around 10%, if that's correct). I am somewhat baffled why there is so much attention on vehicle electrification and so little (apparently) on the really significant emitters of CO2? To give a simple example, I could easily do away with my gas fired home heating system and do the job using electricity (CO2 free, hopefully), if it didn't cost so much. That's the reason for gas fired heating systems in the first place. They are much cheaper to use. As best as I can work out, I can't see that CO2 emissions will fall by the amount that is required, based on the current plan. Why is this, I wonder?
Swapping batteries is 100% the smarter solution. But that would mean unified battery technology and compability, and since there are different manufacturers with "secrets" thats not something I see happening. On top of that, these big batteries are not cheap, and they also degrade, so there is a cost on top of the raw electricity stored to replace faulty and degraded ones which makes it more expensive still.
Trains are cheaper, but for timely transportation they are too "big" in capacity which means they don't drive as often in order to not drive empty. And we don't have that many rail lines anyways. Smaller trains would be a solution, or highly sopohisticated fast automated loading and unloading terminals to come closer to truck level speed in that logistic chain of events.
But then also : "Deutsche Bahn"
Honestly, the smartest way to reduce emissions on the topic of grocery shopping would really be electric powered drones that can carry your daily shopping so noone pulls out a car to waste a ton of energy to move the heavy car and us useless fleshbags around.
In terms of the expensive electricity we are ways behind anyways. Africa is getting wise, which means there won't even be cheap importable nuclear energy from france in a few years, because they are practically "stealing" the uranium from their old colonies.
My favourite idea is still to dig 2-5km deep holes and get some geothermal steam up and running, there is nothing preventing us from doing that. Just send a tunnel bore machine down vertically instead of horizontal for a change. Something like this could easily provide our baseload.
But I bet some critics will say that we are cooling down our core, shutting off our magnetic field and we will all perish from solar radiation. In a few million years.
Welp.
I agree with the idea late in the video (also posted in some of the comment threads) that the best way to achieve electric freight (and passenger) transport would be by rail, including a major expansion of rail networks. That said, trucks (and buses) running under the wires are a reasonable way to get things (and people) the last few kilometers in places where it is hard to put rail or where the amount of traffic doesn't (yet) justify it.
This illustrates a common factor that actuvists and the public often don't understand. Sometimes (often, actually), a seemingly "obvious" solution doesn't take into account the ugly Real World factors like logistics, transition costs versus utilizing established infrastructure, and cost.
That's why quick swap batteries make more sense rhan trying to recharge EV or hybrid trucks on the highway, and why hybrid automobiles usually make more sense for more people than plug-in EVs. Because they dont inpose as huge an infrastructure cost, are more easily integrated into the existing infrastructure , and have fewer of the shortcomings of the "ideal" (or "idealistic") solutions that would effectively eliminate exhaust emissions directly drom the vehicle (again, it doesnt really help much to have an EV if you're just getting the electricity from it from a grid whose backbone is fossil fuels... ubkess thise fossil fuel plants are significantly lower emmission per unit of power than the engines of the IC vehicles the EVs are replacing - and every kW/hr of power used to charge the EVs means a kW/hr (we're going to disregard theoughput losses just for simplicity) of the oldest, dirtiest, least efficient power production plant you *can't* retire without cutting a kW/hr of end user need elsewhere. (This last is why I'm so in favor of hybrids versus EVs or hydrogen - hybrids integrate almost seamlessly into the existing transport infrastructure across the board, do not impose as great a strain on existinf road infrastructure (batteries are heavy, and EVs are invariably heavier than their IC equivalents due to the mass of the batteries), do *not* impose any *new* draw on the electrical grid in service, and yet are hyper efficient compared to typical IC-only vehicles. They even impose less strains on the production end than EVs, because their batteries are invaiably much smaller than a pure EV, meaning lower requirements for rare earth elements to produxe them.(
The best solutions are often a composit of multiple solutions. I could see the E-highway being a solution for longer trucking runs through select corridors but the swappable batteries would be a solution for shorter runs. When it comes to electric vehicles there is no one size fits all solution no matter how much we try to find one.
Sabine, have an enjoyable weekend.
Meanwhile, Edison Motors in Canada has already built their first road legal diesel electric truck, which brings together the range of diesel with the torque/power/regeneration possibility of electric.
These are better utilitizing induction charging, as they can be used by all vehicles and yes, battery swapping is a much sounder (scouse for better), idea 💡😊
Great vid, as always. Love your work and I am totally up for the wormholes... Please make that a thing 🙏
Ohh, and Trains, Trains, Trains! Have been an advocate for years 😊
yes, but square cube law.
