I think those are great. You also can put them on steel rails and steel wheels for reduced drag & maintenance and possible hitch on additional trailers behind.
Rails actually require more maintenance. That's part of the reason why trains can barely compete with road traffic. Cost more to install in the first place, require more frequent maintenance (because the rails shift as the trains drive over them) and the maintenance is more expensive.
@@HolarMusic Asphalt roads barely cost anything to build compared to rails. Additionally you do not even need to asphalt a road surface in all scenarios. The main difference though is maintenance. You stick an asphalt road down and it'll be fine for years, meanwhile rails need continuous maintenance from the moment they're placed, especially if they are moving heavy freight. For example a mining operation with a rail link to take the carts to sidings for pickup on to the mainline will have around 10 miles of total track, and that will require 3 teams of full time maintenance of way gangs, complete with all of the machinery required, 1 on site inspection team, and visits every 3 months or so from the greater railway operation which the mine feeds in to (though they don't just inspect the rails, they also inspect the rolling stock). Meanwhile for trucks operating in a similar environment, you put down an asphalt road, leave it for a few years, resurface it, leave it for a few years, etc. Reason being that trucks don't derail.
When I was a boy 50 years ago in Chicago USA, the city buses were electric with overhead wires on all major streets. The buses could even turn corners. Once in a while, one of the "collector" rods would jump off the wire and the driver had to get out and reposition the collector rod using a long insulated tool. The bus had a small battery bank, not to power the traction motor, but to keep all the lights on while the driver was outside reestablishing the connection
Still having that in EU. In Romania there's even a trolleybus that for a section it runs on batteries, and then, at a certain station it connects to the overhead lines.
Yeah, that's how troleybuses were back then. Now though all of those problems are fixed and they can run for up to 50km(≈30mil) on batteries. And they're actually a lot cheaper in a long run then a regular buses
I reckon the overhead lines are worth it. They are not that expensive to put in, and they vastly reduce the battery size needed in long haul trucks. While it's not as big of a deal as i thought before i started watching your videos, given that the charge times seem to match up nicely with rest times usually. Another thing is that the fast chargers are quite difficult on the electricity grid, both in load balancing and power. Usual autobahn rest stops are quite out of the way for the grid, and several fast chargers need kilometers of extra cables in the ground. Since trucks are on the autobahn longer than they are at rest besides it, the overhead lines don't need the same power (energy=power*time), and grid balancing becomes quite a bit easier.
Yeah, I share your sentiment, I guess it's going to be harder to gain traction for the infrastructure change that is needed to adopt overhead-lines for trucks, when the battery prices are lower, and keeps dropping, while the infrastructure cost, and the mentioned manufacturer competition are basically fighting against it.
They are actually quite expensive to set up and maintain and the gear on top of the Truck is also expensive. Keep in mind that you would need to electrify enough Autobahn-kilometers to make it worthwhile doing for the transport companies. And that's a lot of cables and concrete. Although this test drive was in use for many years, the utilisation was very low.
Even when the battery pricev are low the best gain for this will be retrofitting old trucks. So if you electrify the main through the Germany Highways You will cut the emissions with alot. I worked with this from Scania side with these trucks. The load impact on the grid are much more even and easier for the powersuply to handledare when you do not have the high loadspikes. Another advantage is that you can downsize the battery capacaty to save cost and resorce materials. It was 5 trucks running on that part it takes about 8min to pass the part with the OCL. So what are the "Low utilazation" what data is it basen on?
@@thankyouforyourcompliance7386 relative price. Siemens claimed their system costs 2.5M€/km. I remember back than, that would be about 3.5 years of road tax in the netherlands to do the entire network. a drop in the ocean really. Yes maintenance is a thing, just like battery degradation is a thing. The system is based on Siemens catenary lines, same as trains. maintenance is very predictable. Utilization is a chicken and egg problem. There was 5km of lines, not enough to do anything with, let alone worth the investment for logistics companies
@@rasmAn2 2.5m €/km is probably 5.0m €/km today. In my opinion, it makes more sense to use the money to build more dedicated truck charging stations/stops than overhead power lines. The pantograph as mentioned above are expensive to maintain because unlike a train network, you are dealing with roads that are in use 24/7. Therefore delaying other road users and even truckers. The pantograph also can't be used in all weather conditions as mentioned in the video. Battery degradation does not mean the battery is useless. There will be cells that are perfectly fine and therefore can be repurposed for other use.
There are plenty of trolleybuses in Eastern and Southern Europe using over head wires where available, then battery when wires are not available. The overhead wires technology is robust, 140 years old, nothing to go wrong, to scare new adopters. The hybrid system with Diesel engine added on is redundant, the engine is a way too much complication.
Trolleybuses operate largely the same routes day to day. Trucks don’t necessarily do that. So sometimes you need a diesel generator if the charging infrastructure isn’t there. Also, trolley poles have a speed cap of 40mph/67kph. So the pantographs are a different and incompatible system.
They are also used in 6 Cities in North America: Mexico City, San Francisco, Vancouver, Seattle, Philadelphia, and Dayton, Toronto, Chicago, Edmonton, and Boston used to have them as well but they ripped out their systems
It sure is nice seeing a smart trucker with a great attitude and work ethic that appreciates new technology. Bring up a Battery Electric truck to a trucker in the states and they will either laugh at you or call you names or both. The majority of the people in the states are trapped in a time capsule.
It's been interesting to see the current state of things over there. Also, I remember when the pantograph truck thing started, with all the debate around it, and it was interesting to see it in operation, thanks!
The stretch on the A5 near Frankfurt cost me days of my life that were wasted due to delays and traffic jams when it was constructed. Now quite a number of years later I still have yet to see a single truck making use of it... The construction cost were pretty outrageous as well iirc.
Some ideas for raising the efficiency of this things: Maybe put them on rails to decrease drag… Also maybe add some trailers behind. You can even build another road for them, not on the highway… I also came up with a cool name for these trucks: “Train”
Trains are the most efficient thing we have, they're built to last and have low overhead, but train infrastructure is well developed here, there just isn't much more that can be wrought out of it, and transporting goods by road is still where it's at for most things.
And then build train stations wherever goods need to be delivered to? Each supermarket, grocery store, electronics manufacturer down to every small businesses would get their very own train station and to make it even more efficient we could build something that could pick up goods from a train station and deliver it to each shop. Ah, trucks!
Those truck are for the “last mile” delivery, most companies don’t have enough volume of items to afford and have a train yard inside their premises, so they have to use trucks to move items
@@GoGoGoRunRunRun That's what you create logistics hubs for. The truck leaves the warehouse and drives a short distance to the hub. There, the trailer is placed on the train. It then departs to another main logistics hub in another city and the trailer is unloaded. Modern operations take around 10 minutes for loading and unloading the trailers from a wagon. The train replaces a highway journey that does damage to the asphalt and consumes extra fuel. Switzerland already does this practice.
The part that baffled me about the overhead lines was that they don't zig zag as they do on rail lines. When I saw early shots of the contact bars on the pantographs on other videos they all had wear marks in the same areas (middle region), and that's an expensive way to use a pantograph! Great video, and very interesting how fare EV Trucks have come.
@@Phoen1x883 Go to three minutes in on Tom Scott's video and look at the contact wear on the pantograph: I have never seen that on rail vehicles. I can't post the TH-cam link as it removes it.
when i drove a truck through germany for 7 years , there was no gps , no smartphone . but i loved the challenge . i would be fine with the challenge an E truck brings to the table while all the other challenges are a thing of the past.
Overhead wires only have merit when most major routes have overhead cables, but by the time the government builds enough wires, most trucks will have batteries.
- they allow recharge on the fly - (how it is all intended to be used) batteries are still necessary for final delivery, and intestates (freeway) with non electrified segments between "recharge zones"...
The overhead cables would allow the trucks to have smaller batteries because the trucks can get electricity from the wires which in turn would allow for more cargo since there is less battery weight taking plausible cargo weight. It would make loads of sense if there are distinctive routes that trucks are taking, namely highway between large cities.
Except they wont be battery powered, because battery weighs so much that it leaves barely anything for the cargo, trucks have max weight limit. So you either can haul light loads or install smaller battery aka. shorter range, so the only party interested in those trucks will be courier companies.
They're already in use across the mining industry given they need high power electricity anyway to drive their large draglines, etc. I think it makes perfect sense.
