Semis are incredibly damaging to roads, they cause 1,400x more wear than cars! [1]
It seems that with current battery technology, electric semis' average weight is going to increase drastically, even if they remain within the allowable GVW limit. For example, a Model S weighs more than a Honda Pilot, due to the 1,200lb battery [2]! . Without the diesel tax, we're going to have to figure out another way to pay for road usage.
Right now semis are heavily subsidized by everyone else (They're certainly not paying 1,400x more in fuel tax). And I suppose it would be unfair to continue to subsidize diesel, and not electric. However, as our infrastructure decays we're going to have to figure this out.
The Tesla Model S weighs significantly less than most pickups and large SUVs on the road today. Tesla's heaviest, the Model X, is significantly lighter than the GMC Yukon, for example.
I don't see the logic in this argument. Electric vehicles are not going to destroy the roads.
While it's a far cry from 1,400x more in fuel tax, semis do get "punished" for their poor fuel mileage (paying more tax per mile driven) compared to a person in a Prius. In Iowa, the tax is 30.8 cents/gallon for gasoline and 32.5 cents/gallon for diesel. [1] At 53 mpg and 6 mpg, the tax cost per miles is 0.616 cents and 5.42 cents respectively. And of course electric vehicles avoid this tax entirely.
Applying the tax on a per-gallon basis is great for environmentalism, as it encourages higher fuel efficiency. Applying it by vehicle classification and cost/mile could eliminate the subsidization, but would be a huge pain to keep track of.
Semis don't pay more fuel tax per gallon but they pay significantly higher registration, and higher tolls on toll roads, and probably other taxes and fees depending on state. They also face substantial fines if they are caught overweight. Whether this approaches the cost of the road damage they cause I don't know, but they do also perform the useful function of moving goods from place to place.
Rhode Island recently added tolls to the main interstate targeting trucks passing through. If you need to pay for usage, charging for usage certainly seems reasonable.
Is the Model S/Pilot comparison useful here? Wouldn't most of the weight of a semi would be in the trailer? It doesn't seem intuitive to me that increasing the weight of the cab, even by several multiples, would meaningfully increases the weight of the semi.
Are the semis being subsidized, or the consumption habits of end consumers? Wear on the road network is just one of the externalities of trucking that is incompletely priced, but shipping companies aren't driving trucks around for their own amusement.
How do you compare the roadwear problem to the one of massive pollution caused by burning millions of gallons of petroleum every year to move these vehicles around?
I'm not sure a Model S is in the same category of vehicle as a Honda Pilot. What point are you trying to make?
Agreed that funding the roadways should be a topic of discussion (also because it's private contractors - often with connections to those authorizing public funds).
Whilst true this is also misleading in that road wear is not completely from trafficking, and so the 1400x just looks at the marginal difference. The proportion of wear accountable to your relatively fixed externalities (weather, water, utilities) depends on the type of road and the location. But say if 60% of the wear is due to weather and water, the 1400x factor comes across very misleading.
To put more simply - if you banned semis roads would not last 1400x longer, nowhere near in fact.
In Australia there is a tax on biodiesel (cooking oil) [1] for this reason, even if you source it yourself. I imagine a similar thing will be necessary for electric
> Right now semis are heavily subsidized by everyone else
Ok but its not like these guys are just joyriding around, they are providing a service to make sure that people get the things they need and food to eat
In winter climate regions an average everyday car with studded tires is very damaging to roads. In my town you will get a fine if you leave studded winter tires on into the spring.
This makes sense. Electric delivery trucks have been available for decades. Battery powered "milk floats" used to be big in the UK. UPS and the USPS may go for this. Both use their own semi-custom vehicles, and those vehicles spend much of their time stationary while the driver gets out and delivers.
UPS is already doing that, but not with these guys.[1] There are other electric van startups, but they have bullshit no-shipping-product startup sites.[2][3] The real player seems to be Damlier, which is electrifying the Mercedes line of vans.[3]
It's really a question of specific-use vs. general-use vehicles.
The German postal service was looking for a manufacturer to produce electric delivery vehicles for them. None of them fit their requirements, so they just made their own (https://www.streetscooter.eu/en/).
Electric locomotives have been available since 1879, built by none other than Werner von Siemens, and today the vast majority of trains are electric.
Of course since then we've spent trillions on building a road network that we charge truck drivers basically nothing for, we continue to spend billions yearly on repairing the vast damage "road trains" cause that again we basically charge the logistics companies nothing for, we have not increased taxes on fuel in decades for a shortfall of hundreds of billions of dollars, the use of fossil fuels has caused trillions of external costs that have not been accounted for. Thousands of lives lost due to the enormous kinetic energy required to move trucks and the inherent in their design visibility and movement constraints that surpass the ability of humans to safely maneuver them.
And all of this insanity has combined to make long distance truck transportation cheaper than the vastly more efficient (in any sense of the word) train. Electric trucks have their place: for last mile delivery, transport between plants in a manufacturing process. But they make about as much sense for long distance transport as their ICE brothers.
Another competitor, whose vans are already populating the streets, is Streetscooter [1]. But their marketing seems to be lacking in comparison to their American counterparts.
The photo of a single lithium-ion cell getting a tab spot-welded on by hand is worrisome. That is very-early-prototype stage kind of stuff. If they want to "beat Tesla to market" they should have a fully automated battery production line by now.
