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Comment by porphyra | Hacker News Reader

For some reason, from a purely aesthetic standpoint, even brand new electric trucks in the US look very vintage, with their giant chrome grill and fender flares, compared to European and Asian trucks. [1]

[1] https://www.peterbilt.com/trucks/zero-emission/567EV

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Maybe everyone in this thread knows this, but it hasn't been mentioned: US trucks are all cab-behind-engine, and European trucks are all cab-over-engine. That's why they look so different. The US style supposedly has some benefits in maintenance and maybe efficiency, but the European style works much better in cities with narrow streets and tight turns.

This might be completely wrong, since my understanding is based very much off of Truck Simulator games, but isn’t one of the reasons aerodynamics as well? The US is huge, and trips can take several days at high speeds, so aerodynamic improvements can save quite a bit of money, whereas EU is smaller, the trucks do not go at large speeds for as long and have to navigate tiny city streets, thus being more compact is an advantage there.

It's more that the EU regulations on the total length of the articulated lorry include the tractor, but American regulations limit the length of each part.

True, but that EU regulation is based on the ground truth of much less spacious roads and cities.

Not quite. Originally, the tighter length limits were intended to give trucks a disadvantage compared to freight trains. But engine technology caught up and more efficient smaller engines negated that limitation.

Not really. A regular truck & trailer is way too big to fit in space-constrained city centers. When it gets really tight they'll just send a box truck, often with a trailer they can leave behind outside the city center for some extra capacity when it's a multi-stop trip [0]. The fancy ones even have doors in the front of the trailer, making it quite easy to move freight from the trailer into the box truck itself.

On the other hand, the highway infrastructure has plenty of space for large trucks. If the roads to & from the main highway network can handle it, some countries will give you permits for all sorts of fancy combinations[1] up to 83 ft long. Considering that it'll still be pulled with a regular cab-over truck, that's a lot of space for freight. They are now even trialing the "Super EcoCombi", which is essentially two full semi-trailers[2], for a total of 105 ft!

[0]: https://assets-global.website-files.com/6424195493a93d7e7fe4...

[1]: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langere_en_Zwaardere_Vrachtaut...

[2]: https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads...

Makes me wonder if you couldn't have some sort of pop-out aero fender on the cab over trucks for use at higher speeds.

I am frankly amazed that US trucks, which already have an elongated "nose first" tractor shape, have not evolved to look more like high-speed train engines.

Some have become more aerodynamic with the mirrors, over cab cowling, and wheel cowling. I wonder if some of the flat front had to do with airflow over the radiator.

Good radiator space was definitely some of it, part of the requirement for the engines and transmissions to last the like million+ miles truckers want out of them is to have more than merely sufficient cooling in order to keep both the engine and transmission to stay the same temperature no matter how hot it is outside or how hard they need to run the engines to get up a hill. Of course that is along side other semi-truck specific equipment like bypass oil filters that have a MUCH finer filter to remove smaller metal particles that would otherwise just pass right through the main oil filter. More variable operating temperatures and worse oil filtration might be fine for consumer vehicles that are mostly rusted out trash out by time they hit 300,000 miles, but you wouldn't want to have to buy a brand new semi-truck engine every 3 years.

are you suggesting that these goals are unmeetable if the front end has a particularly aerodynamic shape?

No but it is incredibly simple and reliable to just have a large opening for a large set of radiators rather than worrying about ducting and air velocity and pressures as they go through them.

Yes, that's what I was referring to by efficiency.

> aerodynamic improvements can save quite a bit of money

If there were any significant amount of a saved money then a 'brick style' tractors like Peterbilt 389 [0] would be long gone purely by economical factors. It's still a brick on wheels which pushes a multi-ton load.

It's more a combination of a lack of a meaningful train system, an overall spareness of the cities and the roads and a male appendage measuring cont^W^W^W^W history and customs around the trucks[1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Peterbilt_Semi-Tractor.jp... It was introduced in 2007.