Yes there are some electric drive product in mines - draglines (they weigh ~6000 Tonnes, Cat 8750) and large shovels (~1700T, Cat 7495). That said, there are VERY few of either of these types of products. Not actually sure but I think they wouldn't crack the 1000 mark globally. Other than that there are no many grid connected products. There have been various "tramway" uses but it has never been at a high scale. All (99.99999999%) are diesel. They are either direct drive or diesel/electric - a generator set powering electric wheel engines. There is a pure electric mining truck operating in Australia @ Fortesque Mining. They bought Williams Engineering (formerly part of William F1) to build it. Caterpillar and Liebherr also have trucks under development. So something coming, not something that is already here. The previous versions where out competed. If your interested th-cam.com/video/BiSfUE7r0sU/w-d-xo.html Fortescue, one of the world's largest iron ore producers - a critical material for steel, magnets, batteries, and fertilizers - has pledged to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030. To achieve this hugely ambitious goal, they enlisted the expertise of the Fortescue WAE engineers (formerly Williams Advanced Engineering) in Oxfordshire. The team were tasked with electrifying Fortescue's massive 221-tonne payload haul trucks, which are now being outfitted with mind-bogglingly big 1.4 MWh batteries. We visited their prototype facility to discover how they're doing it! @fullychargedshow
It does but as the CEO said it is hard to calculate long term if this could be a viable solution. And these short tracks are not really suitable for that, they are good for proof of technological concept which seems to be working completely fine. If there's a chance to succeed then government should invest in building a stretch of at least 100km on which multiple companies could run these trucks and see benefits of long distance catenary electric trucks.
I think Tobias said "update for steering wheel too". Not "tune". And he - jokingly - meant it to fix the steering wheel's wrong alignment. Which is not possible. BTW, there already is a car that has steer-by-wire, that theoretically could be adjusted via SW. And it is electric! Lexus Rz450e can have a yoke instead of a steering wheel and no mechanical link between it and the front wheels. But I do not know about any trucks yet.
@@JanNovak-pg8oe But just think it it was possible! You might get a buggy update meant for the UK and suddenly find you were driving on the wrong side of the road! :)
I think best combo is electric truck charging by pantograph instead of charger.100km stretches of pantograph here and there for charging would be great
The UK rail network is about 40% electrified, and Europe about 60%. UK rail carries less than 10% of freight, eight times as much going by road. A significant proportion is containerised. Introducing a slick transfer of containers between sea, rail and road might result in the most efficient and least environmentally damaging way of moving stuff. In the UK they are introducing discontinuous electrification with hybrid battery-electric trains on a new rail project to cut the cost of overhead power infrastructure at the expense of more costly and complex trains, rather like the road experiment in the video. Some rail experts believe it is a mistake ...
Hybrid battery electric certainly makes sense for regional passenger operations where the route is partially electrified, so the train can charge on those parts of the route without losing time. I strongly doubt it would make sense right now for freight. It's a shame how poorly trains are used in the UK, the country that built the first railway.
I’m no logistics expert, but it seems like the more proactive approach would be to install continuous electrification on whichever lines would benefit most, and if funding for further electrification isn’t as reliable in future budgets, you can still use partial electrification on one of remaining bits of track. Idk, it just seems like partial electrification is the sort of thing that should mostly be reserved for situations where full electrification is impractical due to environmental factors since it seems like whatever money you save up front on infrastructure will eventually get cancelled out by the fact that you now have to buy more expensive, less efficient battery-electric rolling stock. Like, why replace something as simple and common as overhead centenaries with a product that’s so resource intensive and could be put to good use in so many other industries like giant lithium batteries? Idk, maybe I’m just overlooking something that’s obvious to everyone else, so feel free to tell me everything I might have misunderstood.
@@Acidlib - the age of the UK's network, highly variable terrain and cost factor into the rail electrification decision - the western line for example cost £7b over eight years for the 80 mile route between London and Bristol, orher areas are more challenging than this route. The age of the network also means cuttings, tunnels and bridges are narrow and low some allowing single running, that would be even more costly. Battery or hybrid battery electric are more cost effective solutions to the electrification of the UK's network, particularly for the myriad of branch lines. About 1/3 of the UK's 10,000 mile rail network is electrified. Even the type of electrification is a consideration, the south-eastern part of the existing electrified network uses a third-rail system (one of the few non-metro networks to use such) but doesn't have enough power to operate electric freight trains. Thr port of Southampton and Portsmouth are on these third-line routes and there is a programme of work considering uograding this route to overhead power instead.
These overhead electricity lines are used in some large mines to pull very heavy rocks and cargo uphill. Saves a ton of money versus diesel, and very little wear and tear. But not really a great idea for the highways. They won't be needed as batteries grow in energy density.
@kdesikdosi5900 They already are. Both Lithium-Sulfur and Solid State batteries are in the automobile testing phases. Both already have nearly twice the energy density of the best current Nickel based chemistries, yet only 1/3 the weight. So 50% to 80% longer driving ranges at first. So an EV with 300 miles of range will get 450 to over 500 miles. And the current ones with around 400 miles with get 600 to 700 miles of range in just 3 or 4 years. And they can store up to 5x the energy density. So 5x the range of current EV's as the densities increase along the way.
This, plus the fact we already have overhead wires on the railways, which is where long distance cargo should be transported across in the first place for the obvious efficiency benefits! (Plus the fact the Autobahn/highways are already overflowing with semi-trucks)
@@junehanzawa5165 The problem is that they have been talking about new battery chemistry since the first model S and first smartphones, heck even the first cordless drills, still Li-Ion being used. Everything else had low charge cycles and wasn’t practical. 20 years of “in a few years…” Edit: used to be subscribed to popular science and popular mechanics for years as a kid, but the same articles for decades with at best 1 in 30 actually becoming reality, but probably closer to 1 in 50. At which point it might as well be called science fiction. Ha ha.
For Europe the fully electric trucks seem to be economical and can work in the driver schedule restrictions. Serial hybrid range extended EV trucks are also a good solution. We are going into interesting times and the future looks good for the new technology. Thank you for showing us the good and the not so good.
I think the same. The technology is ready and I think for most companies it also makes financial sense. Which means the transition can go really fast when companies get over their initial skepticism and conservatism. That does also bring a new problem for electric charging infrastructure that will likely need major government aid (could be financial, but more likely needs to be with funding locations and getting the permits to build) to expand fast enough.
It only works better in Europe because we have sane drive times. People shouldn't be driving trucks for longer than they're typically expected to stack supermarket shelves.
Hybrid EV trucks are probably the best idea in places like the US where the distance between major cities can be anywhere from "very little, basically a megalopolis" like the Northeast, to several Germanies wide of absolutely _nothing,_ like out West. Really hybrids in general are likely our best bet for economical vehicles that can meet the increasingly stringent emissions regs into the future, especially until we can get our infrastructure up to date. Which, to be fair, is not likely to happen any time soon.
@@lsswappedcessna From a logical perspective, the notion that you would put a large/heavy load on a diesel-powered truck and drive it from one side of the US to the other is *utterly insane*. It should be on a train and an electric one at that. It is simply the power and wealth of Big Oil that has prevented this from happening, unlike Europe and other more enlightened parts of the world (eg China, Japan, etc).
Thanks Tobias. I caution for you: For each country you're visiting in that Iveco, check the legality of disabling all of the warnings by removing a fuse. You might need to keep some of them running. By telling us what you did, in this video, you might have inadvertently told the authorities what you did. There are often ways to disable some alerts in software, so it's worth looking around the interface. With regard to the 'tram truck' idea, installing, electrifying and maintaining enough cables on main roads for a large number of trucks would be very expensive. The electricity prices would have to rise.
Combining diesel ICE with overhead charging is the problem. Making a fully electric truck with the possibility to drive as well as recharge when driving under an overhead line makes much more sense. Especially uphill sections on the freeway would profit from being electrified. Some trolleybuses in Bratislava (and other cities as well) have traction accumulators that enable them to run "off-grid" for certain parts of their route. They recharge while in motion under the remaining section. Up to 1/3 of the route can be serviced "off-grid" with all the comforts like HVAC and driving dynamics equal to when running "connected" to the wires via trolley poles. There is practically zero downtime for charging. It is nice that traction accumulators are getting cheaper, but they remain big and heavy. Better to have a smaller one and dedicated stretches of the freeway where they could recharge while the truck is in motion. That would be much better than essentially just adding the whole electric drivetrain to a diesel truck. Of course that is insanely expensive.
The steering wheel is likely not misaligned. It’s done that way on purpose so that you can rest your elbow on armrest and hold the steering wheel crossmember… at least I’ve seen some US pick up trucks done that way.
Another superb presentation and most appreciated. Your attitude is to be commended. Some of those charging locations look awful tight to me but I do not drive trucks.
