You Can’t Buy That Diesel Truck 12

[Oops409]

California’s EV rules are already restricting sales of gas-powered rigs.

This news came in a public comment filed by the National Automobile Dealers Association with the Environmental Protection Agency regarding California’s Advanced Clean Fleets rule. The regulation says “zero-emission” trucks must be a growing share of semi-truck fleet sales. California imposes a similar mandate for passenger cars.Trouble is, truckers aren’t buying electric big rigs because they can’t afford them even with $40,000 in federal tax credits. Electric trucks cost twice as much as diesel-powered rigs and have a limited driving range—150 miles on average, compared to between 1,000 and 1,500 for diesel trucks. There are also few truck charging stations.

Yet under California’s rules, “dealers are restricted from selling a diesel truck unless they sell a ZEV truck,” the dealer group reports. The result: “New class 8 truck sales (ZEV and Diesel) were down 50 percent year-over-year in June 2024.” Truckers are driving older engines longer because they can’t buy newer diesel models, which results in more pollution.

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/electric-big-rigs-dont-make-sense-even-40000-tax-credits

If only a Systems Engineering Team was in charge of implementation, EV's and infrastructure could be incrementally inserted with out crashing and burning. Result of current mandates is higher polluting clunkers remain on road longer vs cleaner and more efficient new diesel models. Current mandate totally skip the intermediate steps like hybrids which offer a transitional path that does not crash the economy and supply chain and create more inflation.

 

[DirteJoe]

Leave, or never move to California. Problem solved.

 

[cranky108]

What happened to Bio-diesel? Likely not part of the government managed plan for our future.

 

[GregLocock]

That's a generic problem with the whole Net Zero push, politicians think that incremental band aid solutions, on the Field of Dreams funding model, will result in a viable economy. EVs sound like a solution, but until you have all the other bits and bobs in place, they just move the issue elsewhere. Usually China, as it happens.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[TugboatEng]

Hydrotreated vegetable oil has essentially replaced biodiesel.

 

[AZPete]

...incremental band aid solutions...

"Mandates".

Ever see a mandate pinpoint an optimum (besides a trivial zero)? No, that's why commerce requires consent.

 

[dik]

Pepsi has a fleet of 100 Tesla EV tractor units and has been running them for a while. They seem to be doing well. They are less costly to operate and maintenance costs are small. A sign of the times...

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[dik]

You just have to be committed to do it... I think Norway is at 93% EVs and I think Sweden is at about 50%...

EVs are making inroads nearly all over the earth, except for a few countries. They can be purchased for several thousand dollars less than an ICE car. They are likely the vehicle of the future. That goes for semi-trailer tractor units and buses (sp?).

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[looslib]

EV trucks will work for local delivery but not long hauls.
Team Penske pulled into one race in CA last year with eCascadia Freightliners. what wasn't mentioned was that the trip from NC to CA was with the normal diesel trucks and they switch tractors for the local run to the racetrack.

"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."

Ben Loosli

 

[TugboatEng]

California's EV truck rules are simply going to force shippers to use air freight instead of truck freight. Then, the electric trucks can make the short haul from the airport to the destination.

 

[Oops409]

As mentioned above, Net Zero push focuses more on transportation systems that are easily visible to consumer, like on road vehicles and trucks. Basically kicking the can on the Global issue. Pushing more truck cargo to trains and planes for long haul shipping. I doubt offloading tractor trailer cargo to planes, trains or 2-cycle heavy fuel oil ships will result in a better globsl system level Net Zero?

Also mentioned above, the US is pushing production to China where they are buiding coal fired power plants to keep up with the worlds production of goods.

We need to look at net zero at the global level, and if China won't comply with net zero goals then we should not be producing there.

China is building EV's powered by coal power plants. How is that EV cleaner looking at the cradle to grave life cycle impact, than the diesel or gas vehicles?

Natural gas is cleaner than coal, yet the US is trying to push coal and natural gas offline at same time they mandate more loads on the electrical grid.

Where is the long term carefully laid out Master Integrated Plan, Schedule and Costs of how we get from A to Z without sinking the ship? Along with independent engineering analysis of the trades and their impact?