EDIT:

[1] heh: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44479293

> It's more a combination of a lack of a meaningful train system

Doesn't the USA have the world's largest and most cost-effective rail freight network? This seems meaningful.

> lack of a meaningful train system

The US moves the most freight by rail in the world; seems meaningful…

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/highest-railway-cargo-tr...

The problem of course is that during WWII, every narrow gauge feeder line of less than 100 miles length in the U.S. was pulled up and shipped to Europe for the war effort --- after the war, there was little effort made to rebuild them (the big 3 focusing on the individually owned car and so forth) --- remember this the next time a European boasts about their wonderful rail system:

https://armyhistory.org/railroaders-in-olive-drab-the-milita...

Wow that link is a treasure. Thank you.

I have read quite a bit about WWII from a European perspective but I never read anything that even touched on those aspects.

Thanks for the interesting link. Where can I read more about the dismantling of feeder lines ? All I can find is that narrow gauge was closing down or being replaced and their steel used in the war. Can't see a concerted effort though.

That's a good question --- I've looked for further information on this off-and-on myself.

FWIW, that link notes that over 25,000 miles of track was shipped overseas for the war effort.

The specific example I am aware of was several counties/county seats connected to a small town was 94 miles in length.

sigh

Yes, it moves a lot. Because there are 300m+ people there[0]. But if you just search for a 'USA train network' and compare that to a 'Europe train network' it would be pretty self evident.

Also take a note of the cargo distribution of the US train traffic in the link you provided yourself:

>> Of all the rail cargo, approximately 91% is made up of agriculture and energy products, vehicles and parts, construction materials, coal, chemicals, food, metal, minerals, and paper.

Most of it is not transported by the trucks in the first place. And what matters the most is what you need a proper network distribution so you only haul the last 50-100kms on the trucks, instead of the "trips [what] can take several days at high speeds"[1]

So you brought the wrong metric in the numbers measuring contest.

[0] and let's ignore what China and Russia has a quite comparable numbers of tonne-kilometers: 2.525, 2.518, 2.222.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44479968

I looked up "USA train network" and a map showing a high density of rails across the continental U.S. was one of the first results. It was as dense, or denser, than the comparable European networks.

But the U.S. train networks primarily serve cargo; the passenger rail network is quite sparse. This is because people in the U.S. prefer to fly or drive or taking the train given the vast distances involved between major cities. (London to Paris is about equal to the distance between LA and Vegas but significantly shorter than the distance between LA and SF.)

Look into truck speed limits in the EU. They are absurdly low. It's common to see trucks in America going 75 mph for comparison. A typical governor is 80 mph.

Most EU trucks are GOVERNED to 56 mph. American trucks are high performance racing machines by comparison.

They're low for emissions, safety, and efficiency purposes.

Overall its a net benefit to all of society, including the truckers that cant be pressured to go faster to meet a target.

It may be efficient in Europe, but when trucks drive long distances (are you sure you understand how far?), speed makes a huge difference.

You'd literally need to build more roads, as long haul trucks would be on the road, literally, for an entire day longer per load. Speed is efficiency.

A lot of driving is actually done at night. Fewer cars.

Shouldn't the trucks be more used for "last mile" operations from the cargo trains vs going very long distances and needing to go very fast? Seems like that would be the more appropriate solution.

I’d have to imagine the folks in this industry have done enough analysis to figure out what is most cost efficient.

I have no specialized knowledge in this, but I don’t think that cost efficiency is the primary reason for using trucks over trains. Because, if it was, rail with last mile by truck would probably win. Rail has a very low cost per mile by weight rate. But, it can be slow. Particularly when you consider that there are only a few routes across the country (across the Rockies), and trucks can go directly from point A to point B without needing to connect to a rail hub at both ends.

In someways it seems similar to why the hub and spoke model has fallen out of favor for airlines. It might be more efficient to have one large flight between hubs and two small flights to regional airports, but passengers would rather have a direct flight.

Interestingly, the freight train network in the US is a lot better than that of Europe and Asia. A much larger fraction of goods is delivered by train in the US at a higher efficiency.

https://www.marketurbanist.com/blog/why-americas-freight-tra...