I just stumbled upon your channel, thanks to spooky action at a distance called youtube ;-) I love your approach to life and work, it seems so well balanced, well thought through and it seems there is a healthy balance between intellectual curiosity and emotional well being through self care (keen understanding of your limits, ability to distance yourself from the hustle and bustle of your daily challenges, etc) It is very inspiring to hear you talk, even though I'm still not sure if I would prefer OV with subtitles, a Dutch deviation from the norm I guess. And I have to agree with your dog too: 27:24. It is a welcome discharge from standard YT doom scrolling! Thank you so much! Liked and subscribed
Implementing overhead cables is very expensive, whilst it was a trial (still is from the looks of things), I just can't see it catching on. Batteries are improving, including charge times, this will continue to evolve over the coming years, however, charging companies are nervous, as the better the battery, the less chance of needing public charging points! I like your sense of humour, software update for the steering wheel made me smile, and noticed you often jump to the original audio to hear your giggles :) I find your channel very interesting (as an EV driver myself), only wish I had 700+KW batteries in my car :)
Fully electric trucks with the overhead wires for charging could work in North America for long distance. Plug in electric probably wouldn’t. Trucks travel at much higher speeds and thus use significantly more power in a day. 650 to 700miles (1,000 to 1,100km) per driver per shift is common. 75mph 120km/h for most of the trip. Team trucks with 2 drivers can do double that a day. 500 mile range trucks with lots of overhead charge in motion is the only way I see it working.
Not long ago Philadelphia had Electric Buses that used a Pantograph just like trains, I lot of towns in Pennsylvania used them at one point in time. Still had Rubber Tires that looked like a regular bus except for the Pantograph. This would make a lot more sense than Tesla Semis .
TrolleyBusses are still in use in many places like Coimbra in Portugal , some places in Romania or Hungary. Those Busses also have incredibly long livetimes, they last way over half a century.
Don't see them much in the US. For people near Chicago area the Illinois railway museum has a collection of trolley busses and a loop to run them on. They don't run them all the time but have special days if you want to see some in action.
nice to see the other options out there. I think the overhead recharging would work in some areas better than others. Myself I would think all electric would be better but that is my opinion I enjoy watching your videos from the US,
As a plug-in car driver, i can understand why this kind of hybrid truck isn't getting so far in development: yes, engine is useful, but it requires the same maintenance, you can't fast charge and, if you aren't driving only in city, you'll be using diesel. So, you are combining both pros and cons of the two worlds. For me, it's useful due home-work commute (44km) most of the time in electric mode, but i need also to do 15.000km scheduled maintenance on a petrol engine which i rarely use.
Fun fact: this highway overhead line research was originally sponsored by USA (several corporations and govt entities). The idea was to have hybrid trucks that run on powerlines like regular trains, and switch to a diesel generator for the last mile away from electric highway. (Nobody even dreamt to make a fully electric truck back then) I have no idea why this research was done in Germany, when the end target were the American highways. Long story short: USA lost interest and Germany continues tinkering with it.
Thanks for the video! I wouldn't mind seeing a little more from the charing sessions, the power you get, how it ramps up etc. The small graphics with price and percentage gained is nice, but a few seconds clip from the actual charger now and then would also be nice. Thanks again for all your work.
Catenary is the answer to a problem that no longer exists - lack of battery capacity in Wh/kg. For now, swappable batteries mean no delays, at least until battery gravimetric capacity gets to around 600Wh/kg
Great technology on paper, given DB's inability to build extra rail capacity. But like said in other comments, for the cost of these lines many more charging stations can be set up with higher reliability, making the technology uneconomical.
Will there be enough room to build charging stations though? Currently there aren't many electric trucks, so it's not an issue. But when all trucks are electric, the amount of charging stations required will be enormous. Overhead wires can be used by 100's of trucks at the same time.
@@Robbedem ok, how much extra space does a charging e-truck need compared to an ICE truck on a mandated break? Some space for the charger and maybe some extra spots to compensate for truckers that currently stop in the middle of nowhere, but neither seems like a lot of space.
@@matejlieskovsky9625 and a charger is a possibility to make profits, instead of just a free of charge parking space by the highway. (I also had the impression from Tobias Videos that it is much easier to find a spot when you are willing to pay for it) That should enforce the CPO to build enough space.
You talk about refridgerated trailers taking power from the truck, but it seems to me like if you're going to make electric trucks the norm then the trailer (all trailers, not just refridgerated) having a battery pack in it that feeds the truck would make more sense. That way if you stick two charging units per charging bay you can get more range per time spent without having to try to bypass charge rate limits in other ways (such as extreme voltage), you have larger battery packs and so can roughly match the range of an ICE truck, and trailers are more likely to be sat idle (especially for places where you drop a trailer and pick up another trailer) so you can have topped up batteries waiting for you. Limits the max load weight but that's already something you compromise on an EV truck anyway.
ole on roads is rubbish, for safety reasons it can only be low voltage (typically 750 v dc) - so the power is limited due to the maximum current that can be drawn, plus a lot of substations are needed, around every 5-10km, this is more expensive, plus obtaining grid connections this frequently outside urban areas is hard. Whereas high voltage ole used on railways (25kv ac) - available power is much higher, and feeder stations can be up to 60km apart, which makes it more practical to obtain power supplies. On roads who pays for infrastructure damage is a problem, detecting who has caused a de-wirement so they can be billed for the repairs is another problem that would have to be solved - would need something like CCTV covering the entire route (especially since the de-wirement may be caused by a vehicle not using the ole, such as the tarpaulin example you mention). Great channel, really good to see what your experiences are using a BEV truck in the real world !
750-800VDC is also the normal voltage for fast charging, meaning the pack will also use that voltage. Using 25 or 16 kV AC will not help and only bring the hassle that truck needs huge transformers or IGBT to concert to their normal 800VDC pack voltage.
I love how a German considers 800km long distance :) Truckies here, hint not US, do that, and more, as a daily return round trip between our 2 biggest capitals. However, sadly, we barely have enough infrastructure to decently charge electric cars, let alone electric trucks, so we're stuck with smokers for a good while longer...at least for long distance. Hybrid tucks, smaller pantech style ones, are gaining some popularity for city deliveries.
A few points, you mentioned early in the video a range of 300 miles which would take you approximately halfway the length of mainland UK before a recharge required. I suppose a better option than pantograph might be induction charging not sure if this would be affected by snow etc. Also it's clear dedicated service areas exclusively for trucks strategically placed are required with bays that don't require unhitching trailers.
Watching that made me think that perhaps lorries could greatly simplify their charging by being able to park underneath an overhead charger where they could simply press a button that raises a connector...no need for the driver to mess around with cables and plugs.
@@peterjol it's a nice idea but thermal issues come into play (stationary connection is a hot spot) along with weather ones. Having a charging system that fails because of freezing rain is a spectacularly bad idea
Apparently I have the misfortune to carry the gene that always gets me stuck on night shift. When I was in the military I would work through the night and then be trying to sleep during the day while everyone outside my tent would be running trucks and generators and jackhammers (who needs a jackhammer in a muddy field, seriously?). Electric trucks would be godsend. No answer on how to make a generator electric tho, I guess H2. Only good part about night shift is its cool in the morning when you are trying to go to sleep and warm(er) in the afternoon when you need to get up.
I have been saying for quite a while that long haul EV trucks could charge at freight depots whilst unloading and loading, so it was good to see it in practice. Self propelled EV Trailers with driven wheels and regenerative/recuperative braking, would also extend range and make stopping safer with no overheating brakes anywhere on the vehicle.
Making any technological changes into trailer may cause adaptive issues with some trucks. Also motors are heavy, and adding extra is gonna be more inefficient bcuz of law of thermodynamics - there's always loss of power as heat, etc.
Some electric steering units (even on regular ICE cars) do away with sensors, so after re-connecting the battery, they loose center position, you have to do an initialization sequence, by turning the wheel fully to the left and right, so it can learn the steering angle. Your truck might need something like that.
I'm hard pressed to think of applications that are so constant and long duration that overhead charging needs to be a thing. Between rest breaks, loading/unloading, shift changes, etc., there simply seems to be enough time to recharge the batteries while the vehicle is stopped.
I drive an electric yard truck in a private complex moving trailers. It has alot of quirks the most annoying is it likes to "fault" and just go dark. When you bring it back up nothing is wrong, I note it down in the log but thats all I can do.
we use side marker of 4 ways in the US. Mostly 4 ways(hazards, flashers). Some passenger vehicles also do this to thank truckers for letting them over.(I do) 20:34 I think that a fully electric with pentagraph would be the best.
I like idea with potencial charging during driving. It will be huge cost to build all infrastructure. Big issue is German government they decided to close power stations and Germany is buying electricity from other countries and very often balancing on the edge of Blackouts. Interesting technology, many cities running trams or buses with overhead lines. Technology is there but decision is battery only. I had electric Volvo truck for 2 weeks in Norway and cost me running 1.5x more than diesel truck. Long distances and lost time during charging was crazy.
