Elon Musk reveals new Tesla Semi Truck

[buzz]

Interesting new vehicle, is this where the industry is going in the future?

[15444]

Can't stand listening to him talk. Stumbles and pauses just like Boy Wonder. Miss Steve Jobs - at least he could present a product.

Tesla is bleeding over $1-2 billion every 3 months and has little to show for it. Business world (and frustrated buyers) are writing the company off fast.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

So what is revolutionary about this technology? Is it not just existing technology supersized into a truck? Just more cell phone batteries put together? Has Tesla improved battery technology, or just tried to corner the market on existing battery technology?

[binthere]

Yes this revolutionary. Giant Hasbro race car technology. Now let old musky pay back the billions of taxpayer dollars and get the ball rolling. Oh wait he's aquired around 13 billion personal wealth and not one happy customer to receive product.

[the big wheel]

What happens at minus 40?

[bucket]

And what about reduced payloads due to battery weight?

[Oliver88]

An investment panel discussed this on CNBC.
The biggest issue is the batteries weight reduces the allowable payload.
Second largest issue CNBC said it would need to be recharged too often. Likely would be affected based on temperatures and how much stopping/starting, slopes, slippage, etc.

Musk requires government subsidies to survive.

[Oliver88]

Note in video they list 7cents /kWh for the cost to charge this?
(Does this mean the truck will indirectly be powered by a cheap, reliable source of power....this rules out wind power that he shows in video.)

They also list cost in $/mile but don't list cost based on weight due to the reduced payload vs a diesel truck?

He seems to cherry pick his data too much.

[Wheatking]

Though not in this configuration, but a truck like this would be decent on the farm. Very rarely I drive over 300 miles in a day. Even in days when I'm trucking from 7-7 to the elevator, it would be tough to get 300 miles in a day. This is not at all practical for a commercial trucker, but the short haul guy maybe. I wonder how it works in our cold weather

[chuckChuck]

https://www.trucks.com/2017/10/12/toyota-hydrogen-fuel-cell-electric-truck-hits-road/

Toyota’s Heavy-Duty Fuel Cell Truck Finally Hits the Road
John O'Dell
October 12, 2017
Electric Vehicles, Trucking Technology

Toyota’s long-awaited hydrogen fuel cell electric truck is finally hitting the road, almost six months after the company first unveiled the clean and quiet Class 8 drayage truck.

The custom-built prototype will haul imported Toyota parts from the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to warehousing and distribution operations in Southern California, some as many as 100 miles away. The program, which Toyota is calling “Project Portal,” will run indefinitely starting Oct. 23.

The test is designed to develop operating cost and reliability data to support Toyota’s contention that fuel cell electric trucks are an economically feasible alternative to both standard diesel drayage trucks and the new crop of battery-electric trucks just entering the market.

“We are excited to start the world’s first test of a heavy-duty fuel cell truck,” said Andrew Lund, Toyota’s chief engineer on the project. He told Trucks.com that Toyota has quietly been testing the truck under varying load conditions around the ports since August and will be putting it into real commercial-duty operation later this month. The truck will be operated by Toyota drivers working through port-based drayage company Southern Counties Express.

Testing at Toyota’s facility in Arizona and at the ports since the truck’s April unveiling has led to “some software updates” and the addition of supplementary air ducts to increase airflow for cooling the under-hood electronics, said Takehito Yokoo, Toyota North America’s senior executive engineer for fuel cell development.

Fuel cell vehicles are powered by electric motors but don’t need bulky, heavy battery packs to store the energy. Instead, they make their own power by pulling electrons from compressed hydrogen in a process that takes place in a fairly compact fuel cell stack. There’s no combustion and no tailpipe emissions, although the present process for producing fuel quality compressed hydrogen is not emissions-free.

The technology isn’t limited to trucks. It debuted in modern passenger vehicles several years ago and now Toyota, Honda and Hyundai have passenger cars in the California market that use fuel cell electric propulsion systems.

