Hybrid truck recharges from overhead wires

[u/guyoffthegrid]

[u/Marsweep]

So it's just a tram without tracks, right?

[u/straponkaren → u/Marsweep]

Corporations will do everything they can to invent everything they can except for a train, and the reason why is the taxes on the value of train tracks vs the government owning the roads. If the government owned the train tracks and managed them, we would have trains again.

[u/Hopeful-Battle7329 → u/straponkaren]

A train is limited to rails. These trucks use the power line to either drive electric on the highways or to even extend their battery range when they have full electric drives. The main advantage is that these trucks only need a road. They are much more flexible. You can put a lot of load on rails but the last kilometers are more efficiently done with trucks. You can't replace all trucks with trains efficiently but you need to find solutions to make them more eco-friendly.

[u/Dragonfly-Adventurer → u/Hopeful-Battle7329]

Imagine UPS or Amazon delivery trucks in rural areas, go battery when they go down a driveway or small road, then back on the grid up at the highway again, all seamless for the driver. Solving this is a huge part of making services like Amazon eco friendly. Then we gotta solve for tire and brake dust.

[u/yellekc → u/Dragonfly-Adventurer]

If it's electric it can use regenerative braking, so at least it would use less brake dust as long as the regenerative braking makes up for the heavier vehicle.

[u/Hopeful-Battle7329 → u/yellekc]

This is only a half-baked truth. Yes, if you break most of the time just by recuperating, you have less break wear and tear but that requires you to drive it like you are or at least should be taught in the driving class. Not everyone drives like that and the higher mass, at least in the current state of the art, means more wear and tear by hard breaking. It also means to have a much higher wear and tear of the tires at the moment which is why tire companies try to develop EV tires to solve that issue. The high torque at low rotations of the motor increases this issue. So, yeah, it still is a problem to solve.

[u/NastyBanshee → u/Dragonfly-Adventurer]

the US has the largest amount of roadway of any other country in the world with over 4.17 MILLION miles of roads. Installing these battery jumpers would not only be cost prohibitive, but take HUGE REPEAT HUGE amounts of energy/ carbon footprint to mine, manufacture, install and maintain/upgrade. Let’s just give the Delivery people a rickshaw and a few Red Bulls. Would be just about as useful as electrifying 4.17 MILLION MILES of roadway.

[u/Hopeful-Battle7329 → u/NastyBanshee]

You misunderstood something, didn't you? No one said we should build these power lines on all roads. They are designed only for important highways.

Additionally, you misunderstood the point about the power lines: they are meant to convert trucks into battery-electric vehicles. This concept will extend the range and allow trucks to:

1. Reduce emissions by switching from fossil fuels to electric drives. This concept doesn't require a large battery, which keeps the truck's weight down and saves fuel during high-energy phases, especially for motors designed for low speed but high torque.

2. Reduce battery size for battery-electric trucks, minimizing resource usage while still providing a significant range.

Furthermore, you have a significant oversight regarding battery requirements. While current battery technology is quite harmful to the environment and has a high carbon footprint, EVs are already more eco-friendly in the long run due to lower CO2 emissions while driving and reduced maintenance resource needs. However, your main oversight is missing the potential for battery development. Scientists are working on various solutions to existing battery problems. Milestones include removing cobalt from the list of necessary resources for battery production, which slightly decreases range but makes them more eco-friendly and increases recharge speeds.

In the end, much of the cargo will still need to be moved from roads to electrified tracks. Trains are far more efficient for large cargo transport and are much easier to electrify.

Yes, building new infrastructure is costly, has a significant ecological footprint, and takes a lot of time. Still, it’s necessary to improve our lives as well as our situation with climate change in the long term. Failure to modernize in the past and significant political, economic, and social mistakes should not be an excuse for not taking action now. Repeating the same old mistakes that got us into this situation in the first place is not an option. Our way of doing politics has to shift from short-term views to long-term strategies. So, if we want to debate this solution, then please do so with good and detailed arguments.

[u/NastyBanshee → u/Dragonfly-Adventurer]

How is this “green” when you factor in all the carbon footprint to rip up the road and install electric wire OR to make and place all those poles and wires?