Interesting seeing a pantograph truck. But as the testing shows have introduced other points of failure, this IMHO will mean that it will not be widely adopted. That for covering it though 😀
I suspect the technology will be dug up when most trucks become electric. There won't be enough room near the highways to build all the required charging stations. overhead wires would solve that issue.
Yes but trucks are inevitable you'll always need last mile delivery, and the real network is not always efficient enough. Specifically here in the US. Buses could use it, RVs And again there will always be demand for large trucks to be on highways. And if you can take your city truck with a small battery and get on the highway with it that's a big advantage
@matt45540 So what's your point? Last mile delivery doesn't happen on the highway/motorway, nor does it require a fuel range that batteries can't achieve! 💁
@imeakdo7 you can if you want to. And we should. We had industrial production and a healthy long-distance shipping industry LONG before semitrucks existed, so it's definitely doable, we've literally done it before!
In my opinion, setting up overhead lines is very complicated. Instead, delivery hubs could have moving overhead chargers by loading docks. The idea here is that these moving overhead chargers move on rails to reach vehicle’s pantograph and charging starts while vehicle is being loaded/unloaded. Also, overnight parking for trucks could be fitted with these, like a standard feature. This would minimize cable vandalism. However, to make it really work, all the BEV manufacturers have to adopt the pantograph system
Well if you're going with "instead", instead of a pantograph you can just.... put charging cables on overhead retractable reels. If you have a pantograph you may as well use it while in motion as well.
In the diesel hybrid did the diesel connect the drive train or did it run a generator to charge the battery and use the electric motor to run the drive train?
Maybe because lot of us did hear about rail. It would maybe make sense to shift cargo to rail and leave passanger transport for road vehicles. Very innovative idea but maybe you can move cargo close to city with rail and use already existing infrastructure of the city like rails, powerlines and so on) to distribute it inside of it. Or even more crazy idea cargo train stations, just in our city we have like 6 cargo train stations. For some reason many of them are abbandoned now and people are mad there is too much traffic on the road... but dunno iam not clever person on YT so what do i know.
Seems like the ideal use case for this is in the US out in the vast stretches in between. I'm with you I hate things that beep, a lot of electric cars are going to more natural tones which I'm a fan of
At 19:19 it looks like an electrical flash from the wires as the truck approaches! It isn't though, I paused and went frame by frame - it's just a bird flying by! 😅
On reefers, another interesting way standards might help could be a standardised way for tractor units and trailers to interchange energy - could then have sizeable batteries in the trailer too, which would help with axle load distribution ?
Editor of the channel here. I'm getting this question quite often, so here is a detailed answer: Due to time constraints, it's not possible to do this channel without the help of AI tools. Tobias' voice is generated using 'elevenlabs' and the transcripts is translated with 'ChatGPT'. However, both are far from perfect, which means I have to manually rewrite the text to make it more coherent and readable. Even if it looks simple, each video still takes several days to translate, rewrite, and edit.
Over 1,000 HP!, last time I drove a truck the gross weight was 67,000 kg (Canadian Super B) and I had about 300 whp (a tired Cummins 400). This was driving in the Canadian Rockies, so it was really slow going up hills. I woulda killed for that much power.
It's funny to make the comparison to trains, certainly we should be using trains a lot more...however, if we want any chance of reducing emissions quickly, I think we need to think creatively and start to embrace projects like this.
@@kuba__ strange, went looking into local regulations (Slovenia), it says generally 80, but if registered as such, 90 is allowed on highways.... And every truck around here is driving way over 90, closer to 100, but with errors that could still techincally be 90ish.
The long charging times are much less of a problem if you combine them with mandatory breaks and the wires make a lot of sense especially in places with steep inclines. How do you pay for the electricity in those wires?
Imho, this technology is dead on arrival. I know it is centuries old, but the cost of building this along the Autobahn is very high, and if this cost was just put into batterytrucks or the charging infra, we would have a higher grade of electrification earlier. Also the maintenance cost. I think this money should be spend on charging infrastructure instead
As long as the infrastructure gets implemented this electric line charging like with trains is the best for trucking transport. Soon ai will be able to transport 24/7 without the 8 hour restrictions.
Was going to suggest that would be brake limited: but then remembered the Engineering Explained video that explained when some electric sports cars can accelerate faster than they can stop. TL;DW: you don't want to unload the rear wheels too much during hard braking, to avoid fishtailing.
You want to use overhead lines to charge your vehicle? DRIVE A TRAIN! Everything else is stupid! Cargo belongs on the rails, especially for long distances! We need LESS trucks on the road, but building overhead lines is just gonna induce MORE cargo transport per truck! Plus it's gonna be another massive public tax investment that'll mostly -if not ONLY - benefit private corporations! They're already abusing the public road system as rolling storage, we don't need more of that!
I mostly agree with you, however, trying out the stupid ideas will give way to more ideas, some of which may improve everyone's life. Trains are obviously better at long distance, but trucks are often faster at hauling cargo over a few hundred kilometres and required for small scale distribution, it's not a completely crazy idea on paper, that's why they're testing it, and if it doesn't make sense, then that's it... In an ideal world of course...
The cost of installing a catenary system such as the one featured in this video is a very approximately €1 million per kilometre (per lane!). On that basis and considering how cheap batteries have now become, I think the likelihood of such a system being adopted more widely is exactly zero.
Given the prices he mentioned in this video (50c/kWh) electric is about half the cost of diesel. Of course when he can charge from the huge solar array at the depot, the electricity is free.
As an American, European roads look so narrow! Although it probably helps that most of your cars are reasonably sized, unlike here lol. Although I would still be scared of driving such a large vehicle there
Interesting to see electric trucks being used. Compared with diesel, how much time spent refuelling, and how much more complicated planning of charging?
If only there was a way to make these even more efficient by reducing the rolling resistance and increasing the payload capacity. Perhaps like a multicar system and some rails.
Hey Thanks for another great video, Thanks for getting the word out about these electric trucks. Just a question, Which navigation are you using on your mobile. Mvh Mikkel
I think those are great.
You also can put them on steel rails and steel wheels for reduced drag & maintenance and possible hitch on additional trailers behind.
Rails actually require more maintenance. That's part of the reason why trains can barely compete with road traffic. Cost more to install in the first place, require more frequent maintenance (because the rails shift as the trains drive over them) and the maintenance is more expensive.
Trains don't have flexibility you can't change routes easily, you can't replace all semi trucks with trains
@jimmydesouza4375 dude never heard of the costs of asphalt roads
@@HolarMusic Asphalt roads barely cost anything to build compared to rails. Additionally you do not even need to asphalt a road surface in all scenarios.
The main difference though is maintenance. You stick an asphalt road down and it'll be fine for years, meanwhile rails need continuous maintenance from the moment they're placed, especially if they are moving heavy freight.
For example a mining operation with a rail link to take the carts to sidings for pickup on to the mainline will have around 10 miles of total track, and that will require 3 teams of full time maintenance of way gangs, complete with all of the machinery required, 1 on site inspection team, and visits every 3 months or so from the greater railway operation which the mine feeds in to (though they don't just inspect the rails, they also inspect the rolling stock).
Meanwhile for trucks operating in a similar environment, you put down an asphalt road, leave it for a few years, resurface it, leave it for a few years, etc. Reason being that trucks don't derail.
@jimmydesouza4375 you obviously have no idea what you're talking about
When I was a boy 50 years ago in Chicago USA, the city buses were electric with overhead wires on all major streets. The buses could even turn corners. Once in a while, one of the "collector" rods would jump off the wire and the driver had to get out and reposition the collector rod using a long insulated tool. The bus had a small battery bank, not to power the traction motor, but to keep all the lights on while the driver was outside reestablishing the connection
Ha! These are called trolleybusses. Such a shame GM lobbied all public transit away!
😢😢@@Radi0he4d1
Still having that in EU. In Romania there's even a trolleybus that for a section it runs on batteries, and then, at a certain station it connects to the overhead lines.
Yeah, that's how troleybuses were back then. Now though all of those problems are fixed and they can run for up to 50km(≈30mil) on batteries. And they're actually a lot cheaper in a long run then a regular buses
They still have these in San Francisco as well!
I reckon the overhead lines are worth it. They are not that expensive to put in, and they vastly reduce the battery size needed in long haul trucks. While it's not as big of a deal as i thought before i started watching your videos, given that the charge times seem to match up nicely with rest times usually. Another thing is that the fast chargers are quite difficult on the electricity grid, both in load balancing and power. Usual autobahn rest stops are quite out of the way for the grid, and several fast chargers need kilometers of extra cables in the ground. Since trucks are on the autobahn longer than they are at rest besides it, the overhead lines don't need the same power (energy=power*time), and grid balancing becomes quite a bit easier.
