Getting Beyond the Hype of Electric Construction Equipment

You’ve heard the hype, but you also have lots of doubts - and maybe even downright disdain - when it comes to electric construction equipment.
On the episode of The Dirt, we get to the heart of your concerns about battery-powered machines - runtime, charging, available electricity, performance - with guest Joel Honeyman, vice president of global innovation for Doosan Bobcat. Honeyman has overseen the company’s electric breakthroughs in excavators, the world’s first electric compact track loader, and a new prototype skid steer unveiled at ConExpo 2023.
He goes beyond the sales pitch to reveal just what these machines can do, who can benefit from them, who can’t, how soon you’ll start seeing them on jobsites and the potential they offer to the construction industry.
He also dispels misconceptions about runtime, which has many contractors concerned. Though a diesel machine can run as long as it has diesel in it, much of its time on a worksite is not actual work. The engine is often idling. But with electric equipment, there is no idling. It only drains power when it’s actually in operation.
So if you want to get beyond the hype - and misconceptions - of electric equipment and find out more about this fledgling technology, check out this episode of The Dirt.
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In This Episode:
00:00 - Is Electric Construction Equipment Currently Viable?
00:45 - Electric Construction Equipment Runtime
05:01 - How Will Manufacturers Help Charging Infrastructure Improvements?
06:30 - The Power of Electric Equipment
07:09 - When Will There Be More Electric Equipment on Job Sites?
09:50 - What Are the Benefits of Electric Equipment Over Diesel Equipment?
13:33 - The Lifetime and Used Marketplace of Electric Equipment
15:17 - Final Thoughts
Video Transcript:
Bryan Furnace:
Today, we're here to talk about electric equipment again, but we're not here to show you just another piece of equipment that runs on electricity. We're actually here to talk about what electric equipment's going to look like and really how viable is this technology. As some of you may recall, we interviewed Bobcat a few months back about their electric skid steer, but this time I'm coming at Bobcat with a whole new angle. What are they doing as manufacturers to help make this a viable technology for our job sites? At the moment, this technology doesn't seem very practical to us on the front lines, but here we're talking with Joel Honeyman, who may change our minds on that.
To a lot of bus guys on the frontline, we're all very familiar with a lot of the iterations that are, "You can run this machine for four to six hours hard and then it's got a 10-hour recharge time." And so my question is, as manufacturers, first of all, is this a misconception? And if it's not, what are we doing to improve that?
Joel Honeyman:
Yeah, that's a great question. And we read the blogs, we know what people are talking about, so we hear that too. Let's talk about runtime for a minute on an electric machine because it's really important that we explain what that means. And so with an electric machine, what happens is you're only consuming power when you're stroking the joysticks. So there is no idle on an electric machine. Now, what you might find interesting and your users might find interesting, and you know this because you operate equipment and so do your listeners, a lot of idle time on the job sites.
Bryan Furnace:
Sure.
Joel Honeyman:
So when we looked at our telematic data, about 30% of all compact loaders across the country are at idle or at less than 1,350 rpm. So you have a lot of time in there where in an EV machine would not be consuming energy and so you have to think about that. And again, you think about you get in on the cab, you're doing a job or whatever it is, and so it's that idle and it's consuming on the hour meter but you're actually not using energy. The other thing is we look at our data, the average skid steer and track loader runs about three hours a day, of which about a third of that is at idle, so you've got two hours.
Now that's not everybody, clearly, I'm not trying to paint that picture. But what we would say is even at four hours, which doesn't sound like a lot, four hours is enough time to get a full day's work done. That's what we're about, is trying to get that full day of work done for somebody who's out there. And again, an EV machine just acts differently because it just doesn't have all these dead times in between that you might experience with a diesel machine...

[@aaronbounds1336]

The electric grid has lots of room to handle electrical load demands: Peaker plants operating for a larger percentage of the time, adding renewable capacity, load shifting to low demand times, etcetera. These are not insurmountable problems. We know how to add grid capacity. Just a question of doing it. The grid naturally requires constant expansion anyhow due to population growth and new construction. It’s a matter of increasing the natural pace of expansion…and what a great opportunity for making the upgrades in the process like distributed energy supply.

[@jimdiet8534]

I can see this being used for small projects or indoor work. The guys who use their skids for plowing need to stick with Diesel. I say this because of the run time needed.

[@aaronbounds1336]

6:28: impressive. If you folks can figure out an F150 Lightning, you’re going to be just fine. I figured out a first generation Nissan LEAF for five years before getting my Tesla. The Tesla is more convenient than any car I have ever owned. The infrastructure for electricity is largely built out in America already. Way more ahead of the game as compared to when gas cars were first coming on the scene with their need for roads, paved roads, and zero gas station infrastructure. That didn’t stop us though and we made it work. The same will be true for electrification of many things including transportation. Most of the infrastructure is already there, just needs that little bit at the end to get into the machines.

[@leerizer]

China has electeic dump truck use by mining industry.
Dump truck travelling uphill with no load by using electric supplied by battery.
When travelling downhill with full load regenerative system recharge the battery.
In some scenario that dump truck doesnt need to recharge at all as regenerated power is sufficient to keep it working continuously

[@kylekleman]

Good video! It does seem like your perspective changed. It’s a shame so many people can’t get past their initial knee jerk reactions to see the benefits!

[@RealLifePrblemSolver]

So you mean to tell me that even if the ac and radio is on it’s not pulling power unless the joysticks move.

[@alphonsotate2982]

The air and radio takes power from the battery

[@aaronbounds1336]

I caught that too. That was probably a misstatement. Not using the heavy load stuff like tracks or lifting, etcetera. HVAC and screens do use power, but very little as compared to drive and lifting motors. The volume to HVAC in a small unit like that is much smaller than a car, and it’s not that much of a draw in a car compared to the drive motor(s) either.

[@idesignstuff]

It's a 'parasitic load' but a tiny fraction of the working efforts. My EV aircon makes about a 5 mile per charge difference.

[@shirolee]

This is pretty interesting and awesome.

[@aaronbounds1336]

“High-mileage” will have quite the different meaning soon. Tesla is currently bench testing cells with nearly 20K cycles on them. Currently, the two dominant Tesla chemistries will last between 400K and 1.2 million miles before they start to degrade significantly. Takes a long time to get to 400K miles at 12K miles/year (about 30+). Probably not going to keep a car for that long.

[@MrHeHim]

Bob-cat 😁

[@alphonsotate2982]

Fast charging wears out battery's faster and shortens the life of them slow 110 charging is the best for your battery's life