> the freight train network in the US is a lot better than that of Europe and Asia

That depends a lot on how you look at it. The US got screwed by geography and doesn't have a lot of inland waterways. This means that rail freight is the only viable option for a lot of bulk cargo. The US is sending an awful lot of coal and grain via train, but in Europe most of that is done by river and canal.

The US also has a rather poor record quality-wise. Electrified rail basically doesn't exist, precision-scheduled railroading has made delivery times a joke, the infrastructure is crumbling, and freight trains are utterly incapable of playing nice with passenger rail. Heck, they are literally running trains which are too large to fit on the railways! It has been optimized for dirt-cheap bulk transport and as a result it isn't really capable of doing anything else.

The fact that US railways have such high tonne-miles, despite the state of the railways, says more about the complete lack of competition than it says about the railways.

> US got screwed by geography and doesn't have a lot of inland waterways

We have some of the largest inland-waterway networks in the world. We just Jones Acted ourselves out of being able to use them.

Maybe, but the semis are also faster due to bureaucratic reasons involving train operators, which are mostly state owned companies in Europe. So p derivate enterprises just hire a trucking company to deliver goods faster. Rail is mostly used for cement, oil products, fertilizer and grain.

For instance in my country the public train company is absolutely brain damaged as it doesn't have enough bike transportation spots (only some trains do). There are even trains with a bike symbol that you're not allowed with a bike on. Thanks to the EU Green Deal they are now forced to provide them.

Cargo shipping is a mix of all modes. Rail has a lot of good things going for it, but capacity is limited, routes are limited, speeds are limited, and trains are fairly inflexible.

Trucks can be used for a lot more things. They might not be ideal for long distance routes, but they're often used for them. Dock to dock time is often going to be far less with long haul trucking than truck to local train depot, rail to remote train depot, truck to remote dock.

It's also much harder to build rail capacity than road capacity; certainly that'a a function of our government, but someone with one container to move has to work within the environment.

Trucking also feels like it has more agency. If your truck fails, you can send another to pick up the load; if your train fails, you're at the mercy of the railroad. If there's disruptive weather in the path, a truck can drive around it; almost always a train will have to stay on its route, and may need to stop for the weather to clear. If the shipment needs to be recalled, the truck can turn around; you might be able to get your load off the train, but maybe not?

Efficiency is higher at slower speeds because of air resistance increasing exponentially rather than linearly.

Resistance at 60 is a huge amount higher than at 50.

Go 10% faster if you want, but you'll use 30% more fuel over the same distance.

Numbers are approximate.

Hence the talk of aerodynamic design.

The numbers you quote don't show math, and even if they did, the math is different for each vehicle airflow.

Regardless, efficiency has many properties.

Time means more labour cost + cost of spending another day on the road, plus time not shipping something else.

I sometimes, in my car, drive from Quebec to California. It can take an extra day to make this drive, if I must drive slower due to weather, traffic, or construction.

EG 60mph vs 80mph average (yes, average without stops).

A little more fuel pales in comparison to these costs.

Fuel is a lot more expensive in Europe, almost double.

> You'd literally need to build more roads

Not as much as you'd think, though. At higher speeds you need more distance between individual vehicles, as the vehicles need significantly more time to stop. The rule-of-thumb is that you should keep a three-second gap between vehicles - which if followed would mean speed is completely unrelated to road capacity [0].

The higher speeds are also going to lead to more frequent and nastier incidents, which means more traffic jams. Once the roads get full lower speeds might even result in a higher average throughput!

[0]: https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/analysis-road-capacit...

> You'd literally need to build more roads, as long haul trucks would be on the road, literally, for an entire day longer per load. Speed is efficiency.

Only up to a point. The relationship between speed and fuel burned is not linear, and fuel is the largest cost.

The legislated maximum speed for heavy vehicles in Australia is 100km/h, but most major fleets electronically limit their vehicles to 90 for efficiency reasons.

