Comment by froh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by froh | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

European semis all have a bunk beds, for two. They don't feature a kitchen though, and in the evenings the truckers gather in truck stops which serve humongous servings. These truck stops are all along the freeways all over Europe.

There is a maximum vehicle length though, and a maximum weight, the former ensures vehicle maneuverability, the latter serves road stability, bridge specifications, optimized no-waste parking provisions for pass-through parking spots in said truck stops edit: and ferry capacity. Ireland, Finland are connected by Ferry.

Manufacturing is pretty much internationalized, reusing parts and designs globally. Freightliner and Daimler are one company, for example.

Fuel economy is indeed a point, albeit the combo of trailer and truck define the overall fuel economy. As the trailer usually is equivalent to a standard 40ft container, the ideal truck has a boring standard form, too.

The text is German, the pictures are self explanatory-ish though wrt optimal and sub optimal wind résistance: https://en.vda.de/dam/vda/publications/FAT-SCHRIFTENREIHE%20...

99.9% of US trucks do not have a kitchen either, unless you count a microwave as a 'kitchen'. Truck drivers also stop at truck stops in the US for food, fuel, a shower, sleep, however many long haul trucks are now team operations - one guy drives and the other one sleeps.

There is something like a 70-90% parts commonality between a sleeper cabover and a conventional tractor, indeed - the only parts that differ are body, frame, and a couple interior pieces - even drivetrains are shared - and commonly shared between europe and NA - though European engines do not have the best reputation among US drivers (neither the Volvo or Mercedes Class 8 engine is well thought of - parts are expensive and take a long time, and sadly they're needed with alarming frequency). Indeed, many interior parts can be shared between a cabover and conventional truck, including the dash, and most of the interior appointments.

This is completely off topic, but does anyone know of a way to get a top-tier search engine to return the best results across all languages rather than the language matching that of the search query + English, as they are wont to do?

If there is a wikipedia entry on the topic, use the interlanguage links to find the most commonly used words for that term in a foreign language.

Yes I agree this is what I do all the time and it works in most cases

IIRC Google had provided search with translated query. It was useful. Anyone know alternative?

I do a lot of research for historical things and often want results from other languages and have found on Google if you search for something and then click the settings icon and then click languages you can choose multiple results for "Currently showing search results in:" which will give you results in the languages you choose.

I typically do this in incognito windows as I do not always want for instance English and Italian results.

Iceland and the Faroes are also connected via ferry neither are in the EU but I think they also have the cap-over as the more common design. However I don’t know how common it is for semis to board the Norröna as the voyage is 1-2 days.

Have u seen any studies on how to add a detachable battery pack to an existing truck configuration?

For example, a 2mx2mx0.5m pack can be slotted between the cabin and trailer.

A 2mx6mx0.25cm can be laid on the roof ?

Etc..

(I have seen demos of an Australian truck where the fossil engine is removed, and the pack is inserted from the front.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com