First drop in Stevenage today, noticed a new charging station just off the A1. Looks like a combined creation between Tesla and Gridserve. From the glance it looked like there was a 2 story ‘waiting lounge’, after a google it looks to include a costa and have an Amazon Fresh shop coming.
One of the google reviews had this video clip.
No truck sized provision though, that I can see.
Yeah, those gridserve hubs are proper fancy pants but extremely expensive, They have lots of high powered chargers which is a good thing but if Tesla are set-up there or nearby I can see everybody using the Tesla superchargers as they’re way cheaper than Gridserve.
Almost all brands of BEV can charge on the Tesla network, you just have to download their phone app & open an account with them.
One thing I haven’t found out yet though is, do you have to be on i-phone as their cars are set up for Apple. Not sure about android, I’ll have to look it up.
It’s still poor showing for HGV charging infrastructure though, I hope they get the right people on board to open land up & to design as many drivethrough charging bays as possible because having to drop your trailer to get on a charging post would get old real quick.
I do wonder if that will be needed in the future though?
It seems to me more and more that truck use is going to hubs and trailer swops everywhere, with tractor units not venturing more than a few hours away from their base. More large companies, rather than smaller single depot outfits. It isn’t there yet, but if that trend increases will units need to charge away from home, or at a least company owned, base?
Yeah you could well be right, I’ve read that more freight will be going onto railways & they’re opening more rail hubs up around the country.
If that’s the case then the electric trucks would be able to deliver in that particular rail hub area & get back without needing to recharge.
From what I can see, only some of the Tesla chargers accept all brands, case in point I am in a foggy Membury on the M4, there are 7 Teslas on the 8 chargers and one free. Zapmap suggests that if I want a Tesla charger that would accept all brands I would need to go to Reading or Bristol.
I guess they do this to look after their customers first, but in locations next to other providers, perhaps there are also contractual factors too.
Tesla should have had all their superchargers changed to accept tap & go payments as it’s law now in the UK, but from what I read very few have been enabled. Their superchargers are really made for their own EVs to charge from the n/s/r & a lot of other brands have trouble with that as the charging cable isn’t long enough to reach to other brands charging ports in various positions on the car.
Some of their charging cables have been changed for longer charging cables especially at busy sites because of other EV brands taking up two bays to get the shorter cables to reach their port.
10t payload and 50p + per kWh fuel costs says it all.
I’m surprised you didn’t get a bite by mentioning trains!
New Mercedes e-Actros 600 battery pack is guaranteed for 1.2 million kms/ 745000 miles.
New e-Trucks at the truck show from Scania, MAN, Tesla Semi, Nikola, IVECO, Renault, VOLVO, DAF.
‘Rob the wet blanket’ here …
Come to cool down and douse a couple of guys on here getting erections watching all that cack.
Yeah they look the part, but the main reason for changing any concept or format is to gain improvements over the old ones…in anything, and any walk of life, since the progress route started since flint axes.
With me so far?
So,… bearing that in mind, (and ignoring all the environment b/s propaganda for a minute)
There is a f in big Elephant in the kitchen here.
So 2 choice answer.
Ya ready?..
…Are these ‘fantastic new inventions’ going to be even ‘as good’ as the old standard and proven type truck, let alone better?
Or is it just another more bigger and sophisticated scale version of the ‘mirrors to cameras’ joke…
ie…Purely ‘tech for tech’s sake’’ latterly proving to be vastly inferior to the replacement …(despite the ott pseudo enthusiasm by supporters.)
I’ll beat you to the…
‘‘We would still be using horse and carts’’ type cracks to save you the bother.
Sorry I just aint the type of guy who gets too excited too easily…but instead my feet are firmly on the deck.
Oh yeah I’m excited for these new beasties & I’m not driving HGV anymore. There’s your mistake of ignoring the environmental mandates, the men in suits in Brusells where we get our orders from regards emissions standards are adament the old fossil fuel ways are going the way of the dodo by 2040.
Ten years has passed since the industry knew this day was coming & not done very much in the way of progress. 15 years to go leaves very little time to get all the ducks in a row, but having said that the change in batterty technology by 2040 will make these e-trucks of today look very dated & inefficient.