@@azzy-551 How is this relevant? Please elaborate 🙏
You just need a speed of light ground switch, and of course a full set of ballasts. So if your road is of decent length, power travels 86% the speed of light over a cover wire at STP. For smaller S.oL.S you use a triangle, because the circuit is nurdy.
Honestly, for this sort of thing I'd prefer some Goubau-line based system, though I'm not certain how well the needed power levels could be pushed through, and the truck-side equipment would need to "play nice" for multiple vehicles to be on the same line at one time.
There is a company in western Canada that is building heavy haul logging trucks that are hybrid. Imagine taking a technology that has been in commercial production successfully in cars and applying it to trucks. The have truck tractor that doesn't need to be plugged in, doesn't need any new or special infrastructure and reduces diesel consumption by 40% or more.
Go to Zürich, trolley buses ubiquitous! 2 wires spaced 50cm apart.
The reason there's no expansion of rail freight is that in a lot of choke points on the network, it's already at maximum capacity. You just can't fit any more on the existing network.
What stops us from expanding the choke points? If it's the pass next to Eisenhower Tunnel that is one thing. If it's an interchange outside KC that's at capacity that's another.
I am all for electrifying highways and trucking routes, but this way of doing it with the power lines that the vehicles need to be in contact with seems kinda weird to me. What I think is a much more promising technology is induction electric charging road panels. There is a startup company in Detroit that recently constructed a proof of concept for this in about a quarter mile stretch of highway. All you have to do is install a receiver on your vehicle and just drive on the road like normal, and it gets charged, somewhat like wireless charging pads for cellphones. I would like to see that technology be developed more.
Induction wastes about 80 percent of the electricity which means you would have to provide 5 times the energy compared to above lines
Rather than charging a battery, better propel the vehicle directly, similar to a maglev (without the 'lev').
There is an additional benefit that doesn't seem to be mentioned: hybrid trucks are more efficient even when they aren't connected to the grid than a normal diesel truck.
They can regenerate power on hills that would otherwise be wasted and they can keep their engines in the optimal power band and supplement with electricity when going up hills.
In traffic they can cut off their engines all together. And electric engines are more responsive than diesel ones.
Being able to charge these vehicles while moving is a bonus, to be sure, but that's hardly the real benefit here!
Danke Sabine :)
Swappable batteries has always seemed to me to be the most pragmatic way to do EVs. Been saying it for years. They can be charged offline whenever power is cheapest.
I really wonder why so few projects seem to focus on the "swappable battery" part. Especially for trucks and other utility vehicles like buses, were one can assume some degree of standardization.
It has been tried and kinda failed for cars. And it won't be easier for trucks. Swapping those batteries sounds easy, but keep in mind they weigh more than 1000kg. Have high voltage and current. Are flammable, maybe even explosive,...
@@Robbedem I understand fully why it could fail for cars. But there are far fewer manufacturers of trucks than of cars. Thus, there should be far less model variety in trucks than in cars.
And the weight, assuming standardization, should not be an issue either. After all, you only would need one single lifter or crane if all trucks used the same battery pack. And the most powerful industrial robot arm lifts something like 5 tons.
I only say that in Germany Cargo Trains have more and worse Delays then Passenger trains. When a Passenger Train from Hannover to Stutgart needs 16 Hours (non ICE), on the Same Track a Cargo Train needs, when there are no Delays for the Passenger Train, 20 Hours, when the Passenger Train has only 15 Minutes Delay the Cargo Train has between 2-4 Hours Delay😅
thank you for all the information, and especially your opinions !!
Batteries are the way to go. Tesla has proven, you charge a semi with 300 miles or range (480 KM) in 30 minutes. Thus allowing a single driver to travel over 600 miles in under 12 hours with charging. It looks like 700 KWH of LIFePO4(CATL) batteries will be available for around $50,000 this summer. It looks like Europe will up the Z-Emissions allowance to 4 tons. That means a usable and affordable long haul truck should be available by the end of the year.
The figures also mean that putting overhead wires to the core German Autobahn network would be just some billions, which is cheaper than, say, doing the single new Stuttgart central station!
I'm so glad we can put the greatest minds in science together to reinvent trains again.
The trailer is all that has to be moved from one point to another. Therefore, it's better to swap tractors than to swap batteries in each tractor. There have to be a few spare tractors that are sitting in the charging stations but they are less hassles than building each tractor to have swappable batteries.