Rough math on this: $5/gallon diesel with 5mpg = $1/mile fuel cost. 1.7kwh/mile * $0.1/kwh = $0.17/mile. $0.83/mile savings * 400 miles/day * 250 days a year = $83,000/year in fuel savings.

I suspect that charging infrastructure is going to be expensive, but cheap enough that if an operator has multiple trucks, the payback will be pretty fast and the low margins will incentive faster adoption for short haul trucking. Long haul is another beast entirely (don't hold your breath for that industry to come around before well into the 2030s), but short haul should eat this up!

Just in fuel savings over the life of a truck that pays for those whole truck. Not the difference, the entire cost of the truck. Margins in trucking are too tight to ignore that much money.

Getting charging in place is critical, but nobody in trucking can afford to ignore that.

There’s also potentially cheaper maintenance - no engine to keep running, and less brake usage.

That could add up. Companies will be looking at these even if they just buy one to use as a yard shunter at first.

If the economics are there it’ll take off like wildfire.

A little cheaper, but in the parts that are different between an EV and a ICE are very reliable. You miss oil changes, but most routine maintenance is still needed (though few people rotate their tires as often as they should)

Mostly brake maintenance! But that's rounding error. Most of the savings is fuel.

0.1$/kwhr? Superchargers now cost up to 0.5$/kwhr. These cost money to build.

https://electrek.co/2022/09/28/tesla-hikes-supercharger-pric...

That's in CA though - and at retail pricing. I suspect most customers will have captive chargers and will be running at industrial rates (so even less than $0.1/kwh).

It is pretty common for anybody with even the smallest fleet to own their own gas pump. Say a farmer with one tractor, or a flower shop with two vans.

In a world with gas stations on every corner, your argument would suggest this is foolish.

So perhaps the owners don't consider it a huge amount of capitol. Or perhaps they've found a reason or two.

But if I operated a distribution center where dozens of trucks were parked at my docks pretty much around the clock, I'd do a bit of napkin math. 1000 square meters of rooftop solar feeding giant batteries connected to 10 charging stations selling juice at $.25/kwh to trucks who are stuck here for the next hour regardless.

And I don't have to pay Exxon a penny and I wouldn't need a constant stream of tankers refilling underground tanks?

Hand me another napkin. How much battery do I need? How often would I have to replace the cables that reach from the dock to the cab? How much do those cables cost? Hmmm. Hand me another napkin...

> I don't spend huge amounts of capital for no reason, so why would a low-margin trucking company?

Setting aside the cost of diesel for a moment, trucking companies didn't build the entire gasoline infrastructure, either.

Whats we have today has been built over 100 years. How fast will that convert to ev Charging is an open question.

The nice thing about EVs is we aren't starting from scratch either.

Most distribution centers, factories, etc where trucks load/unload at docks already have 3-phase power from the utility. They may need a transformer and service upgrade or for really large fleets they may even purchase 480 or KV power but when you compare it to the fuel savings its a total no-brainer. If you can save $50-80k per truck per year vs diesel that savings makes the EV trucks free. $1m for electrical upgrades? Sold. Will utilities need to perform distribution upgrades? Yes, but not all at once. They will do the upgrades as demand rises just like they do today.

As many others have noted in this thread it all comes down to your routes and logistics. For local and short-haul where the trucks return to a home base they are an excellent fit. Even if you need 50% more trucks because some of them are always on the charger as I noted the fuel savings make the trucks free so it doesn't matter at all.

It remains to be seen what the maintenance burden is. If it resembles passenger cars in any way I'd expect maintenance costs to be much lower since more components can be permanently sealed with lifetime sealed electric motors so no belts, hoses, bearings that wear out because someone couldn't be bothered to grease them, etc. Some consumables like brakes should also last much much longer.

Short haul, for sure. Long haul the truckers are independent from the place where they deliver to, and so there will be some friction - will the warehouses install charging or - like today - will they expect truckers to take care of charging.

Part of this is how the law catches up. In some states only a utility can legally sell electricity which means billing for charging is weird.

What we have today followed adoption closely, and that existing infrastructure is ripe for adjusting as EVs become popular. Especially the larger truck/interstate stops, that have Starbucks, Subway, showers, etc.

They will have to build some electric infrastructure, the way most EV owners do. The best time to charge a short-haul truck is while it is waiting to be loaded or while it is parked overnight, and both of those will need the operator to own chargers.

Operator owning charger also means markedly cheaper rates. .36c vs .08c per kwh as a crappy anecdotal reference near me. in the north east.

The $$ savings may make installing the infrastructure in loading/storage bays worthwhile.

Europe has fairly different truck designs and already has some other (Chinese owned) companies in the market, but I couldn’t say if that’s the reason.