The new emission data has just been announced from 2023 & it’s gone up 2% which hasn’t gone down well with the emission police, so expect more stick than carrot next year.
A lot of legacy autos aren’t doing too well either with emission mandates & next week brings in stiffer limits on the 1st January, Ford, VW, Suzuki, & some Stellantis brands off the top of my head are looking at a €16billion hit, Ouch.
As for are they better than the diesel engines, I would like to think so in so many ways, but they’re not there just yet.
I spent 30+ years driving them & loved them, but I’d love to have the chance to drive one of the new e-trucks just to experience the smooth powerful torque of them compared to the DAF 2800’s I drove for quite a while.
Sorry mate for my relative impotence in the trouser dept on this. 
I just cant share your wide eyed enthusiasm.
I’ve said countless times I never believe any god dam effin thing I am told by any authoriative body, and the fact that the ‘men in suits’ as you refer to them are so on board with all this sh,.makes me 10 x as sceptic.
Please no Franglais style links of official lines stats or figures to convince me,.as that type of hidden agenda type crap makes me even worse.
No I do not know better than so called 'experts, it’s just that I don’t trust them in these type of scenarios where an idea is attempted to be sold to me…and a bit too enthusiastically to add…a la covid in fact
Fact is diesel engines have never been more environmentally friendly.
In terms of emissions,… ok so…
If emmisions were analogised into a field of grass, in the old days of Gardner engined ERFs and Atkis, that field was wild unkempt overgrown wasteland type grass running amok.
With todays emissions, (or distinct lack of them), that self same field is now a competition standard crown bowling green surface
So the ‘dangerous emissions’ grass is short enough for anybody…except ‘men in suits’ and bureaucrats though it would seem.
A strong smell of bovine excrement is in the air, and a loud ringing noise of alarm bells.
And that’s where I am…ever cynical, or ever streetwise …you decide 
@robroy I like your analogy of a paddock, my issue is that EVs, be they light or heavy vehicles are by no means emission free. Simply because no emissions are visible from the vehicle does not mean the remote (power stations) source of fuel is not producing emissions.
In my country there are no privately owned power stations. When most vehicles are EV, with a single source of fuel, a monopoly can charge whatever it pleases. This will also impact on household, manufacturing and commercial consumption.
Yep, seems the first world determined to commit suicide. Here we have given up so many industries and jobs in the quest to be the most forward thinking and modern nation in the world.
We used to refine our own fuel, now gone. We had a manufacturing industry that gave us independence, now gone. We used to produce enough food to export the excess. Now we import much of our food.
We will end up as nation of baristas, with ninety percent of the population unable to afford a cup of coffee.
The Lefty Pomm press are putting out articles over here from your lot, suggesting you’re all getting EV utes next year…
Probably are, but then again most people who drive four wheel drive cars with big mud terrain tyres and all the off road accoutrements only leave the bitumen when they cross the footpath, to access the driveway. Posers!
And just look who the ‘man in charge’ is, who is going to be responsible for it.
This imbecile.
Could have been worse, it could easily have been the other one…our future PM.
Both look like good candidates for parts in the next Muppet movie.
(Btw that sniper is way off aim with his red dot…somebody tell him quick ffs.
All we can hope for with Milliband is that the man whose name and reputation is synonimous with faliure, carries on that way.…or that he is next on that sniper’s list.
The only man responsible for it was Bo-Jo, I’ve mentioned this before that it had nowt to do with Milliband, All this happened on the Tories watch, Not Labours, Look it up.
As for the UK being left in the hinterland, only the money grubbing globalist are to blame for this fiasco with sourcing our industries out to oversea’s cheap labour economies, Re-shoring isn’t going to happen any time soon now that the septics have schemed the EU/UK out of the cheap energy from Russia that made us competitive.
We’d be better off going cap in hand & ask to join BRICS.
you missed out the real reason companies want this crap… tax breaks…
they get an incentive for buying them. then they get to claim the depreciation against their tax bill. nothing depreciates faster than an electric vehicle. one example is 40k in 2 years.
the other scam not so much with lorries but cars is you buy a fleet with all the tax benefits that go with that for the company (not the workers) then flog them to the workers on salary sacrifice so they have all the cost of running and maintaining them and th depreciation and the company gets all the benefits.
