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Comment by jillesvangurp | Hacker News Reader

Mining is not the only place where this is starting to happen. Fully charged recently did an episode on an electric digger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cumZxYjzx6M

Fuel cost is a great incentive of course but other advantages include a lot less noise and pollution; which is great for indoor operation. Also, these things only use power when you use them (as opposed to idling and slurping lots of diesel).

I could see batteries get common for a lot of equipment that is currently diesel powered, in the agricultural, construction, and other sectors. If all you need is a lot of torque/power, electric & hydrolic can do the job.

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Electrical is also a lot simpler and cheaper to maintain.

it is also upgradeable - i.e. an improvement in efficiency for a motor of the same format, or improvements of the battery in the same format can both be "drop in" upgrades. Not necessarily trivial, but much easier than with ICEs.

Not only is it much cheaper to maintain, but also a lot safer for the work site and workers to maintain as well.

Used motor oil is some nasty stuff, and spilt coolant is quite toxic (but attracts animals).

With all the electronics driving these machines, I don't think they are simpler. There are certainly less moving parts, but if something fails in an electric version you will only be able to debug down to the modular level, which could be VERY expensive to replace. Also, if the manufacture goes bust, you may never be able to get a replacement module so the vehicle is now worthless.

Electronics have been running gas engines for decades, get over it.

You're describing every modern industrial vehicle, battery powered doesn't change that at all.

Oslo is planing to go zero emission on all it's construction sites. [1]

This charger could be handy for them too :)

[1] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&u=https%3...

Fascinating... I always thought that stuff would be the last to be electrified.

Not that surprising actually, the static models (ie a crane in a scrapyard) have been electric for a long time.

If anything, the biggest challenge / last bastion will be for the highly mobile operations, bringing all the needed infrastructure to power them, which isn't as much as problem with diesel.

Maybe we'll see trucks mounted with large arrays of batteries to deploy on the field.

ironically enough, there are more and more electric drilling rigs now, especially when drilling in-fill wells in established fields or near/in cities. they don't use battery power though, just temporary power lines and a mobile transformer skid.

I always thought they should be first. They are order of magnitude more utilised than passenger cars (at least 30% of time compared to 5% or so). They produce tons of noise and are more complex than electric.

It just hasn’t been cost effective until now. Tesla saw this and started with a very expensive roadster and just recently ended up with more affordable options like the Model 3.

Industrial equipment is either making money or spending it. I look forward to the cost optimization that will come with battery powered heavy machinery.

Thinking aloud: how can the electrical grid keep up? Surely we need to invest in this area, too.

The answer is in the hp per ton numbers for heavy equipment. The ratio's are a lot lower than passenger vehicles.

D6K tractor, ~30,000 lbs, but only 125 hp.

Tesla 3, 3500 lbs, and 260hp.

Worked at an open pit mine in the 90's...electric shovels. Cat had just come out with a diesel one when I was leaving. If you go huge electric is the only thing that will power it and the danger of fire from secondary forces like friction are greatly reduced. Friction provides the heat and you don't want a fuel source close.

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