In Europe vehicle footprint is a big deal and for a box truck, minimizing vehicle footprint (and maximizing capacity) is likely more important than reducing drag. Particularly when you are looking at vehicles which will likely spend most of their time pushing 16+ tons and accelerating and decelerating to speeds around 30 MPH all day long.
> you need serious charging infrastructure if you are going to be charging a Semi every 250 - 300 km.
These trucks aren't designed for long haul/ cross country trips. There won't be charging every 250 km, they will go out, do their job, come home and park on a charger.
Reason conversion to electric happened earlier for golf carts was electric golf carts only have about 4-5kwh worth of batteries. Interestingly historically lead acid batteries are about $100-150 per kwr. Which is close to where automotive grade lion batteries are now.
So no surprise that delivery trucks are converting to electric. They have the exact some scenario going on.
He also owns several electric golf-carts he's tunes up for speed and light 4WD.
Fixed gears and electric motors life spans are between 25,000 and 50,000 hours. Vs less than 10,000 hours for a piston engine.
Everything about cars is designed around that fact that the engine is shot after 200-250,000 miles. Would not surprise me if eventually the expected life of an EV will end up being 2 to 3 times longer.
Technical development might have some impact as well. I remember as a kid many trucks needing bigger engines (e.g. sand or concrete transport) had the cab-behind-engine layout, but nowadays those are more or less completely gone. Maybe turbochargers and intercoolers allowed a sufficiently powerful engine in the cab-above-engine layout?
The entire Nordics allow 25m (83 ft) trucks up to 60 tons.
For a buyer of semis, the cost of running one is arguably the most important factor. Producers need to focus on $ / km and there range is quite important (as well as charging infrastructure)
You might have heard of UPS? FedEx? Amazon? Maybe you've had a contractor work on your home or business?
All of these businesses operate on less than 180 miles round trips per day typically inside the US. In Europe distances tend to be even shorter.
Semis are by nature long haul. It's rare to see semis pulling 40 foot trailers through urban areas even in the US. Semis are usually limited to long haul or short haul freight from industrial or agricultural areas. The Volvo trucks are designed to operate locally and it's a huge market.
> For a buyer of semis, the cost of running one is arguably the most important factor.
There is definitely a market for semis—particularly in the US—but it's a vastly different market than what this targets.
Yes but you are referring to the small urban trucks used in last mile deliveries. The article mentions heavy duty trucks. Even in the last mile delivery case, a limited 300km range is a problem because that means the same truck cannot be shared by workers in following shifts. Or maybe operate autonomously 24/7.
We don't have to guess. If you go to Volvo's site, you can see exactly what sort of trucks they are talking about. We're talking about:
=> "A two-axle truck with a gross vehicle weight up to 16 tonnes and an excellent working environment for the driver. Volvo Trucks can deliver complete vehicles for urban transport like deliveries."
AND
=> "A three-axle truck with a gross vehicle weight up to 27 tonnes and a comfortable working environment for the driver. Volvo Trucks can deliver complete vehicles for demanding types of urban transport like waste collection, light construction transports and deliveries."
https://www.volvotrucks.com/en-en/trucks/alternative-fuels/e...
> Even in the last mile delivery case, a limited 300km range is a problem because that means the same truck cannot be shared by workers in following shifts.
Pretty much all delivery companies have sub 12 hour routes which run during business hours and into the evening. There is very little demand for package delivery at 2am. Likewise, construction is a 9-5 sort of job. Garbage collection (which is specifically mentioned) is almost always a once/ per day route.
I'm sure there is demand for autonomous 24/7 vehicles out there, but there are also plenty of commercial vehicles which are parked over night as well.
> => "A two-axle truck with a gross vehicle weight up to 16 tonnes and an excellent working environment for the driver. Volvo Trucks can deliver complete vehicles for urban transport like deliveries."
This is still significantly heavier than what most courier companies like FedEx and DHL use; within Europe most use Ford Transits and similar, which have a maximum gross weight of 3.5t (this is partly due to licensing; these vehicles can be driven on a normal "car" driving license).
I don't live in Europe, but I'm inclined to take Volvo at face value on this.
Note that within the EU, in general "large goods vehicle" licenses cover everything over 3.5 tonnes, so these Volvo trucks are _well_ into that category. Package delivery companies avoid such large vehicles for last-mile deliveries.
But yes, two-axle trucks like what Volvo is proposing do of course see heavy usage for deliveries in commercial/industrial settings. Most smaller supermarkets are supplied by such trucks, for example, especially within cities (where loading bays are rare).
Again, look at Volvo's site. They understand this market, they've been in it for 50+ years.
Long haul trucking is still out of reach of batteries, it seems.
Europe is much denser when comapared to US. You can do a lot within 300KM in Europe. Volvo openly states that the trucks are "to be used for regional transport and urban construction operations in Europe".
The trucks in question and the possible range is very well suited to this kind of operation.
Also, there's another important factor: Noise. Some European countries are more sensitive to noise than others. The Netherlands and Sweden comes to my mind.
These trucks will be a huge win on that front because a 44 tonne truck is not exactly silent, especially under load.
Volvo has a way to go if they want to compete in this market.
Noise wont have any effect as it is not government regulated. A buyer of Semis wont think twice about noice if $ / km is lower.
There have been many very aerodynamic conventionally contoured gasoline powered cars, including one of my favorites, the Mazda MX-6 Mystere.
I've heard this too, but while Chevy and Nissan went the exotic route, every Tesla so far has been fairly normal looking. There were nice-things on them like the gull-wing doors and the handles on the Model S, but those were contained in a traditional design.
The CyberTruck will obviously break that mold, but I suspect that much of the look of the CyberTruck is to keep costs down and efficiency up. It is extremely difficult to make a traditional pickup truck efficient.
The door handles are not an EV design cue at all. They are only on 2 Teslas and no other EVs. They are meant to look and feel luxurious and futuristic and would not be out-of-place on any higher end car. Like the gull-wing doors, I suspect they were done that way because Musk thought they would look cool.
Or at least that's how the stereotypes go. Fancy styling didn't work for them for the same reason that Hyundai is having a hard time convincing people Genesis is actually a luxury brand. Buying something as a signal doesn't work very well when the signal is conflicting.