So what do members think of the Tesla Electric Artic vehicles shown today, it had to come I suppose, rather dull looking machines though! Franky.
Frankydobo:
So what do members think of the Tesla Electric Artic vehicles shown today, it had to come I suppose, rather dull looking machines though! Franky.
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Well IMHO I believe all this “excitement” about going Electric is a load of un-achievable Bollox because there isn’t going to be enough generating capacity for domestic and business use in coming years never mind powering vehicles ! So how many more power stations will be needed to power all these electric cars and commercials ? Wind farms are OK but if it blows too hard they are switched off or if it isn’t blowing they are U/S. It’s pie in the sky as far as I can see, well in our lifetime anyway 
Cheers Bewick. PS “CF” will no doubt put us straight in the fullness of time !
Bewick:
Frankydobo:
So what do members think of the Tesla Electric Artic vehicles shown today, it had to come I suppose, rather dull looking machines though! Franky.
0Well IMHO I believe all this “excitement” about going Electric is a load of un-achievable Bollox because there isn’t going to be enough generating capacity for domestic and business use in coming years never mind powering vehicles ! So how many more power stations will be needed to power all these electric cars and commercials ? Wind farms are OK but if it blows too hard they are switched off or if it isn’t blowing they are U/S. It’s pie in the sky as far as I can see, well in our lifetime anyway
Hi Dennis,
the videos I’ve seen say that when empty,a class 8 semi or to us in the uk an artic,can accelerate from 0 - 60 mph in 5 seconds and loaded to 80,000 lbs,around 40 tonnes it can accelerate from 0-60 mph in 20 seconds and have a range of 500 miles on a single charge.even at full weight it can maintain top speed up the steepest climbs in mountainous terrain.There has been a tremendous leap forward in battery technology the past 10 years,who would ever have thought we’d be using battery powered tools to fit truck wheel nuts? Personally with the way technology is now,a big part of me thinks this TESLA artic could be a real game changer? interestingly though,regarding the TESLA arctic,i can’t seem to find out how much an actual truck is going to cost? I would imagine their price would reflect the owner potentially saving thousands per month on their diesel bill.
regards Andrew.
Ha ha no doubt Dennis, we await his deliberations! They actually gave a date of 2019 for putting it into production, however many critics are saying Tesla have history of not meeting projected target dates or production numbers. Even electric saloon cars in this country haven’t exactly broke sales records, we’ll not hold our breaths on this venture either I suspect. Franky.
Just what the computa generation H.G.V(L.G.V.) driver need plug and play, 
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early winter morning station road Wallsend top end how many dead milk floats could you spot 
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get the good old transit to tow them back. 
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Bewick:
PS “CF” will no doubt put us straight in the fullness of time !
Makes as much sense to me as someone ripping out their gas fired domestic heating boiler and replacing it with an electric one. 
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=149674&start=90#p2400053
I can see electric power being the future but not with the vehicle being recharged. It has to be a battery swap like with fork-lifts at RDCs. The fuel station of the future won’t be serving petrol and diesel but will be swapping a standard sized vehicle battery. If the battery is underslung on the bottom of the vehicle, then it would pull over a pit and the whole swap could be done with robots in seconds. The driver would swipe his credit card and carry on while the dead battery would be conveyed to an underground charging and storage room. A stock of charged battteries would be lined up ready for the next customer. The battery industry has a history of conforming to standard sizes; so I’m sure one size for vehicles could easily be agreed. Larger vehicles would need more power but with their greater dimensions they could have multiple batteries, all slung underneath. Artics could even carry batteries on the underside of the trailer to give a greater range and more horse-power. A computer would calculate when a battery[or batteries] would need changing and GPS would route the vehicle to the nearest changing station.
Just think, no more tankers. All the power would be distributed by the National Grid. No more diesel smelling hands after re-fueling. I envisage a vehicle battery would be about 6 foot x 4 foot in size and stand about 1 foot high, weighing just under a ton and sitting under the vehicle; so nobody would nick your fuel either.
The BBC News reporters are not that enthusiastic about the Tesla Electric Articulated Lorry,and I heard a BBC Radio 5 Live News report say the average price of a diesel artic is around £84,000 compared to the £200,000 for the price of one of these new Tesla electric lorries.And here is an
excerpt from a BBC news report on the BBC website about the Tesla electric articulated lorry:-
'Competitive market
With Tesla Semi, Mr Musk enters a competitive, demanding market. There are an estimated 3.5 million truck drivers in the US, the vast majority of whom drive diesel-powered engines. Tesla will not be able to compete on diesel’s range, and battery specialists doubt Tesla can produce a powerful enough battery at a reasonable price.
