Category Archives: Trucks: Electric

Tesla Semi trucks hauling corn chips

Preface.  Many dismiss my writing about why battery electric trucks can’t replace diesel trucks because commercial electric trucks exist. Most famously the Tesla semi trucks, which are under a trial at the PepsiCo Frito-lay plant in Modesto California. It is … Continue reading

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Electric Swarm Tractors

Preface.  In both my books Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy & When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation, I write that since most “renewables” generate electricity (i.e. wind, solar, nuclear, hydropower, compressed … Continue reading

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Diesel is finite. Trucks are the bedrock of civilization. So where are the battery electric trucks?

Last updated: 2023-1-21 Preface. Heavy-duty diesel-engine trucks (agricultural, mining, logging, construction, garbage, cement, 18-wheelers, and more) are essential for doing the actual work of our fossil-fueled civilization. Without them, no goods would be delivered, no food grown, nothing manufactured, no … Continue reading

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Heavy-duty hydrogen fuel cell trucks a waste of energy and money

Preface. There are 3 articles that I summarize below: ARB. November 2015. Medium- and heavy-duty fuel cell electric vehicles. Air Resources Board, California Environmental Protection Agency. NRC. 2003. Energy and Transportation: Challenges for the Chemical Sciences in the 21st Century. … Continue reading

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Given the laws of physics, can the Tesla Semi really go 500 miles, and what will the price be?

Preface: Most people think that electric truck makers need to tell us the specs — the battery kWh, price, performance, and so on — before we can possibly know anything about their truck. But that’s simply not true.  We know … Continue reading

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Hybrid electric trucks are very different from HEV cars

Preface. The National Research Council paper I review in this post explains why it is hard to transfer auto hybrid technology to trucks.  They are entirely different animals — medium-duty trucks weigh up to 10 times more, have up to … Continue reading

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Electric truck & car range less in cold weather

Preface. What follows are two articles. The first has excerpts from Calstart’s study of the effects cold weather had on lithium and Sodium Nickel Chloride e-truck batteries. The second article is from Consumer Reports, which says that half of driving … Continue reading

Posted in Automobiles, Batteries, Cold weather, Electric & Hydrogen trucks impossible, Electrification, Trucks: Electric | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Just 16,000 catenary trucks (out of 5.6 million) would use 1% of California’s electricity generation

Preface. We must electrify trucks since fuel from oil, coal, and natural gas is finite, and biomass doesn’t scale up.  Without transportation, electricity contraptions like wind turbines, solar facilities, and nuclear power plants can’t be built. A wind turbine, for … Continue reading

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