It looks more like a photo piece than anything else. I'm not sure why they chose to use that in the photo op, but I highly doubt they're creating their own batteries this way.
You dream of building an electric semi truck to beat Tesla to market? If that's in your range I don't think you're currently in the right field, whatever you're doing.
Tesla as a company is focused on building a manufacturing plant that is capable of producing Electric Semi Trucks. That's what they're working on. Electric Trucks is the product of the thing they're working on.
These guys are working on making Electric Trucks.
The more apt comparison is that these guys are competing with the robots that will go in Musk's factory.
[+] [-] ProfessorLayton|8 years ago|reply
It seems that with current battery technology, electric semis' average weight is going to increase drastically, even if they remain within the allowable GVW limit. For example, a Model S weighs more than a Honda Pilot, due to the 1,200lb battery [2]! . Without the diesel tax, we're going to have to figure out another way to pay for road usage.
Right now semis are heavily subsidized by everyone else (They're certainly not paying 1,400x more in fuel tax). And I suppose it would be unfair to continue to subsidize diesel, and not electric. However, as our infrastructure decays we're going to have to figure this out.
[1] https://www.lrrb.org/pdf/201432.pdf [2] http://www.roperld.com/science/teslamodels.htm
[+] [-] xpda|8 years ago|reply
I don't see the logic in this argument. Electric vehicles are not going to destroy the roads.
[+] [-] froindt|8 years ago|reply
Applying the tax on a per-gallon basis is great for environmentalism, as it encourages higher fuel efficiency. Applying it by vehicle classification and cost/mile could eliminate the subsidization, but would be a huge pain to keep track of.
[1] https://tax.iowa.gov/iowa-fuel-tax-rate-changes-effective-ju...
[+] [-] ams6110|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teej|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bhuga|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rz2k|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] r00fus|8 years ago|reply
I'm not sure a Model S is in the same category of vehicle as a Honda Pilot. What point are you trying to make?
Agreed that funding the roadways should be a topic of discussion (also because it's private contractors - often with connections to those authorizing public funds).
[+] [-] tomarr|8 years ago|reply
To put more simply - if you banned semis roads would not last 1400x longer, nowhere near in fact.
[+] [-] anitil|8 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/Excise-and-excise-equivalent...
[+] [-] bobbles|8 years ago|reply
Ok but its not like these guys are just joyriding around, they are providing a service to make sure that people get the things they need and food to eat
[+] [-] dghughes|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ethagknight|8 years ago|reply
You are correct about these electric trucks not paying gas tax though. Thats a problem.
[+] [-] dagss|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lxmorj|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aetherson|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Animats|8 years ago|reply
UPS is already doing that, but not with these guys.[1] There are other electric van startups, but they have bullshit no-shipping-product startup sites.[2][3] The real player seems to be Damlier, which is electrifying the Mercedes line of vans.[3]
[1] https://electrek.co/2017/11/10/ups-converting-battery-electr...
[2] http://www.chanje.us/vehicles
[3] http://fortune.com/2017/11/20/mercedes-benz-vans-electric-da... [3] http://workhorse.com/
[+] [-] ThePadawan|8 years ago|reply
The German postal service was looking for a manufacturer to produce electric delivery vehicles for them. None of them fit their requirements, so they just made their own (https://www.streetscooter.eu/en/).
[+] [-] revelation|8 years ago|reply
Of course since then we've spent trillions on building a road network that we charge truck drivers basically nothing for, we continue to spend billions yearly on repairing the vast damage "road trains" cause that again we basically charge the logistics companies nothing for, we have not increased taxes on fuel in decades for a shortfall of hundreds of billions of dollars, the use of fossil fuels has caused trillions of external costs that have not been accounted for. Thousands of lives lost due to the enormous kinetic energy required to move trucks and the inherent in their design visibility and movement constraints that surpass the ability of humans to safely maneuver them.
And all of this insanity has combined to make long distance truck transportation cheaper than the vastly more efficient (in any sense of the word) train. Electric trucks have their place: for last mile delivery, transport between plants in a manufacturing process. But they make about as much sense for long distance transport as their ICE brothers.
[+] [-] sveme|8 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.streetscooter.eu/en/
[+] [-] raisedbyninjas|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tdeck|8 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walker_Electric_Truck
[+] [-] leggomylibro|8 years ago|reply
Oh right, like the Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust, aka Geoff. I guess EVs have probably come a long ways since then.
[+] [-] jandrese|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bovermyer|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jpm_sd|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dragontamer|8 years ago|reply
https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-teslas-production-delays...
[+] [-] bpatel576|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tootie|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] atonse|8 years ago|reply
(I'm referring to the fact that the founder is really rich from his family's businesses and has self-funded the whole endeavor)
[+] [-] cantrip|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ataturk|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] abakker|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IncRnd|8 years ago|reply
Thank you for the reminder.
[+] [-] slivym|8 years ago|reply
Tesla as a company is focused on building a manufacturing plant that is capable of producing Electric Semi Trucks. That's what they're working on. Electric Trucks is the product of the thing they're working on.
These guys are working on making Electric Trucks.
The more apt comparison is that these guys are competing with the robots that will go in Musk's factory.
[+] [-] thisisit|8 years ago|reply
> but dramatic advances in battery technology, electric motors, and control software have made electric trucks more practical.
So, if someone wants to learn more about the battery technology and control softwares, where to start?
[+] [-] Tohan|8 years ago|reply
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