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Is This A Glimpse Into Our Future?
I’m wondering if this will be using 365’s?
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53 Replies
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This is the latest article on replacing diesel engines. How long before it is talked about for Prevost Coaches?
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Now that is something! Electric vehicles never took off here as expected but something like this could go a long way to make it happen. It seems that the numbers work out pretty well for a loaded electric truck which is great. The question is will the same be true for the standard family car and pick-em-up-truck?
Then of course are the charging stations, they are far and few between right now. But if they’re talking 400+ miles between recharging that will change things.
Interesting stuff for sure… Thanks for posting Andy. Hey, haven’t they contacted you for a video yet? I can see the first video name now “Andy’s out Sparkin”!
Harry
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What if they covered the roof of the trailer with solar panels ?
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OH LOOK……………THERE IS PIE IN THE SKY!
The cynic in me says we don’t have the technology or the needed infrastructure to replace diesel fuel.
If I can replace the fuel used to go 1000 miles in 15 minutes once I get to the pump, my biggest time consumer is waiting in line sometimes to get to the pump. Has anyone even thought about how long a trucker with an electric truck will have to wait for an electric plug to become available and then how long he will have to stay plugged in before he can go another 1000 miles?
Musk and Bezos are pumping something and it is their stock prices because the sheeple are buying their pie in the sky.
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Very good points.
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If our generator can get .75 gal per hour could they not put a gen on each each truck to charge the batteries as needed? just a thought from the peanut gallery
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Engine HP can be converted into KW. The amount of KW needed to propel the coach is going to be significantly greater than the output of any generator installed on our coaches.
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Charge stations for autos are about 7kw.So how much more output would be needed. I know nothing about electricity. Couldn’t some type of a transformer be used
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OPINION:
When this technology trickles down to the motorhome world, it seems that it could be ideal for pole-to-pole camping. Imagine this scenario: When you arrive at the campground, simply connect to 50amp power and within a few hours the batteries are back to full charge. When you consider that many motorhome users consider 250- 300 miles a full driving day, having a 500 mile range seems to make a lot of sense for motorhomes. The inclusion of electric motors also alters the future landscape for service facilities as we know them today.
Yes, for motorhomes there’s many more house operations to be taken into consideration and I can only guess that batteries combined with a generator and inverter is a way to power both the chassis and house.
I’ll speculate that the back rooms of corporate offices of truck stop chains such as Love’s and Flying J are already considering the addition of high speed charging stations as when this technology comes to reality, they won’t want to limited to only being able to cater to diesel vehicles. After all, selling fuel is only a part of their business model and they need to keep drivers coming inside to purchase the higher margin products.
I can envision the day where each truck stop parking (sleeping) space offers electrical hookup as surely this type of hookup will easier to add than buried diesel tanks. And, this is not to mention the quiet nature of battery operated vehicles over traditional diesel engines.
Considering that Cummins, Freightliner, Volvo and other major players have electric products under development, and taking into consideration the vast amount of resources that are being invested in battery technology, it seems it’s just a matter of time until we see enhanced battery functions on consumer motorhomes. And, just like Tesla has done for the car industry, their entry into this business forces competitors to allocate more resources into escalating research and development.
However, it’s the semi-autonomous driving features that have captured my attention and I think it’s safe to say that some sort of auto-lane keeping assistance will be coming sooner than later. Looking at what Tesla has done with cars, having a system that’s downloadable and upgradeable allows enhanced features when they become available. We already know that Prevost has been incorporating the AWARE system for five years and I’ll say it’s a safe guess that adding some sort of automatic steering feature will be coming in the not-so-distant future.
I can only guess that since Prevost has such a strong presence in passenger busses, they won’t be the first on the block with autonomous features as there will be numerous governmental hurdles to leap before it’s allowed to be added to this type of transit vehicle.
Yes, just my opinion. While there’s many Members on this forum who are much more knowledgeable about the inner workings of our busses, I’ve been around emerging technologies for most of my life and it seems that major changes are on the horizon. The phrase “innovate or die” comes to mind.
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Agree with Jon.