Yeah, I share your sentiment, I guess it's going to be harder to gain traction for the infrastructure change that is needed to adopt overhead-lines for trucks, when the battery prices are lower, and keeps dropping, while the infrastructure cost, and the mentioned manufacturer competition are basically fighting against it.
They are actually quite expensive to set up and maintain and the gear on top of the Truck is also expensive. Keep in mind that you would need to electrify enough Autobahn-kilometers to make it worthwhile doing for the transport companies. And that's a lot of cables and concrete. Although this test drive was in use for many years, the utilisation was very low.
Even when the battery pricev are low the best gain for this will be retrofitting old trucks. So if you electrify the main through the Germany Highways
You will cut the emissions with alot.
I worked with this from Scania side with these trucks.
The load impact on the grid are much more even and easier for the powersuply to handledare when you do not have the high loadspikes. Another advantage is that you can downsize the battery capacaty to save cost and resorce materials.
It was 5 trucks running on that part it takes about 8min to pass the part with the OCL. So what are the "Low utilazation" what data is it basen on?
@@thankyouforyourcompliance7386 relative price. Siemens claimed their system costs 2.5M€/km. I remember back than, that would be about 3.5 years of road tax in the netherlands to do the entire network. a drop in the ocean really. Yes maintenance is a thing, just like battery degradation is a thing. The system is based on Siemens catenary lines, same as trains. maintenance is very predictable.
Utilization is a chicken and egg problem. There was 5km of lines, not enough to do anything with, let alone worth the investment for logistics companies
@@rasmAn2 2.5m €/km is probably 5.0m €/km today. In my opinion, it makes more sense to use the money to build more dedicated truck charging stations/stops than overhead power lines. The pantograph as mentioned above are expensive to maintain because unlike a train network, you are dealing with roads that are in use 24/7. Therefore delaying other road users and even truckers. The pantograph also can't be used in all weather conditions as mentioned in the video.
Battery degradation does not mean the battery is useless. There will be cells that are perfectly fine and therefore can be repurposed for other use.
I'm not into EVs, nor trucking, but for some reason.. this is a really good channel :)
You do a fantastic job with your videos, they are very informative and interesting, keep it up💎🙌🫡
There are plenty of trolleybuses in Eastern and Southern Europe using over head wires where available, then battery when wires are not available. The overhead wires technology is robust, 140 years old, nothing to go wrong, to scare new adopters. The hybrid system with Diesel engine added on is redundant, the engine is a way too much complication.
Trolleybuses operate largely the same routes day to day. Trucks don’t necessarily do that. So sometimes you need a diesel generator if the charging infrastructure isn’t there. Also, trolley poles have a speed cap of 40mph/67kph. So the pantographs are a different and incompatible system.
They are also used in 6 Cities in North America: Mexico City, San Francisco, Vancouver, Seattle, Philadelphia, and Dayton,
Toronto, Chicago, Edmonton, and Boston used to have them as well but they ripped out their systems
It sure is nice seeing a smart trucker with a great attitude and work ethic that appreciates new technology. Bring up a Battery Electric truck to a trucker in the states and they will either laugh at you or call you names or both.
The majority of the people in the states are trapped in a time capsule.
Noice, I really like logistics and clean energy, been watching your videos for around a week now
It's been interesting to see the current state of things over there. Also, I remember when the pantograph truck thing started, with all the debate around it, and it was interesting to see it in operation, thanks!
You identify a positive with every potential risk or setback. That is how I know you love what you do!
The stretch on the A5 near Frankfurt cost me days of my life that were wasted due to delays and traffic jams when it was constructed.
Now quite a number of years later I still have yet to see a single truck making use of it...
The construction cost were pretty outrageous as well iirc.
Sheesh!
Some ideas for raising the efficiency of this things: Maybe put them on rails to decrease drag… Also maybe add some trailers behind. You can even build another road for them, not on the highway… I also came up with a cool name for these trucks: “Train”
Trains are the most efficient thing we have, they're built to last and have low overhead, but train infrastructure is well developed here, there just isn't much more that can be wrought out of it, and transporting goods by road is still where it's at for most things.
And then build train stations wherever goods need to be delivered to? Each supermarket, grocery store, electronics manufacturer down to every small businesses would get their very own train station and to make it even more efficient we could build something that could pick up goods from a train station and deliver it to each shop. Ah, trucks!
😂
Those truck are for the “last mile” delivery, most companies don’t have enough volume of items to afford and have a train yard inside their premises, so they have to use trucks to move items
@@GoGoGoRunRunRun That's what you create logistics hubs for. The truck leaves the warehouse and drives a short distance to the hub. There, the trailer is placed on the train. It then departs to another main logistics hub in another city and the trailer is unloaded. Modern operations take around 10 minutes for loading and unloading the trailers from a wagon. The train replaces a highway journey that does damage to the asphalt and consumes extra fuel. Switzerland already does this practice.
The part that baffled me about the overhead lines was that they don't zig zag as they do on rail lines. When I saw early shots of the contact bars on the pantographs on other videos they all had wear marks in the same areas (middle region), and that's an expensive way to use a pantograph!
Great video, and very interesting how fare EV Trucks have come.
yeah, it's like guys that designed that electric line, never worked on trains or trams
20:56 You can clearly see the zig zag.
Unsurprisingly, a company that makes pantographs for trains is familiar with this concept.
@@Phoen1x883 Go to three minutes in on Tom Scott's video and look at the contact wear on the pantograph: I have never seen that on rail vehicles. I can't post the TH-cam link as it removes it.
when i drove a truck through germany for 7 years , there was no gps , no smartphone . but i loved the challenge . i would be fine with the challenge an E truck brings to the table while all the other challenges are a thing of the past.
Overhead wires only have merit when most major routes have overhead cables, but by the time the government builds enough wires, most trucks will have batteries.
They should focus on railway electrification first before roads.🤨Where are their brains?
- they allow recharge on the fly - (how it is all intended to be used) batteries are still necessary for final delivery, and intestates (freeway) with non electrified segments between "recharge zones"...
The overhead cables would allow the trucks to have smaller batteries because the trucks can get electricity from the wires which in turn would allow for more cargo since there is less battery weight taking plausible cargo weight. It would make loads of sense if there are distinctive routes that trucks are taking, namely highway between large cities.
Except they wont be battery powered, because battery weighs so much that it leaves barely anything for the cargo, trucks have max weight limit. So you either can haul light loads or install smaller battery aka. shorter range, so the only party interested in those trucks will be courier companies.
@bluef1sh926 trolly bus like Soviet
They're already in use across the mining industry given they need high power electricity anyway to drive their large draglines, etc.
I think it makes perfect sense.
Yes there are some electric drive product in mines - draglines (they weigh ~6000 Tonnes, Cat 8750) and large shovels (~1700T, Cat 7495).
That said, there are VERY few of either of these types of products. Not actually sure but I think they wouldn't crack the 1000 mark globally.
Other than that there are no many grid connected products. There have been various "tramway" uses but it has never been at a high scale.
All (99.99999999%) are diesel. They are either direct drive or diesel/electric - a generator set powering electric wheel engines.
There is a pure electric mining truck operating in Australia @ Fortesque Mining. They bought Williams Engineering (formerly part of William F1) to build it.
Caterpillar and Liebherr also have trucks under development.
So something coming, not something that is already here. The previous versions where out competed.
If your interested
th-cam.com/video/BiSfUE7r0sU/w-d-xo.html
Fortescue, one of the world's largest iron ore producers - a critical material for steel, magnets, batteries, and fertilizers - has pledged to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030. To achieve this hugely ambitious goal, they enlisted the expertise of the Fortescue WAE engineers (formerly Williams Advanced Engineering) in Oxfordshire. The team were tasked with electrifying Fortescue's massive 221-tonne payload haul trucks, which are now being outfitted with mind-bogglingly big 1.4 MWh batteries. We visited their prototype facility to discover how they're doing it! @fullychargedshow
It does but as the CEO said it is hard to calculate long term if this could be a viable solution. And these short tracks are not really suitable for that, they are good for proof of technological concept which seems to be working completely fine. If there's a chance to succeed then government should invest in building a stretch of at least 100km on which multiple companies could run these trucks and see benefits of long distance catenary electric trucks.
An over-the-air software update to fix the steering wheel sounds.... alarming :)
I think Tobias said "update for steering wheel too". Not "tune". And he - jokingly - meant it to fix the steering wheel's wrong alignment. Which is not possible.
BTW, there already is a car that has steer-by-wire, that theoretically could be adjusted via SW. And it is electric! Lexus Rz450e can have a yoke instead of a steering wheel and no mechanical link between it and the front wheels. But I do not know about any trucks yet.