“A 300-mile-capable battery pack costs about $200,000,” a Carnegie Mellon study concluded.
“Which is much higher than a diesel-powered semi-truck, which costs about $120,000, on average, for the entire vehicle.”
Tesla’s electric truckImage copyright Tesla
Mr Musk said the Tesla Semi would be able to travel 643km (400 miles) after 30 minutes of charge at one of Tesla’s new mega-chargers.
The cost?
As for cost, the company said that per mile the Tesla Semi would work out cheaper than a diesel equivalent when fuel and other maintenance is taken into consideration - but did not share the cost of an individual truck.
The Diesel Technology Forum, a non-profit trade group that promotes the use of diesel, said Tesla’s announcement needed to be "evaluated in the context of reality”.
"Diesel is the most energy efficient internal combustion engine,” Allen Schaeffer, the forum’s executive director.
"It has achieved dominance as the technology of choice in the trucking industry over many decades and challenges from many other fuel types.
“Still, today, diesel offers a unique combination of unmatched features: proven fuel efficiency, economical operation, power, reliability, durability, availability, easy access to fuelling and service facilities, and now near-zero emissions performance.”
As well as coming up against diesel incumbents, Tesla also faces other electric rivals. Concept electric big rigs have been unveiled by Daimler, Volkswagen and ■■■■■■■ - though all fall short on range, and none are currently on the roads.
Where Tesla believes it can bring an added advantage is with on-board safety and comfort.
A statement from Tesla boasted that “jackknifing is prevented due to the Semi’s onboard sensors that detect instability and react with positive or negative torque to each wheel while independently actuating all brakes".
"The surround cameras aid object detection and minimise blind spots, automatically alerting the driver to safety hazards and obstacles.
"With Enhanced Autopilot, the Tesla Semi features Automatic Emergency Braking, Automatic Lane Keeping and Lane Departure Warning.”
Autopilot is Tesla’s autonomous driving function that offers several self-driving features, most importantly guiding the vehicle to stay within the lines on the road, and slowing down in keeping with traffic up ahead.’
Hybrid diesel-electric,or even petrol-electric,lorries and other motor vehicle types are the way to go for the foreseeable future - many hybrid electric cars and buses are now in service. Battery electric is not practable enough for lorries and buses - battery electric vehicles have high battery weights,limited range,they are expensive and cannot compete with hybrid electric road vehicles.
I heard years since that conventional internal combustion engines can be modified to run on hydrogen: I’ve just found a Wikipedia article:-
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_ … ne_vehicle
Just before I finish this post:Does anybody know what provides the heating for the heaters in battery electric cars? The vehicle’s power battery? Or an
auxillary battery? There must be a considerable power drain from these batteries powering heating elements. That’s another disadvantage with battery electric vehicles - hybrid vehicles get their heating from their petrol and diesel engines 
PETE ALLARD-MORGAN:
Just before I finish this post:Does anybody know what provides the heating for the heaters in battery electric cars? The vehicle’s power battery? Or an
auxillary battery? There must be a considerable power drain from these batteries powering heating elements. That’s another disadvantage with battery electric vehicles - hybrid vehicles get their heating from their petrol and diesel engines
Early versions of e.g. the Nissan Leaf did use simple electric heater elements, which did indeed significantly drain the traction batteries, but most now use heat pump technology which is much less draining on the batteries.
Sent from my Hudl 2 using Tapatalk
Aye things are moving on electric wise.
All I wanted was two wipers and a spot light on me AEC MK3 and 5…
As daft as it sounds I used to find the diesel engine noise a pleasant background as I drove. I would miss that in an electric.
A couple of points to add. Firstly I saw my first Tesla car on the road the other day, so not that common yet. I read that the battery for a family sized Tesla car weighs about 600 kg (12 cwt in old imperial weights), so what is the battery for a truck going to weigh? And secondly, there has been no response whatsoever from any of the major oil companies to the so called electric car revolution. These massive and powerful companies have most to lose if electric car and trucks assume prominence, but their silence on the subject is strange. Do they know something that we don’t?
gingerfold:
A couple of points to add. Firstly I saw my first Tesla car on the road the other day, so not that common yet. I read that the battery for a family sized Tesla car weighs about 600 kg (12 cwt in old imperial weights), so what is the battery for a truck going to weigh?
A 238 kwh battery also costs around $20,000 and costs around 15p per kwh to charge even at present untaxed domestic electric prices. Remind us what the energy content and cost of a full truck tank of diesel is including the price of the tank and road fuel taxes. 
