Forget the Volt, Make Way for Electric Trucks

Alternative industries will thrive as the oil prices go up. Only thing uncertain is the reliability and proven success. I wonder if there will be a possible BAILOUT? for this one similar to A123 and Solyndra should the company go belly up.

When you press the accelerator of a Smith truck, it moves forward briskly, smoothly and in eerie quiet.There are no tailpipe emissions, because there is no tailpipe, and no tank for gas or diesel. Smith trucks are powered by batteries—the same technology, basically, that General Motors, Toyota and a handful of start-up companies are struggling to bring to a mass market in automobiles. When and if they get there, they will find—if Smith CEO Bryan Hansel is correct—a fleet of hundreds of thousands of electric trucks already on the road.

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Makes sense, maybe this will drive electric vehicles forwards (pardon the pun) to the point of reaching critical mass for the mass consumer.

Pretty cool for short delivery runs, but electric vehicles will not as big as people may assume in the future. What if I wanted to tow a trailer a couple hundred miles, or go camping or hunting? Electric vehicles only make sense in the cities, maybe hydrogen fuel cells would be a better way to go?

what is the range and weight capacity of these trucks? I really can't see a real service truck be able to be electric and handle the mileage and weight these trucks normally haul in a given day.

It's a great idea but the main problem for this, and all electric vehicles for that matter, is the batteries. They are expensive to produce and don't last nearly long enough for the price. It was touched on an episode of Top Gear though...

Instead of hauling around all these lbs of batteries why don't we have wireless charging through the roadway? We already have wireless charging for cell phones. It would obviously take vision and technological improvements to charge/power cars moving down the road at 60 mph, but I think it can be done. I feel it's the only real viable electric cars.

You start in the big cities first, laying down the necessary equipment when resurfacing/repairing roads and after enough investment has taken place the market can take over. Stopping for 5 min to gas up can be a pain but worse is having to charge for 8-12 hours for a "full tank." If you could charge your car while driving it, well that would be a no-brainer to me.

Then you just have to make electricity more efficiently and cleaner than our current coal fueled electric grid.

Alternatively we could just add battery stations to the fuel station network ( take a few minutes to swap out as i understand)or combine them and as those are a rather large component of the sticker price of electric cars never having to buy them will make them more affordable. This would immediately allow for long distance travel and be a practical way to enforce the 'frequent' stops that will also bring down road deaths. Also this network need not be very large as the vast majority of people can today make their daily commute on a single charge of the two door or smaller sized cars... For countries in the northern hemisphere ( winter ice issues) one generally needs sedan sizes anyways so the range issue becomes less significant with larger battery packs as standard.

IF the governments of the world subsidised the electric car industry in the same way as they until very recently supported the IC car industry we would likely all be driving one already.

Stellar

Or we could go with a hybrid Truck with a twist. It would be a normal truck with gas for city roads but on the highway it would tap into power like trolleys do and run on electricity. No need for expensive batteries. The heavy truck usage tax could pay for the installation of the line on highways, most probably only one lane so the trucks use that one. I think the cost vs the fuel savings would be substantial and it would still allow for trucks that can haul good loads. Would be a very good thing for interstate trucking as most of those miles driven are highway.

What do you think? There has got to be someway to transmit the electricity to a vehicle rather than use batteries with limited range, power and lifespan.

Originally posted by StellarX
Alternatively we could just add battery stations to the fuel station network ( take a few minutes to swap out as i understand)or combine them and as those are a rather large component of the sticker price of electric cars never having to buy them will make them more affordable.

You just made me think of something... what they need is some kind of easily replaceable large battery, that you just exchange for a pre-charged one. Kind of like you do with propane tanks.

No need for charging stations!

reply to post by Cyprex


It's a nice thought but you would have to standardize all the batteries for all the trucks.....that isn't going to happen. Plus you still have the very ungreen disposal problem of the batteries eventually.

Originally posted by Cyprex
You just made me think of something... what they need is some kind of easily replaceable large battery, that you just exchange for a pre-charged one. Kind of like you do with propane tanks.

No need for charging stations!

Scary that i had to make you think of it as that is what i attempted to say! The battery stations would basically remove your electric cars battery(s) and put a recharged one in it's place. They would then proceed to use the 'best&most efficient' methods to recharge it so that another customer may be able to use the same one only a short time later. This allows for the best possible maintenance of batteries and shifts the burden of maintaining and producing high quality batteries onto the industry and away from consumers who in most industries end up having to pay for the shortcoming and lack of investment of those making the profits!

So yes, i shall keep on working on my communication&writing skills...

Stellar

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