@@JanNovak-pg8oe But just think it it was possible! You might get a buggy update meant for the UK and suddenly find you were driving on the wrong side of the road! :)
If the vehicle has drive by wire then a software update could possibly fix it. But I expect that was a joke.
I think best combo is electric truck charging by pantograph instead of charger.100km stretches of pantograph here and there for charging would be great
I found your TH-cam channel by chance and been enjoying the content!
The UK rail network is about 40% electrified, and Europe about 60%. UK rail carries less than 10% of freight, eight times as much going by road. A significant proportion is containerised. Introducing a slick transfer of containers between sea, rail and road might result in the most efficient and least environmentally damaging way of moving stuff. In the UK they are introducing discontinuous electrification with hybrid battery-electric trains on a new rail project to cut the cost of overhead power infrastructure at the expense of more costly and complex trains, rather like the road experiment in the video. Some rail experts believe it is a mistake ...
Hybrid battery electric certainly makes sense for regional passenger operations where the route is partially electrified, so the train can charge on those parts of the route without losing time. I strongly doubt it would make sense right now for freight. It's a shame how poorly trains are used in the UK, the country that built the first railway.
@@oadkahow do you mean poorly used?
They should focus on railway electrification first before roads.🤨Where are their brains?
I’m no logistics expert, but it seems like the more proactive approach would be to install continuous electrification on whichever lines would benefit most, and if funding for further electrification isn’t as reliable in future budgets, you can still use partial electrification on one of remaining bits of track. Idk, it just seems like partial electrification is the sort of thing that should mostly be reserved for situations where full electrification is impractical due to environmental factors since it seems like whatever money you save up front on infrastructure will eventually get cancelled out by the fact that you now have to buy more expensive, less efficient battery-electric rolling stock. Like, why replace something as simple and common as overhead centenaries with a product that’s so resource intensive and could be put to good use in so many other industries like giant lithium batteries? Idk, maybe I’m just overlooking something that’s obvious to everyone else, so feel free to tell me everything I might have misunderstood.
@@Acidlib - the age of the UK's network, highly variable terrain and cost factor into the rail electrification decision - the western line for example cost £7b over eight years for the 80 mile route between London and Bristol, orher areas are more challenging than this route. The age of the network also means cuttings, tunnels and bridges are narrow and low some allowing single running, that would be even more costly. Battery or hybrid battery electric are more cost effective solutions to the electrification of the UK's network, particularly for the myriad of branch lines. About 1/3 of the UK's 10,000 mile rail network is electrified.
Even the type of electrification is a consideration, the south-eastern part of the existing electrified network uses a third-rail system (one of the few non-metro networks to use such) but doesn't have enough power to operate electric freight trains. Thr port of Southampton and Portsmouth are on these third-line routes and there is a programme of work considering uograding this route to overhead power instead.
These overhead electricity lines are used in some large mines to pull very heavy rocks and cargo uphill. Saves a ton of money versus diesel, and very little wear and tear. But not really a great idea for the highways. They won't be needed as batteries grow in energy density.
will the batteries grow tho...
@kdesikdosi5900 They already are. Both Lithium-Sulfur and Solid State batteries are in the automobile testing phases. Both already have nearly twice the energy density of the best current Nickel based chemistries, yet only 1/3 the weight. So 50% to 80% longer driving ranges at first. So an EV with 300 miles of range will get 450 to over 500 miles. And the current ones with around 400 miles with get 600 to 700 miles of range in just 3 or 4 years.
And they can store up to 5x the energy density. So 5x the range of current EV's as the densities increase along the way.
This, plus the fact we already have overhead wires on the railways, which is where long distance cargo should be transported across in the first place for the obvious efficiency benefits!
(Plus the fact the Autobahn/highways are already overflowing with semi-trucks)
@@junehanzawa5165 The problem is that they have been talking about new battery chemistry since the first model S and first smartphones, heck even the first cordless drills, still Li-Ion being used. Everything else had low charge cycles and wasn’t practical. 20 years of “in a few years…”
Edit: used to be subscribed to popular science and popular mechanics for years as a kid, but the same articles for decades with at best 1 in 30 actually becoming reality, but probably closer to 1 in 50. At which point it might as well be called science fiction. Ha ha.
Higher energy densities mean they'll burn more fiercely when they fail.
For Europe the fully electric trucks seem to be economical and can work in the driver schedule restrictions. Serial hybrid range extended EV trucks are also a good solution. We are going into interesting times and the future looks good for the new technology. Thank you for showing us the good and the not so good.
I think the same. The technology is ready and I think for most companies it also makes financial sense. Which means the transition can go really fast when companies get over their initial skepticism and conservatism.
That does also bring a new problem for electric charging infrastructure that will likely need major government aid (could be financial, but more likely needs to be with funding locations and getting the permits to build) to expand fast enough.
It only works better in Europe because we have sane drive times.
People shouldn't be driving trucks for longer than they're typically expected to stack supermarket shelves.
Hybrid EV trucks are probably the best idea in places like the US where the distance between major cities can be anywhere from "very little, basically a megalopolis" like the Northeast, to several Germanies wide of absolutely _nothing,_ like out West. Really hybrids in general are likely our best bet for economical vehicles that can meet the increasingly stringent emissions regs into the future, especially until we can get our infrastructure up to date. Which, to be fair, is not likely to happen any time soon.
@@lsswappedcessna From a logical perspective, the notion that you would put a large/heavy load on a diesel-powered truck and drive it from one side of the US to the other is *utterly insane*. It should be on a train and an electric one at that. It is simply the power and wealth of Big Oil that has prevented this from happening, unlike Europe and other more enlightened parts of the world (eg China, Japan, etc).
Thanks Tobias. I caution for you: For each country you're visiting in that Iveco, check the legality of disabling all of the warnings by removing a fuse. You might need to keep some of them running. By telling us what you did, in this video, you might have inadvertently told the authorities what you did.
There are often ways to disable some alerts in software, so it's worth looking around the interface.
With regard to the 'tram truck' idea, installing, electrifying and maintaining enough cables on main roads for a large number of trucks would be very expensive. The electricity prices would have to rise.
Bro your content is mwaaaa. I love it . Thanks very much
Thank you for posting!
Combining diesel ICE with overhead charging is the problem. Making a fully electric truck with the possibility to drive as well as recharge when driving under an overhead line makes much more sense. Especially uphill sections on the freeway would profit from being electrified.
Some trolleybuses in Bratislava (and other cities as well) have traction accumulators that enable them to run "off-grid" for certain parts of their route. They recharge while in motion under the remaining section. Up to 1/3 of the route can be serviced "off-grid" with all the comforts like HVAC and driving dynamics equal to when running "connected" to the wires via trolley poles. There is practically zero downtime for charging.
It is nice that traction accumulators are getting cheaper, but they remain big and heavy. Better to have a smaller one and dedicated stretches of the freeway where they could recharge while the truck is in motion. That would be much better than essentially just adding the whole electric drivetrain to a diesel truck. Of course that is insanely expensive.
The steering wheel is likely not misaligned. It’s done that way on purpose so that you can rest your elbow on armrest and hold the steering wheel crossmember… at least I’ve seen some US pick up trucks done that way.
Another superb presentation and most appreciated. Your attitude is to be commended. Some of those charging locations look awful tight to me but I do not drive trucks.
I just stumbled upon your channel, thanks to spooky action at a distance called youtube ;-) I love your approach to life and work, it seems so well balanced, well thought through and it seems there is a healthy balance between intellectual curiosity and emotional well being through self care (keen understanding of your limits, ability to distance yourself from the hustle and bustle of your daily challenges, etc)
It is very inspiring to hear you talk, even though I'm still not sure if I would prefer OV with subtitles, a Dutch deviation from the norm I guess.
And I have to agree with your dog too: 27:24. It is a welcome discharge from standard YT doom scrolling! Thank you so much!
Liked and subscribed
Implementing overhead cables is very expensive, whilst it was a trial (still is from the looks of things), I just can't see it catching on. Batteries are improving, including charge times, this will continue to evolve over the coming years, however, charging companies are nervous, as the better the battery, the less chance of needing public charging points!
I like your sense of humour, software update for the steering wheel made me smile, and noticed you often jump to the original audio to hear your giggles :)
I find your channel very interesting (as an EV driver myself), only wish I had 700+KW batteries in my car :)
They don't have to worry about that. Batteries will get smaller, because otherwise the road tax would be quite expensive.
Fully electric trucks with the overhead wires for charging could work in North America for long distance. Plug in electric probably wouldn’t. Trucks travel at much higher speeds and thus use significantly more power in a day. 650 to 700miles (1,000 to 1,100km) per driver per shift is common. 75mph 120km/h for most of the trip. Team trucks with 2 drivers can do double that a day.