Who wants to fly on the first commercial EV Airplane?

Perhaps Boeing will subcontract it to China?

 

[SnTMan]

And then there is India

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand

 

[LittleInch]

Why is this in the rngineering disaster forum and not the climate change engineering general forum??

This is NOT an engineering issue, but a political one surely.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[Oops409]

Why is this in the rngineering disaster forum and not the climate change engineering general forum??

This is NOT an engineering issue, but a political one surely.

I was inspired by the fumes from the Talladega Wreck Disaster........

I believe it is an engineering disaster happening now, and it could have been avoided by using an unbiased systems engineering approach.

I am not arguing pro or con on climate change, but rather about the engineering process to get from A to Z.

However, if you want to move it under Net Zero Disasters, I am fine with that.

EDIT: Perhaps the failure in this disaster is the fact that sound system engineering principles were not involved in the decision and implementation process?

PS: I have no idea how to move this to another forum..... But I also don't feel everything should get lumped under climate change either.....

 

[DirteJoe]

Maybe it's my jaded outlook on things, but I'm with little inch. The only engineering "disaster" is this being in this forum. Engineering isn't always the answer, and sometimes is the reason for disaster.

 

[dik]

Pepsi plans to use them for long haul, too. They've already used one for travelling 2000 miles in two days.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[dik]

I disagree... it's a serious engineering issue that they've made political so they don't have to deal with it.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[TugboatEng]

Dik, if the trucks were performing well they wouldn't be so secretive about the payload. For all we know it's 80,000 lbs of truck and batteries and 2000 lbs of diabetes. Wait a minute, maybe these electric trucks are a real benefit to society.

Well, one did catch on fire and shut down Highway 80 for a few days recently. That's a big problem.

To bring his back to engineering, how do we harden our infrastructure against these electric trucks? Imagine an electric vehicle catching fire in a tunnel that is already bumper to bumper.

 

[dik]

That's a real problem with EVs. Hazmat brought out because of the products of combustion. Some EV batteries are very flammable. They have new EV batteries that are not flammable and are economical to use. My understanding is that EVs are safer than ICE vehicles for burning problems.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[3DDave]

The truck on Hwy 80 went off the road and slammed into a tree. Spontaneous combustion after spontaneous massive collision damage; 12 to 16 hours of shutdown.

Infrastructure isn't hardened against fuel fires; the riskier vehicles are usually excluded, such as from tunnels.

In this case, keeping trees from growing in tunnels might be enough.

Sometimes there are dumb laws and the most dumb ones get repealed. If the electric truck push fails, then it is very likely the law concerning sales will be overturned.

That said, I knew a number of people who demanded that seat belts were unsafe; they thought they were a ridiculous expense forced upon them and violated their rights to have to pay for them. While the automatic motion seat belts went through a really ugly segment of development, those don't exist anymore. More people wear seat belts now; many fewer moan about the way they wrinkle clothing. The rate of death in car crashes has continued to decrease and it is clear that it's not because drivers are any more skillful or pay more attention. Seat belts, airbags, crumple zones, crash testing - every step a step that was fought against is now taken for granted.

Perhaps there will simply be more pressure to modernize rail transport of freight. Before semis, most freight was carried by rail with trains dropping off food and goods in town to be hauled to consumers in horse-drawn wagons.

Rail is still far more efficient in per ton-mile energy expended than trucks.

For example, trains get about 500 miles/gallon per 1 ton. Trucks manage about 25% of that. Trucks are more flexible, but trucks also get a gigantic Federal subsidy in the building and maintenance of Federal highways.

Track costs the railroads $1-2M per mile. Highways appear to be about double that per lane mile. However highways continuously absorb $10-$40k per lane-mile each year for maintaining them - snow clearing, salting, repairing potholes, resurfacing, et al. Trucking also employs a large number of potential voters, likely skewing the political support for highways.

The better engineering solution is increased rail transport.

See

https://www.bts.gov/content/us-ton-miles-freight

The weird characteristic is measures of how much freight is moved per mode. Since almost everything is last-mile delivered by truck, the results are hugely skewed, as if rail and water don't exist. I expect a similar analysis would suggest replacing transport of mail by truck with postal carriers on foot.