Although fuel cell technology’s feasibility hasn’t yet been demonstrated, many analysts believe hydrogen fuel cell and battery-electric systems – along with hybrids that combine electric drive with cleaner internal combustion engines – will begin to dominate in short-haul commercial trucking applications. The same theory holds true for passenger vehicles, especially as the transportation industry moves away from fossil fuels under tightening emissions regulations and global uncertainty around fossil fuel price and availability.

“This has been a sea-change year in commercial trucking,” said Bill Van Amburg, executive vice president of CalStart, a Pasadena-based clean transportation technologies coalition.

“It’s not just a lot of innovators doing things,” Van Amburg told Trucks.com.
Project Portal Toyota fuel cell truck angle side

Toyota's hydrogen fuel cell electric truck. (Photo: Toyota)

Major suppliers as well as engine and truck manufacturers are “starting to turn the switch,” he said. “Electrification is starting to take off in some segments, especially transit buses.”

Van Amburg expects to see an influx of medium-duty products in the near term, followed by activity in the heavy-duty segment in the mid-term.

The causes, he said, include clean air regulations and potential bans on combustion engines in Europe as well as China – the world’s largest car and truck market. In the U.S., states such as California have the ability to adopt stricter standards than the federal government.

And while diesel and gasoline prices remain relatively low in the U.S., the long-term price stability and availability of fossil fuels for transportation remains a concern.

“Fossil fuels are a huge balance of trade issue in China, India and Japan, which have no domestic oil production,” Van Amburg said.

Toyota and other companies that are developing battery- and fuel cell electric trucks believe they are leading a wholesale transformation of the industry. They also argue that in addition to air quality improvement and fuel stability, electric propulsion systems can bring significant long-term operating savings to trucking fleet operators.

In addition to Toyota, propulsion systems developer U.S. Hybrid and truck maker Kenworth have said they will be developing hydrogen fuel cell electric systems for Class 8 drayage trucks.

Nikola Motor is developing a fuel cell powered Class 8 long-haul tractor-trailer combo that will be able to refuel at a national network of Nikola-built hydrogen stations. Bosch, a major global components supplier, is developing an electric-drive axle system for the Nikola truck and has a large and growing electrification unit.

General Motors, one of the world’s biggest car and truck producers, recently unveiled a heavy-duty fuel cell truck concept and has said that hydrogen is a key part of its future.

Additionally, parcel delivery giant UPS is deploying 17 custom-built fuel cell electric Class 6 delivery vans in select markets throughout its fleet over the coming year to capture operating cost and reliability information.
Toyota Project portal hydrogen fuel cell truck

Toyota's hydrogen fuel cell electric truck. (Photo: Toyota)

On the battery-electric front, Tesla plans to unveil a Tesla Class 8 electric tractor – likely for drayage use – on November 16. The Tesla truck is slated for 2020 production. The launch of the electric semi has been delayed twice now as Tesla struggles with production issues for its new Model 3 electric sedan.

Others with trucks already in the market or under development include Chinese manufacturer BYD, a major electric truck and bus maker partly owned by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway; diesel engine giant Cummins Inc., which is developing its own electric powertrain; and Kansas City’s Orange EV, a developer of heavy-duty electric tractors for port terminal work.

Wrightspeed, a California company, makes range-extended turbine-electric powertrains for the refuse truck industry; Texas-based Peterbilt showed a Class 8 electric refuse truck at an industry expo earlier this year; and Indiana’s Workhorse Group is developing the W15 electric pickup truck for fleet duty. It also has an electric delivery van in the competition for a U.S. Postal Service fleet replacement contract.

Others in the medium-duty class include Mitsubishi-Fuso, a unit of Daimler Trucks, which just launched the first factory-built line of electric work trucks with eCanter. Los Angeles-based Chanje Energy is a Chinese-backed startup with a Class 5 electric delivery van.