Every extra km/h over 90 has a negligible impact on trip time while imposing a large penalty in terms of fuel burn.

Truckers are also limited to how many hours they can drive per day, but not on how much distance they can cover, so more speed is an optimization to the driver’s paycheck. Autonomous trucks wouldn’t have that problem and could maximize efficiency.

> American trucks are high performance racing machines by comparison.

Only when you look at governed speed. If I remember the aforementioned Bruce Wilson videos correctly, his imported truck has something like 120 horsepower more than the local counterparts.

Weight-wise, American trucks are limited to 80.000 lbs. The EU allows 88.000 lbs everywhere, but heavier trucks are becoming more and more common. For example, short-distance transport to and from sea ports can be 97.000 lbs, they are exploring raising the EU-wide limit to 132.000 lbs, and Finland and Sweden already allow 165.000 lbs for long-distance transport with trials for 194.000 lbs. That's over twice as much cargo per truck as in the US!

And going fast is one thing, but you need to be able to do so safely. I've heard plenty of stories of American truckers complaining about it being "impossible to stop quickly". Meanwhile in Europe things like radar-assisted emergency braking are becoming the default, and the trucks are able to stop on a dime. Kid suddenly jumps in front of a truck? No problem, they'll live [0]. The driver is going to need a new pair of pants and the trailer is going to be an absolute mess, but that kid hasn't been turned into physics!

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOw8AjHfnoA

Both European and American prime movers have been in service for many years on road trains in Australia with gross masses over 600,000lb, though that’s only in remote areas.

150,000lb B-doubles however are common nationwide.

https://www.nhvr.gov.au/files/201707-0577-common-heavy-freig...

That's part of the reason, but it doesn't explain the use of chrome, rectangular or round headlights instead of molded headlights that integrate into the bodywork, and many other design elements that have remained virtually unchanged since the 1970s. I think a lot of it is just that Americans like the look.

Even a brand new electric cab over garbage truck looks vintage: https://www.peterbilt.com/trucks/zero-emission/520EV

TBH, that's Peterbuilt's design language. My guess is that the parent poster was talking about the 589. That's what I think of when I think about tractor-trailers. https://www.peterbilt.com/trucks/on-highway/589

Different supply chains.

> it doesn't explain the use of chrome, rectangular or round headlights instead of molded headlights that integrate into the bodywork,

Interchangable standardized parts are a bad thing now?

If you compare, say, the Peterbilt 579 and 589, you'll find that the former is way more modern looking and aerodynamic and the latter is very classic and old school looking. The 579 is also vastly more fuel efficient. I'm fairly certain that the classic design of the 589 is entirely for aesthetic reasons rather than for part interchangeability.

https://www.peterbilt.com/trucks/on-highway

Cab-overs do exist in the US. They are primarily used for short haul and are less common than they were in decades past. The 70s TV show BJ and the Bear featured a Kenworth with a sleeper cab. Those don't seem to exist anymore in the US.

I think it's mainly a regulation/law thing:

"In contrast, European regulations are much stricter regarding the dimensions of trucks. In European Union member countries, trucks cannot exceed 18.75 meters in length, which prioritizes the maximum use of available space for cargo. Manufacturers resort to solutions such as the use of smaller cabs and flat bodies to comply with these regulations while still maintaining cargo capacity."

https://www.sgibinc.com/en/differences-between-american-and-...

Thanks - presumably those regulations on length didn't come out of nowhere though, right?

Here's the actual EU directive:

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/1996/53/oj/eng

I tried to find some official document that properly explained how and why they agreed on these values, but it's really hard to find proper documents. After all, the directive was agreed on in 1996...

Here's a link to perplexity: https://www.perplexity.ai/search/why-is-the-length-of-trucks...

To sum it up, it's a mix of everything: Safety (for infrastructure and humans), efficiency, and of course EU-wide harmonization of standards.

Do you think it’s because they’re using diesel?