[u/Hopeful-Battle7329 → u/NastyBanshee]

These are above-ground power lines. You hardly have to dig up any roads. You also don't need to cover all roads, just the most important ones. The cables are also made of a material that's not that rare or that deep in the earth.

It's greener than fossil fuels because it's much more efficient. Electric motors are the most efficient motors out there. Transporting electricity also doesn't consume that much energy when you use AC. On the other hand, fossil fuels are limited and cause direct emission of CO2 that isn't supposed to be in the atmosphere for millions of years now. Even when we have enough oil for 300 or 400 years, we have a growing need for fossil resources, not just for fossil fuel but also for materials, medicine, etc. As species, we'll face a huge shortcoming soon or later. Changing it now saves a lot of time to find solutions.

[u/NastyBanshee → u/Hopeful-Battle7329]

Only juicing SOME roads is not feasible to actually make a dent. And I’m seeing an awfully LARGE amount of metal in those wires and poles. Metal which requires an extremely LARGE amount of energy to mine, smelt, fabricate, and transport. Copper smelts at 1200C/2192F. This will take NUCLEAR or FF based energy, not someone with a magnifying glass trying to heat up water.

[u/Hopeful-Battle7329 → u/NastyBanshee]

You're right about the fact that this has a footprint but it's much slower than fossil fuel trucks or battery-electric trucks with huge batteries. This is what I meant by saying "long-term strategy". You build them once, maintain them over decades. Here on there you need to replace some wires and poles but not that often. But the energy we save in the long run makes it still more sustainable than other solutions, at least for the parts we can't use trains.

[u/Desperate-Goose7525 → u/Hopeful-Battle7329]

But... hear me out.. wherever tracks are is where the businesses, factories are laid to minimize truck usage.. like a main street but for logistics? Yes, no?

[u/Hopeful-Battle7329 → u/Desperate-Goose7525]

Sounds great but isn't always possible. Most bizz is done in cities and when the city players fucked that up at the some point, you can't just build a railway. Also, a railway cannot be built into any smaller village but some companies go to these smaller villages because they take the space they can get. Also, you need some flexibility. Sometimes, you need a delivery as fast as possible. But trains have to stick to a strict plan in order to be as efficient as possible.

[u/thesauciest-tea → u/straponkaren]

I think part of it is that trains especially for cargo dont have as many stops and the routes are static. That means you'll end up having to pay for a truck anyway once it gets to the distribution hub. Trucking gives much more leeway in finding the more efficent route especially shorter distances. Also its much easier to take trucks on and off the road compared to trains which means its more elastic with changing demand.

[u/Victormorga → u/straponkaren]

“We would have trains again”

What are you talking about? When / where did trains cease to exist?

[u/dudeaciously → u/Victormorga]

I agree with the demise of trains. e.g. Public transit in Los Angeles was consciously killed by corporations. Similar unbelievable crippling of public transit in the New York area, same villains (Hassan Minhaj did a show on this).

[u/Victormorga → u/dudeaciously]

Freight trains are still in constant, heavy use across the entire country, and most major cities have subway / train systems that are a significant part of their public transportation.

I will look up this special by the credibility-free established teller of tall-tales Hassan Minaj.

[u/Mr_FJ → u/dudeaciously]

You should move to europe :P

[u/Floepiefloepie → u/dudeaciously]

American...

[u/Right_Composer_9502 → u/Victormorga]

America. We ain’t got no real trains anymore just Amtrak which uses freight lines in 95% of places. You could go from small town to small town by train years ago but the car companies bought all the land and turned America into a stupid land of highways and now we suck compared to everywhere else oh we suck. Just go to Europe and get a Eurail pass and see what I mean

[u/binz17 → u/Right_Composer_9502]

This thread is about cargo, not passengers. The US still extensively uses cargo trains. They are the cheapest way to move cargo long distances overland.

[u/Sakuran_11 → u/straponkaren]

Did you miss the part where this is a truck meant for taking cargo and meant to go to more than set locations, it needs highway travel and this is simply a charging convience, its meant to carry goods and serve as a normal truck with extra utility.

[u/Floepiefloepie → u/straponkaren]

Costs of track vs cost of road...road is much much much cheaper in all aspects

[u/theinsideoutbananna → u/Floepiefloepie]

This is just not true, rail is significantly more efficient and generally cost effective. Roads cost a shit ton to maintain.