Comment by marcus0x62 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by marcus0x62 | Hacker News Reader

> The kit will "ideally" retail for one-third to half the price of a new diesel truck while providing estimated savings of 30% on fuel.

I don't think there are any new 3/4 or 1 ton diesel trucks that can be had for less than $60k. So, $20 - $30k for this kit, under "ideal" circumstances. A nice 12V[0] Cummins rebuild can be had for $10k, plus figure another $2,500 to install.

So, your engine blows up and you decide you want to either replace it with one of these kits for $30k or a get a nice rebuild for say $13k. Over the life of a light duty diesel engine (which to continue with our 12V Cummins example might be 750k - 1m miles,) @ 15 MPG, 30% fuel savings amounts to around 20,000 gallons of diesel fuel, which at $5/gallon is a $100,000 savings.

If you believe these kits will be as reliable and long-lasting as a diesel engine, they might make good enough economic sense to increase the...not large... number of diesel pickup owners looking to go electric.

0 - A "12V Cummins" is a 5.9L 12 valve diesel engine made by Cummins. They were used in Ram 2500/3500 pickup trucks between 1989 and 1998, and along with the Ford 7.3L Power Stroke would be a potentially popular target for the kit discussed in the article.

The biggest trouble is that a lithium battery that will last 8 years, and the one that will puff up in a year and lose 80% of capacity, all look the same when you buy them. It's all about the purity of materials, quality control, and other things you don't see without a microscope.

Big players like Ford play it very safe with their own cell manufacturers, but a random smaller-scale startup might be forced to buy the cells from the lowest bidder on Aliexpress, and that won't fare well.

No doubt. The last sentence in my post is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

The guys making this kit are working to launch a full diesel/electric hybrid transport truck for heavy haul applications. They plan to use cells from the same supplier as they are going to use for the heavy trucks, and hope to increase volume on their purchases.

They're using LFP batteries here which generally don't puff up and go foom.

> a lithium battery that will last 8 years

All of the 2010 Toyota Hybrids on original battery packs would like a word.

Don't forget to factor in the price of selling the 12V and drive train.

This said, I considered the potential of this kit for me, a '98 12V owner, and don't consider it worth the money.

Can you share more about the 12V Cummins rebuild? How does that work?

Sorry, I should have clarified. A "12V Cummins" is a 5.9L Cummins Diesel engine with 12 valves (one intake and one exhaust valve for each of the 6 cylinders.) It is a popular (and reliable) diesel engine used in older Dodge Ram pickup trucks.

It’s depends on the specific engine, but you essentially tear it down then replace or machine parts back to high quality.

For example, cylinders and walls may develop too much gap over the years. You can machine the walls out a bit then slide a sleeve in to get it back to original sizes. Lots of manual work, but cheaper than a new engine.

You might also replace a bunch of other components along the way. The key thing is the engine block is generally still sound, even if other parts have warm out a bit.

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