In my layman pov… A diesel engine can take the least aerodynamically shaped body and move it at 60 mph for 1k miles no problem. As an American, I guess it’s just natural to me that if it can move, then it should move with glory!!

Edit: my bad I didn’t properly read your post

The one I linked is all electric.

Wowza!! Ok I checked out the link. My bad for not reading ur post properly.

Yikes 100-250 mile range.

Probably fine for what it is.

The range only needs to cover the period between mandated brakes. Everything over that is wasted weight, as the weight of the cargo and the weight of the truck share a weight budget.

> The range only needs to cover the period between mandated brakes.

I was confused there for a second until I realized you meant "breaks."

That’s technically true, I suppose, but dishonest since you imply that those numbers are large enough to max out driving time. You wouldn’t be able to drive to your first mandatory 30 minute break with that range.

If youre doing 56mph, as you would be in the EU, then you can drive for 4.5hrs and cover 250miles before your first mandated break.

So it almost seems optimised for the mandated break timing.

On average truck journeys in europe are only 72 miles anyway so...

> On average truck journeys in europe are only 72 miles anyway so...

That’s astonishing. I’d be curious to see the median and mode distances compared between the U.S. and E.U.

Many journeys will be from the distribution center to the supermarket or similar, or even multiple supermarkets, which would really bring down the average.

Yeah the range between mandated breaks is way over 100 miles. In the UK it is 45 minutes after 4.5 hours driving, so about 270 miles. But you need to account for the likelihood that there isn't a charger at the break stop. On the other hand the Volvo trucks in this article apparently have a similar range and they're selling so I guess it's worth the hassle.

> In the UK it is 45 minutes after 4.5 hours driving, so about 270 miles.

Trucks/lorries drive lots of places other than UK motorways, and they are not doing 60mph down the A4.

~All trucks, except for electric ones, are diesel, and have been for a long time.

I don’t think using a diesel engine would make the fuel efficiency losses from having bad aerodynamics any better

Why are e-trucks like this getting 1/100th of the not-yet-in-mass-production Tesla Semi?

Can i go in and order 100 of these? Are they custom/super-expensive?

Apparently so: https://electrek.co/2024/06/01/einride-orders-150-peterbilt-...

Volvo: 600km range, 82k lb capacity, 60% charge in 40 minutes, $350k

Tesla: 800km range, 82k lb capacity, 70% charge in 30 minutes (with a much higher capacity battery), $250k

Telsa would also probably have better dealer network, better software (self driving), better charger network

Why would anyone buy Volvo?

Because you _can_ but Volvo right now, its a real product.

The Tesla battery is almost twice the size of the Volvo VNR Electric battery but only gets slightly more range than the comparably specced Volvo VNR Electric when fully loaded.

But the Volvo VNR Electric can be self-serviced. Tesla Semis can't. And given Tesla's abysmal service history, that's a deal breaker. And it's why no company has actually used Tesla Semis beyond the token trial Semi they purchased using government grants.

Because the volvo truck exists and tesla does not?

Also, have you learned nothing when it comes to announced specs of a new tesla vs real world specs when it lands?

okay, but these are future purchases. these companies already have a fleet of diesel trucks that are working. and at some point they need to expand and replace existing, and they're clearly fine waiting for a better product at a better price to do so, because at some point the break-even doesn't make sense if something costs 30% and does less.

it's not "im buying volvo because tesla semis arent in super mass production yet". it's "i'm going to replace with an EV semi when it makes prudent financial sense to do so". and for some companies that means buying a volvo now, and for others it means extending the lifespan of their current fleet a bit until teslas are more available, and if you can wait, it makes sense to do so

its also worth noting that volvo didn't deliver 5000 semis comparable to tesla's semi. that 5k number includes their entire fleet of trucks, including significantly smaller ones with significantly smaller range and less capacity. it makes sense to out-sell tesla in an area where tesla literally isn't even making a comparable product

US trucks are much cooler looking, although I don’t doubt European ones are more efficient and practical.

Even firetrucks, the ones I saw in SF looked so cool compred to the ones I see over here.

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