Does anybody remember any commercial vehicle with centre line steering being a success, cant see any conservative american hauliers falling over themselves for this one either
Tony
Bewick:
Frankydobo:
So what do members think of the Tesla Electric Artic vehicles shown today, it had to come I suppose, rather dull looking machines though! Franky.
0Well IMHO I believe all this “excitement” about going Electric is a load of un-achievable Bollox because there isn’t going to be enough generating capacity for domestic and business use in coming years never mind powering vehicles ! So how many more power stations will be needed to power all these electric cars and commercials ? Wind farms are OK but if it blows too hard they are switched off or if it isn’t blowing they are U/S. It’s pie in the sky as far as I can see, well in our lifetime anyway
While agreeing that we still have a really long way to go before electric technology out-performs the old faithful internal combustion power plant, it strikes me that broadly similar remarks would surely have been made when Otto and Diesel were struggling to develop their new fangled ideas. Batteries will eventually be made lighter with charges lasting longer and the “interested parties” will persuade the majority of us of the benefits of electric traction. The only question is, “When” not “If”.
So far, by all, accounts, Tesla cars have lived up all the hype, or even surpassed it. The only exception is the inability to build Tesla Model 3’s in anything like the intended numbers since its July launch. So there’s every reason to believe the semi-truck could live up to Tesla’s performance and range claims.
Electric vehicles, broadly speaking, consume the same amount of energy as would be used to refine the fuel to drive an equivalent petrol or diesel vehicle a similar distance. So little or no net increase in electricity demand. As more and more of our electricity comes from renewable sources, electric vehicles will be genuinely ‘green’ and sustainable.
I think a lot of trucking fleets in USA and Canada will test the water by buying one Tesla truck to run in comparison with their diesels. That alone would account for substantial sales. It doesn’t look like it could couple to a max-lenghth trailer and be within British length limit, so I doubt if many would be sold here. I guess the big market for electric trucks is medium distance and distribution vehicles, so if Tesla can crack the long-haul sector with the semi, the rest should be easy. Well, not easy, but you know what I mean!
And as for the styling - it will have other truck manufacturers reaching for their sketchpads!
Every once in while this topic about full electric cars comes up, now swiftly going into the direction of lorries.
Bit of a history lesson, back in 1900 some bloke going by the name of Ferdinand Porsche already invented a fully electric powered car, more then 100 years on, there’s still no substitute for the combustion engine whether that engine works on diesel or petrol.
So is this going to be the furture? Don’t reckon so, I can see it happen for short distance work, but not for long distance work.
Everyone who thinks that this is the future (most of the time it seems to be left wing nutters, Greenpeace ■■■■■■■■ tree huggers and ■■■■■■■ politicians who normally already talking out of their arses…), time to wake up! It’s never going to be a serious substitute and never will be, I would put my money on the hydrogen combustion engine.
Caffeine:
Electric vehicles, broadly speaking, consume the same amount of energy as would be used to refine the fuel to drive an equivalent petrol or diesel vehicle a similar distance. So little or no net increase in electricity demand. As more and more of our electricity comes from renewable sources, electric vehicles will be genuinely ‘green’ and sustainable.
Firstly the total ‘energy’ use of a refinery to refine one gallon of fuel isn’t the same thing as total ‘electricity’ use.
While the fact is that gallon of fuel contains a lot more energy than the energy used to produce it.The end result being a lower retail unit price than electricity.IE around 10p per kwh at 9 mpg including road fuel taxation.That fuel consumption/cost figure also proving the lie that a truck supposedly only needs 2 kwh per mile. 
While we all know that this is all about creating a captive market for the expensive dangerous nuclear generation industry.While it’s equally obvious that they aren’t going to cap the oil/gas fields or shut down oil refining because that would mean the end of the civil aviation industry for just one example.Not to mention economic suicide for oil producers and the end of all oil and gas revenues including the UK’s.
On that note at best the whole thing is a scam to make the UK motorist dependent on expensive nuclear electricity and middle men EV suppliers.While our own oil is exported to be used elsewhere and by the aviation and chemicals industries.All dressed up under the bs ‘Green’ agenda.A bit like Nicola bleedin Sturgeon shouting about CO2 and climate change on one hand while shouting about wanting Scotland’s share of North Sea oil revenues and Scottish oil industry development on the other. 
pv83:
I would put my money on the hydrogen combustion engine.
No surprise that the pro EV agenda and fan boys conveniently seem to completely over look the option of alternative fuelled ICE technology as if it doesn’t exist.