It takes 3-400 hp to move our buses down the road. It would take the equivalent kW in electricity and you then would need 3-400 hp plus losses to charge the batteries back up. Think locomotives. Maybe you would only need to supply 2-300 hp since we are not always moving. The added weight would still leave us well behind the curve. Plug in stations? Even if they use 1000v to reduce the amperage our shore cords would be the size of our sewer hose. How about nuclear?
Doug
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The problem in the case of electric vehicles relates to the laws of physics. Energy is energy is energy. I haven’t seen any study on the number of KW (or HP) we average going down the highway, but it is a safe bet that if a KW is equal to approximately 3/4 HP each hour of driving is going to use a lot of kilowatt hours.
We replace that energy today with diesel fuel. But if we had to replace it with electric, even if we ignore the loss of efficiency at a charging station we would have to find a way to restore 1000 to 1500 KW which is my guess regarding a day’s worth of energy. It could be more or less but it does not take much imagination to envision the infrastructure required to recharge the number of trucks that typically stop at the pumps at the average truck stop.
We are a long and very expensive distance from dreaming this could happen in a practical manner and reality. Especially when we consider that while a Tesla is probably as close to being a long distance car as we have available I have yet to hear of anyone able to drive one cross country in a reasonable amount of time. Until issues like range and shortened charging times can be resolved all this talk is hype. And even if the issues do get resolved there is going to be major issues relating to the cost and building of an infrastructure which right now appears only to move the environmental issue from the tailpipe to the power plant smokestack or nuclear waste facility.
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Never gonna happen in my lifetime. No way in hell that you can carry enough battery capacity and still haul a 47000+ pound load of freight and go 600 to 800+ miles a day. Same with coaches…plugging into the 50 amp service can’t even handle all of the electric loads I can turn on without blowing the breaker. Now you think you can add battery charging to it?
Another pipe dream from the politically correct morons. Long live fossil fuel. It is still the best way to power vehicles.
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I was waiting for a brother trucker to jump in here.
I’ve been involved with trucks over 45 years and heard the cackel of a CAT engine at a young age, it has never left me. Can’t dispute the Gadget’s opinion. It’s coming for sure. I could list 100 reason’s they will have issues but I won’t bore you.
Personally I think the Nikola Hydrogen truck will be better, they are in bed with a large carrier U.S. Express.
But like Mark they won’t get it right in my lifetime.
Later
bv
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Just read an article addressing the electric life of truck tractor with the concept of interstate truck travel. At this time we refuel the tractor and then move on. One of the options is rather then fuel up ….Replace the tractor.
Think about when the stagecoach was in style, fresh horses. Of course this makes probably no sense other then finding a way to make something work.
AL
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Interesting. Thanks for sharing. Bob Lutz (former GM vice-chairman and pretty smart vehicle guy) toasted Tesla and Mr. Musk recently:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/17/tesla-is-going-out-of-business-says-former-gm-exec-bob-lutz.html
I’m all for progress and new things. I’m glad I don’t have to shovel coal to power my Prevost and fill it with water every 150 miles.
But as pointed out in previous posts to this thread, petroleum derived from crude is tough to beat. Gasoline and diesel fuel have an enormous amount energy (BTUs) in each gallon that can be easily transported across the country, stored, and put into our vehicles very, very easily. I’ve studied compressed natural gas (CNG) for cars and trucks (light, medium, and heavy) and its a wonderful fuel (plentiful, cheap, and very clean) but it presents transmission, dispensing, and storage issues.
Musk brags about the acceleration of his 80,000# truck and its ability to climb 5% at 65mph. If you have large enough batteries and put big enough electric motors on the wheels all of that is possible, but to do that you’d need to use an enormous amount of the electricity stored in the batteries. Granted Musk will give you back some of the electricity (read “energy”) when you go down the other side of the hill or need to stop at the next traffic light.
He “guarantees” $07/kWhr which is an excellent good price. I pay $0.14/kWhr which I thought was good. Maybe he can negotiate $07/kWhr to the trucker.
At some point I’m expecting there will dramatic breakthroughs in batteries … capacity/cubic inch and per pound, rapid recharge, very long life, easy and green recycling of old batteries, stellar reliability, etc. But I’m not holding my breath. Maybe in Josh and Dano’s lifetimes.
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