[chuckChuck]

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/09/nikola-motor-company-and-bosch-team-up-on-long-haul-fuel-cell-truck/
Nikola Motor Company and Bosch team up on long-haul fuel cell truck
A truck with up to 1,200 miles in range will run on Bosch’s eAxle platform.

Megan Geuss - 9/19/2017, 8:00 AM

Salt Lake City-based Nikola Motor Company and German auto components giant Bosch are teaming up to build the Nikola One and Nikola Two—a pair of hydrogen-electric, long-haul trucks that will compete with the handful of other low-emissions trucks and powertrains that have been announced in mid-2017.

The Nikola One truck isn’t a new development, but the startup’s partnership with Bosch is. Last December, Nikola Motor Company announced that it would build a hydrogen-electric truck that would be able to travel 1,200 miles on a tank of hydrogen and deliver 1,000 horsepower and 2,000 foot-pounds of torque. The company said at the time that its truck, deemed the Nikola One, would be market-ready by 2020.

Now, that market-ready date has been pushed back to 2021, but adding Bosch’s experience into the mix no doubt helps firm up Nikola Motor Company’s projections. According to a press release from the startup, the class 8 Nikola One and Nikola Two will now be built on Bosch’s eAxle—an integrated unit blending motor, power electronics, and transmission. Bosch's eAxle was only just announced this January.

The Nikola trucks will both pair hydrogen fuel cells with a 320kWh battery pack and offer a payload capacity of 65,000 pounds. That number demonstrates just how much bigger long-haul trucks need to be versus short-haul trucks—Daimler announced a new all-electric short haul truck last week, but its payload capacity will be about 7,000 pounds.

At the moment, Nikola Motor Company's primary competitor would be Cummins, the diesel truck engine maker that announced an all-electric powertrain capable of hauling 22 tons, or about 44,000 pounds, on a 140kWh battery pack for 100 miles. Cummins said the power train could be paired with an on-board diesel generator to triple the car's range.

Although battery-only trucks have a much shorter range than hydrogen-electric vehicles, both new technologies are hampered by a similar problem, that is, where to refuel/recharge. Back in December, Nikola Motor Company added that it would build 364 hydrogen fueling stations throughout North America starting in 2018.

The dual-motor design and the fuel cell system in the Nikola One and Two will also be developed with Bosch's help, with a view to maximizing the truck's range. The truck's controls and software will also be a product of the Nikola/Bosch partnership. Bosch is well familiar with vehicle software, too—notoriously it helped develop the software that Volkswagen diesel vehicles ran to cheat federal emissions tests.

But with fuel cell vehicles, the only emission is water, so it strains the imagination to think of a way to repeat such a stunt. At the moment, prices aren't available for the Nikola One or Two, but the company says the trucks will reflect "a competitive total cost of ownership" compared to traditional powertrains.

Megan Geuss

[TASFarms]

That fast of acceleration, pretty sure tires wouldn't last long

[blackpowder]

The future at this time appears to be electric. The how and the when are today not certain. Pretty sure I will never have to deal with it. Pretty sure I'm being asked to pay for it today though.
So many tax dollars and so few Musks to support.

[tmyrfield]

Here is a website with some very simple math calculations.
I will however point out that for a 2 mw charger that would be required to charge the batteries in 30 minutes would be equivalent to 40 typical farm 25 kva electrical services.

http://driving.ca/tesla/auto-news/news/motor-mouth-the-inconvenient-truth-about-teslas-truck

[Guest]

I will however point out that for a 2 mw charger that would be required to charge the batteries in 30 minutes would be equivalent to 40 typical farm 25 kva electrical services.



yea , that'll happen , real practical ,I'm sure truck stops would hop right to it ?? lol
and what about the poor old tired grid ? anyone with a brain ever think this bullshit out ?
maybe they can charge them from rainbows?
as someone said , cherry pick the data , and no one questions the sheep herders
just think of the govt money thats gone into this adventure .
good on toyota, though, i think?