500 mile range trucks with lots of overhead charge in motion is the only way I see it working.
Not long ago Philadelphia had Electric Buses that used a Pantograph just like trains, I lot of towns in Pennsylvania used them at one point in time. Still had Rubber Tires that looked like a regular bus except for the Pantograph. This would make a lot more sense than Tesla Semis .
TrolleyBusses are still in use in many places like Coimbra in Portugal , some places in Romania or Hungary. Those Busses also have incredibly long livetimes, they last way over half a century.
Don't see them much in the US. For people near Chicago area the Illinois railway museum has a collection of trolley busses and a loop to run them on. They don't run them all the time but have special days if you want to see some in action.
Never knew these existed...thanks
Love watching your videos, reminds me of my visit to Germany in September ❤️
nice to see the other options out there. I think the overhead recharging would work in some areas better than others. Myself I would think all electric would be better but that is my opinion I enjoy watching your videos from the US,
As a plug-in car driver, i can understand why this kind of hybrid truck isn't getting so far in development: yes, engine is useful, but it requires the same maintenance, you can't fast charge and, if you aren't driving only in city, you'll be using diesel.
So, you are combining both pros and cons of the two worlds.
For me, it's useful due home-work commute (44km) most of the time in electric mode, but i need also to do 15.000km scheduled maintenance on a petrol engine which i rarely use.
Thats why I switched from my Volt (probably THE closest PHEV to pure battery, at least in USA) which I loved, to a Bolt.
Watching your videos reminds me of playing Hard Truck 🥹
Fun fact: this highway overhead line research was originally sponsored by USA (several corporations and govt entities).
The idea was to have hybrid trucks that run on powerlines like regular trains, and switch to a diesel generator for the last mile away from electric highway. (Nobody even dreamt to make a fully electric truck back then)
I have no idea why this research was done in Germany, when the end target were the American highways.
Long story short: USA lost interest and Germany continues tinkering with it.
Thanks for the video! I wouldn't mind seeing a little more from the charing sessions, the power you get, how it ramps up etc. The small graphics with price and percentage gained is nice, but a few seconds clip from the actual charger now and then would also be nice. Thanks again for all your work.
Catenary is the answer to a problem that no longer exists - lack of battery capacity in Wh/kg. For now, swappable batteries mean no delays, at least until battery gravimetric capacity gets to around 600Wh/kg
8:00 charger at loading dock 👍 18:13 overhead pantograph section 24:03 return trip
Great technology on paper, given DB's inability to build extra rail capacity. But like said in other comments, for the cost of these lines many more charging stations can be set up with higher reliability, making the technology uneconomical.
Will there be enough room to build charging stations though?
Currently there aren't many electric trucks, so it's not an issue. But when all trucks are electric, the amount of charging stations required will be enormous. Overhead wires can be used by 100's of trucks at the same time.
@@Robbedemit looks like charging mostly fits into the already mandated breaks, so I don't think it will cause more stopped trucks.
@@matejlieskovsky9625 I'm not taking about the time, I'm mean the physical space for the chargers and the trucks to stop.
@@Robbedem ok, how much extra space does a charging e-truck need compared to an ICE truck on a mandated break? Some space for the charger and maybe some extra spots to compensate for truckers that currently stop in the middle of nowhere, but neither seems like a lot of space.
@@matejlieskovsky9625 and a charger is a possibility to make profits, instead of just a free of charge parking space by the highway. (I also had the impression from Tobias Videos that it is much easier to find a spot when you are willing to pay for it)
That should enforce the CPO to build enough space.
So basically a long haul trolleybus for cargo? Neat. No need to reinvent the wheel.
You talk about refridgerated trailers taking power from the truck, but it seems to me like if you're going to make electric trucks the norm then the trailer (all trailers, not just refridgerated) having a battery pack in it that feeds the truck would make more sense. That way if you stick two charging units per charging bay you can get more range per time spent without having to try to bypass charge rate limits in other ways (such as extreme voltage), you have larger battery packs and so can roughly match the range of an ICE truck, and trailers are more likely to be sat idle (especially for places where you drop a trailer and pick up another trailer) so you can have topped up batteries waiting for you. Limits the max load weight but that's already something you compromise on an EV truck anyway.
ole on roads is rubbish, for safety reasons it can only be low voltage (typically 750 v dc) - so the power is limited due to the maximum current that can be drawn, plus a lot of substations are needed, around every 5-10km, this is more expensive, plus obtaining grid connections this frequently outside urban areas is hard.
Whereas high voltage ole used on railways (25kv ac) - available power is much higher, and feeder stations can be up to 60km apart, which makes it more practical to obtain power supplies.
On roads who pays for infrastructure damage is a problem, detecting who has caused a de-wirement so they can be billed for the repairs is another problem that would have to be solved - would need something like CCTV covering the entire route (especially since the de-wirement may be caused by a vehicle not using the ole, such as the tarpaulin example you mention).
Great channel, really good to see what your experiences are using a BEV truck in the real world !
No problem wih hvac.
750-800VDC is also the normal voltage for fast charging, meaning the pack will also use that voltage. Using 25 or 16 kV AC will not help and only bring the hassle that truck needs huge transformers or IGBT to concert to their normal 800VDC pack voltage.
Hope you get to test some of these e-axle trailers at some point. I think those will be a nice addition for both ICE and electric tractors.
I love how a German considers 800km long distance :) Truckies here, hint not US, do that, and more, as a daily return round trip between our 2 biggest capitals. However, sadly, we barely have enough infrastructure to decently charge electric cars, let alone electric trucks, so we're stuck with smokers for a good while longer...at least for long distance. Hybrid tucks, smaller pantech style ones, are gaining some popularity for city deliveries.
We don't consider it long distance, we consider it far in the time we are allowed to drive in any given day. We can only drive for 10 hours MAXIMUM 😅
A few points, you mentioned early in the video a range of 300 miles which would take you approximately halfway the length of mainland UK before a recharge required. I suppose a better option than pantograph might be induction charging not sure if this would be affected by snow etc. Also it's clear dedicated service areas exclusively for trucks strategically placed are required with bays that don't require unhitching trailers.
The design of the pantograph is crazy... They should have used a rotating trolleybus pantograph
Watching that made me think that perhaps lorries could greatly simplify their charging by being able to park underneath an overhead charger where they could simply press a button that raises a connector...no need for the driver to mess around with cables and plugs.
@@peterjol it's a nice idea but thermal issues come into play (stationary connection is a hot spot) along with weather ones. Having a charging system that fails because of freezing rain is a spectacularly bad idea
Apparently I have the misfortune to carry the gene that always gets me stuck on night shift. When I was in the military I would work through the night and then be trying to sleep during the day while everyone outside my tent would be running trucks and generators and jackhammers (who needs a jackhammer in a muddy field, seriously?). Electric trucks would be godsend. No answer on how to make a generator electric tho, I guess H2. Only good part about night shift is its cool in the morning when you are trying to go to sleep and warm(er) in the afternoon when you need to get up.
REALLY FREAKING COOL!!!
What they need is a hybrid system on long hills. Instead of wheel and compression brake, the energy could be used to generate electricity.
I have been saying for quite a while that long haul EV trucks could charge at freight depots whilst unloading and loading, so it was good to see it in practice.
Self propelled EV Trailers with driven wheels and regenerative/recuperative braking, would also extend range and make stopping safer with no overheating brakes anywhere on the vehicle.
Making any technological changes into trailer may cause adaptive issues with some trucks. Also motors are heavy, and adding extra is gonna be more inefficient bcuz of law of thermodynamics - there's always loss of power as heat, etc.
Some electric steering units (even on regular ICE cars) do away with sensors, so after re-connecting the battery, they loose center position, you have to do an initialization sequence, by turning the wheel fully to the left and right, so it can learn the steering angle.
Your truck might need something like that.
I'm hard pressed to think of applications that are so constant and long duration that overhead charging needs to be a thing. Between rest breaks, loading/unloading, shift changes, etc., there simply seems to be enough time to recharge the batteries while the vehicle is stopped.
Nice the new graphic on the charging location!
Can you add at the end of the video also a total recap of distance, kW, and amount of money spent?
I drive an electric yard truck in a private complex moving trailers. It has alot of quirks the most annoying is it likes to "fault" and just go dark. When you bring it back up nothing is wrong, I note it down in the log but thats all I can do.
we use side marker of 4 ways in the US. Mostly 4 ways(hazards, flashers). Some passenger vehicles also do this to thank truckers for letting them over.(I do) 20:34 I think that a fully electric with pentagraph would be the best.
