Short haul trucking makes up about 80 percent of the industry, while long haul trucking only comprises 20 percent. I’m not worried about these EV semis finding their niche and thriving. For a first gen product it’s a good place to start.
Also the pollution from diesel engines has a far greater impact when used in cities instead of long-haul. Not to mention that trucks put out far more pollution when doing stop-start in cities.
Replacing short haul trucks with electric trucks makes many kinds of good sense all at once.
The same argument can be made for making school buses electric.
I'm worried about the pollution argument. Not in the climate change sense, that's clear. But in the "local air is cleaner".
I've discovered recently that tire wear actually creates about as many particles as exhaust fumes, at least for cars. Tire wear is directly affected by vehicle weight.
Won't electric trucks weigh a lot more than classic trucks?
Actually, I checked now, and Volvo trucks for example, weigh somewhere between 10 tons and 24 tons, but 24 tons for the long cabin, sleeper, a ton of extra features, etc.
So the starting point of the Tesla Semi, for example, is 27 tons according to the article. That puts it at double the average Volvo.
And the worst part for the wire tear (and I think road tear), apparently it scales to the POWER OF 4 (!!!).
Now, trucks also have cargo, so I guess electric trucks will carry less cargo and then we're back at the same values?
> I've discovered recently that tire wear actually creates about as many particles as exhaust fumes, at least for cars. Tire wear is directly affected by vehicle weight.
Even better: in terms of particulates, tire and brake wear creates much more nowadays thanks to particulate filters on exhausts.
That being said local air quality measurements generally don't follow. The air around highways has an increased amount of PMs, but not by a significant amount.
The main difference in favour of EVs is the NOx emissions - diesel trucks produce a lot of that.
Internal combustion cars do filter a lot of the ambient air already - a 2.0l engine at 2500RPM filters 150m3 of air per hour - that's as much as a small air purifier. It's just that it takes all this clean air and uses it for combustion, thus putting in more dirt than it filtered out.
Audi Urban Purifier's turns autos into Roombas. Neat.
Also, I'm wondering about tires which pollute less. Both in their production and usage.
To reduce particulates during use, I'm guessing tires will need to be tougher, less grippy. So might require better active suspension and braking systems to maintain current comfort and safety standards.
Electric vehicles definitely help with particulates from braking. I don't see why they couldn't do active electric braking if required, as apposed to just regeneration.
I imagine most American states have their own limits on axle weight as in Europe. In the UK 44t is the heaviest you can run without additional permitting etc.
It will just be an additional constraint, there are lots of loads which are limited by cubic volume rather than weight. However, it wouldn't work well for say bulk tippers which are almost always at their weight limits (and transporting lots of low value products).
I'm not sure about the braking argument. Trucks spend most of their time cruising along. They also have exhaust brakes and retarders to avoid using the service brakes on hills for example.
Assuming that trucks are weighing the same due to cargo weight (and, usually, you're either space or weight limited... usually both if possible), then tire wear should be roughly the same. It'll be a little more since there is a small allocation (2000 lbs?) extra for electric semis, but not enormously so. The big difference though, is if much of the brake particulates are eliminated thanks to regen braking. That could easily outweigh the particulate addition of the small weight factor.
Also, from a pollution argument, this assumes that you have trucks that are all compliant and healthy. With EVs, there is no opportunity for a truck to have its emission control fail or just are grandfathered in due to age. There's PLENTY of semi trucks I see around where I live that seem to belch black smoke when they accelerate. Replace those with EVs (which, the value proposition would make itself for short-haul diesels should make itself) and you have a noticeably cleaner city.
That isn't even accounting for trucks that idle for long periods of time. When talking about local construction jobs, I've seen rows of semis idling downtown waiting for their turn to pick up rubble or deliver materials.
> I've discovered recently that tire wear actually creates about as many particles as exhaust fumes,
> And the worst part for the wire tear (and I think road tear), apparently it scales to the POWER OF 4 (!!!).
That's very interesting. I'm a default sceptic, but would love to learn more, because if true, that could nullify a lot of the local air arguments. Do you have any sources for these?
Our local high school already has electric school busses! They look exactly like the traditional American school bus, but with a small green stripe, which was surprising, given how many passenger EVs look futuristic.
The school parking lot has solar panels over it, so I assume it charges at school.
