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Comment by lars_francke | Hacker News Reader

He also has an english language version of his channel: https://www.youtube.com/@electrictrucker

It's very worth watching.

I think he's proven that single driver long haul freight in Western Europe (which seems to be a good chunk of truck trips) is perfectly doable. Just two weeks ago he did a 4.500km trip around Europe which is about the maximum you can do given the law on driving times.

The same is then true for the shorter trips (round trips etc.)

And the European Commission has just decided that electric trucks don't have to pay road toll until at least 2031.

Better for the environment, more comfortable, quieter, cheaper in the long run, ... what's not to like.

And yes: There are still some use-cases where non-EV trucks are "better" by some metrics but that's definitely not the case anymore everywhere.

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> Better for the environment, more comfortable, quieter, cheaper in the long run, ... what's not to like.

Pragmatically speaking, At least for the weight of a 'US Style Electric Tractor' my concern is that nobody in my state is following the Truck Speed limits as is. The added weight on top of the speeding means our roads turn to shit way way faster (I live near a major US/CA transit point for freight that also has sharp seasonal changes.)

Where this becomes a semi-concern for the practicality of such drivers (i.e. potential buyers,) the advertised range likely is based on certain assumptions, and going 70MPH+ likely results in a notable range reduction.

All of that said, I do really like that Frito Lay is using E-Transit vans for local distribution now; that 'last leg' is arguably at least as important as long haul, yet has the advantage of being way easier to solve from a logistics/planning standpoint. Amazon seems to have it figured out well with the rivian vans and they aren't changing strategy.

Yes, I thought I linked to the English channel.

I'm in The Netherlands and I feel that we aren't even close to the level of adoption of electric trucks as in Germany.

Maybe it's easier to justify the investments for a much larger country/market.

> the level of adoption of electric trucks as in Germany

2.4%[1], which is more than I would have guessed, but I think that number includes delivery vehicles. For semis, it's 0.4% (and 2% of new registrations in Q1 2025). So, still a long way to go.

That's for vehicles registered in Germany. Half of the heavy trucks on the Autobahn are registered elsewhere[2], which makes sense given geography -- I guess it's similar in the Netherlands.

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elektrolastkraftwagen#Deutschl... but the source is government data

[2] https://company.toll-collect.de/de/magazin/lkw-verkehr-deuts... roughly; 5 years ago

You did. I'm sorry, my bad.

He has a german channel which has more and longer content: https://www.youtube.com/@elektrotrucker

I've not even seen one on the streets in NL. I think it makes a lot of sense for deliveries within the country considering the distances. There seems to be a subsidy of of max 115k [1] (In Dutch). I'm surprised that big companies aren't selling their old fleet to lower income countries and buy wlectric trucks.

[1] https://www.rabobank.nl/bedrijven/groei/duurzaamheid/elektri...

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