I like idea with potencial charging during driving. It will be huge cost to build all infrastructure. Big issue is German government they decided to close power stations and Germany is buying electricity from other countries and very often balancing on the edge of Blackouts. Interesting technology, many cities running trams or buses with overhead lines. Technology is there but decision is battery only.
I had electric Volvo truck for 2 weeks in Norway and cost me running 1.5x more than diesel truck. Long distances and lost time during charging was crazy.
That's great! It's just a train with extra steps.
If just it could be more effective... Maybe put it on rails?
I kept watching your dog, rolling around in the sand.
"Technically brillant, but the small details [steering wheel alignment] feel like an afterthought."
Interesting seeing a pantograph truck. But as the testing shows have introduced other points of failure, this IMHO will mean that it will not be widely adopted. That for covering it though 😀
I suspect the technology will be dug up when most trucks become electric. There won't be enough room near the highways to build all the required charging stations. overhead wires would solve that issue.
we already have them, they are called RAILWAYS
Exactly
Yes but trucks are inevitable you'll always need last mile delivery, and the real network is not always efficient enough. Specifically here in the US. Buses could use it, RVs And again there will always be demand for large trucks to be on highways. And if you can take your city truck with a small battery and get on the highway with it that's a big advantage
Can you really replace all semi trucks with railways?
@matt45540 So what's your point? Last mile delivery doesn't happen on the highway/motorway, nor does it require a fuel range that batteries can't achieve! 💁
@imeakdo7 you can if you want to. And we should. We had industrial production and a healthy long-distance shipping industry LONG before semitrucks existed, so it's definitely doable, we've literally done it before!
Seems like a very complicated system with many breaking points.
In my opinion, setting up overhead lines is very complicated. Instead, delivery hubs could have moving overhead chargers by loading docks. The idea here is that these moving overhead chargers move on rails to reach vehicle’s pantograph and charging starts while vehicle is being loaded/unloaded. Also, overnight parking for trucks could be fitted with these, like a standard feature. This would minimize cable vandalism. However, to make it really work, all the BEV manufacturers have to adopt the pantograph system
Well if you're going with "instead", instead of a pantograph you can just.... put charging cables on overhead retractable reels. If you have a pantograph you may as well use it while in motion as well.
In the diesel hybrid did the diesel connect the drive train or did it run a generator to charge the battery and use the electric motor to run the drive train?
Maybe because lot of us did hear about rail. It would maybe make sense to shift cargo to rail and leave passanger transport for road vehicles. Very innovative idea but maybe you can move cargo close to city with rail and use already existing infrastructure of the city like rails, powerlines and so on) to distribute it inside of it. Or even more crazy idea cargo train stations, just in our city we have like 6 cargo train stations. For some reason many of them are abbandoned now and people are mad there is too much traffic on the road... but dunno iam not clever person on YT so what do i know.
Seems like the ideal use case for this is in the US out in the vast stretches in between. I'm with you I hate things that beep, a lot of electric cars are going to more natural tones which I'm a fan of
At 19:19 it looks like an electrical flash from the wires as the truck approaches! It isn't though, I paused and went frame by frame - it's just a bird flying by! 😅
master ockham, pointing to his razor, says no.
On reefers, another interesting way standards might help could be a standardised way for tractor units and trailers to interchange energy - could then have sizeable batteries in the trailer too, which would help with axle load distribution ?
and when it is time for a yearly technical inspection, they may be searching for the exhaust pipe for a few minutes before realising
great Video.
Interesting to see the pros and cons and all news and details.
Tesla has no interest to support truck charging?
Curious are you using AI translation? I’m 50/50 on it.
Editor of the channel here. I'm getting this question quite often, so here is a detailed answer:
Due to time constraints, it's not possible to do this channel without the help of AI tools. Tobias' voice is generated using 'elevenlabs' and the transcripts is translated with 'ChatGPT'. However, both are far from perfect, which means I have to manually rewrite the text to make it more coherent and readable. Even if it looks simple, each video still takes several days to translate, rewrite, and edit.
@@electrictrucker Thanks for the reply. It's very close to perfect. If it wasn't for the second person, it could pass for a normal voiceover.
@@electrictruckerI have to say the voiceover is very smooth, took me a while to even notice tbh 👍
This really works quite well. Much better than subtitles. Good work. Very interesting channel.
@@electrictrucker Oh wow, I had no idea. I had assumed Tobias spoke excellent English, and was doing the voice-over!
Over 1,000 HP!, last time I drove a truck the gross weight was 67,000 kg (Canadian Super B) and I had about 300 whp (a tired Cummins 400). This was driving in the Canadian Rockies, so it was really slow going up hills. I woulda killed for that much power.
I like those. The truck will not change lanes. 0:12
@electric trucker what is your opinion about the Kempower dispenser compared to Ionity or Aral Pulse set ups?
It's funny to make the comparison to trains, certainly we should be using trains a lot more...however, if we want any chance of reducing emissions quickly, I think we need to think creatively and start to embrace projects like this.
Why are you driving at 81-85km/h? and not 90 spot on? Is the speed limit for the truck on highway not 90?
technically it's 80, but practically it's a fully dead law and going 80 you're receiving road rage from most truckers that pass you
@@kuba__ strange, went looking into local regulations (Slovenia), it says generally 80, but if registered as such, 90 is allowed on highways.... And every truck around here is driving way over 90, closer to 100, but with errors that could still techincally be 90ish.
@@anzew88it’s not strange, their limiter is required to be set at 90 as in some countries 90 is allowed.
The long charging times are much less of a problem if you combine them with mandatory breaks and the wires make a lot of sense especially in places with steep inclines. How do you pay for the electricity in those wires?
Imho, this technology is dead on arrival. I know it is centuries old, but the cost of building this along the Autobahn is very high, and if this cost was just put into batterytrucks or the charging infra, we would have a higher grade of electrification earlier.
Also the maintenance cost.
I think this money should be spend on charging infrastructure instead
Omg that’s like the 1940s to 60s all our buses were known as trolly busses as the ran on overhead power lines
As long as the infrastructure gets implemented this electric line charging like with trains is the best for trucking transport. Soon ai will be able to transport 24/7 without the 8 hour restrictions.
Should the standards for testing if goods are properly packaged be changed with the higher acceleration of the electric truck?
Was going to suggest that would be brake limited: but then remembered the Engineering Explained video that explained when some electric sports cars can accelerate faster than they can stop.
TL;DW: you don't want to unload the rear wheels too much during hard braking, to avoid fishtailing.
You want to use overhead lines to charge your vehicle? DRIVE A TRAIN!
Everything else is stupid!
Cargo belongs on the rails, especially for long distances! We need LESS trucks on the road, but building overhead lines is just gonna induce MORE cargo transport per truck!
Plus it's gonna be another massive public tax investment that'll mostly -if not ONLY - benefit private corporations! They're already abusing the public road system as rolling storage, we don't need more of that!
I mostly agree with you, however, trying out the stupid ideas will give way to more ideas, some of which may improve everyone's life. Trains are obviously better at long distance, but trucks are often faster at hauling cargo over a few hundred kilometres and required for small scale distribution, it's not a completely crazy idea on paper, that's why they're testing it, and if it doesn't make sense, then that's it... In an ideal world of course...
The cost of installing a catenary system such as the one featured in this video is a very approximately €1 million per kilometre (per lane!).
On that basis and considering how cheap batteries have now become, I think the likelihood of such a system being adopted more widely is exactly zero.
How much does it differ in cost between driving electric vs diesel ?
Interesting videos
Given the prices he mentioned in this video (50c/kWh) electric is about half the cost of diesel. Of course when he can charge from the huge solar array at the depot, the electricity is free.
What a cool concept. This could be something the United States can start doing in the future.
As an American, European roads look so narrow! Although it probably helps that most of your cars are reasonably sized, unlike here lol. Although I would still be scared of driving such a large vehicle there
That's why we can drive and Americans cannot lol 😅
Wich App are you using for navigation? Or are you using regular apps like Google, Waze or Apple-maps?
I think he is using tomtom for trucks.
Ha, pulled a fuse… not alone on that one.
Interesting to see electric trucks being used. Compared with diesel, how much time spent refuelling, and how much more complicated planning of charging?
Great video… You should name your little dog Sparky
If only there was a way to make these even more efficient by reducing the rolling resistance and increasing the payload capacity. Perhaps like a multicar system and some rails.
Better question, what if trucks could draw power directly from tbe trailer, trailers generally spend more time sitting at wearhouses than trucks do
The trailer would weigh more and you'd reduce your load capacity leading to lower earnings
Hey Thanks for another great video, Thanks for getting the word out about these electric trucks.
Just a question, Which navigation are you using on your mobile.
Mvh Mikkel
Overhead line truck content starts at 16:26
I literally paused it at that exact spot.😂
Also good to reduce speed for more charging time on pantgraph