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Comment by jdndnen | Hacker News Reader

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jdndnen

A semi truck is defined by having a separate tractor and trailer unit

These have exactly those

You might be thinking of long distance haules, but what's long distance also depends on the environment

In 500 km you can cross most counties in europe

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> In 500 km you can cross most counties in europe

500km doesn't even get me to the capital of my European country. Maybe you're thinking specifically about Eastern Europe or something, where there is a bunch of smaller countries closer together?

The statement was pretty clear, right? Most European countries are less than 500km wide is almost certainly true, no matter how you define width. There are only 8 EU countries that are larger than 500km^2. And that includes the vast spaces of Scandinavia where no one lives.

Driving from Warsaw to Lisbon, 6 countries, and crossing 4 of the largest, is 3.300km.

Do you mean the Balkans? Since e.g. Poland is bigger than the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and around the same size as Germany (to within 15%). Ukraine is even bigger - larger than all the former.

It isnt about travel distances. Most "long haul" trucks dont go anywhere near maximum range on a given run. It is about driver time. A truck that cannot keep a driver driving for an entire shift (8 or 10 hours) is a logistics problem. At four or five hours, drivers will need to get to a depo and swap out for another truck mid-shift in order to keep driving, which is a wildly inefficient use of expensive human resources.

What is needed are 8 or 10-hour endurance trucks, even if at a lesser load, as that will cover a driver's day and allow recharge during rest periods.

You're right about driver time being the key metric. mattlondon's reply[1] to the GP gives the extra context: the endurance is aligned pretty well with (EU) legally mandated breaks, allowing for mid-day charging.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44478186

Edit: I see you've replied there.

Which might be OK in Europe. My current area allows for 13 hours of driving during a maximum 14-hour work day. Most semi drivers then maintain a 14+10 rotation for a few days before a "weekend" of downtime. These Volvo trucks are nowhere near that sort of daily endurance and just wouldn't be competitive.

Yes, it's clearly a problem that in some places poor working conditions, risks in road safety due to fatigue and global warming due to fossil fuel use are found acceptable because it allows companies make more profit.

Nobody is arguing these trucks can currently cover every single use case. The US long distance trucking industry is an outlier.

Yeah, in the US they should probably run overhead wires which would be more efficient than batteries. They could also consider coupling together a few dozen trucks on the highway. For the ultimate in efficiency, and to reduce particulate emissions, they could replace the wheels with steel wheels and make them run on tracks...

Running overhead wires cross country in the US would be exorbitantly expensive. In the city? Sure, though it would be ugly. In the countryside, not a chance of it being workable.

You don't need it in the city or in the countryside, you just need it on the highways. The overhead wires will directly power the cross-country legs, a small battery can cover last-mile delivery and interruptions in overhead wire coverage due to things like complex highway interchanges.

Besides, it's not like this kind of electrification is unheard of. Most of the world has electrified rail with a density higher than the US highway system, and India has been electrifying its railways at a pace of over 4000 miles per year. Electrifying the main cross-country freight corridors by the end of the decade should be quite doable.

Electrifying railways seems easier than doing it to the US Interstate, since the railways control what goes on their tracks. The US has roughly 50K miles of Interstate highway. From what a cursory search showed, electrifying rail is roughly $1m/mile. So it would cost at least $50B to electrify, not to mention converting the semi trucks to use it. Considering how much of a hot topic EVs and alternative energy sources are, this is a non-starter in our current political climate.

And forgetting the practical components, the highways would look really bad with wires overhead...

Who said anything about long haul? A longer workday doesn't mean a longer route. Most trucks do multiple deliveries every day without ever leaving their home area, commonly between ports and warehouses.

> Who said anything about long haul?

You did, just above:

>>>>> It isnt about travel distances. Most "long haul" trucks ...

With 5,000 of these trucks sold, and presumably others from other manufacturers, maybe just accept your personal experience isn't universal.

That's screwed up. How's the accident rate in your area?

I can't imagine it's possible for people to keep up their attention and stay alert for multiple consecutive 14hr days

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