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.

 

[TugboatEng]

Trains are still running engines at EPA Tier 0 ratings. They are the only industry that has not been required to do upgrade anything. Rail is quite likely the dirtiest form or transportation today. I joke about air freight taking over from truck in CA because CA has no jurisdiction over laws with regards to aircraft.

On a side note, CA is also attempting to make all tugboats illegal to operate.

 

[3DDave]

"today" is doing a lot of work there. There is no engineering reason they cannot be cleaner and no reason they could not have been cleaner for a long time. Money and the political influence money can buy are the reasons.

Maybe "illegal", more likely just not as cheap to operate. I see the California estimate is under 50 cents per TEU for tugboat compliance. Ship owners hate numbers that large and consumers don't notice that their electronic widget is now 0.0002 cents more expensive, but the statistics will notice that those living in the on-shore breeze zone have lower rates of cancer from diesel emissions.

 

[TugboatEng]

We operate at a 15% lifetime load factor. Adding a DPF is going to double our fuel consumption at a minimum. All available DPF units require 40% load factors minimum. We're going to have use electric grid heaters or duct burners nearly the entire time the vessel is operating.

It will be illegal for us to operate. We are the most compliant company but we are struggling to keep up. We're repowering boats we repowered 5 years ago and we haven't even finished our current repowers and we may have to repower again in 3 months with engines that don't exist.

You should see all of the plasma torch emissions it takes to do these conversions. Lbs of iron oxide vs grams of carbon...

 

[3DDave]

Iron oxide is not a carcinogen.

Is the low operating point to save money over using a smaller engine at a higher load?

 

[TugboatEng]

No, we have to have the horsepower available to act as brakes for the ship. We spend most of our time waiting or transiting where we don't need the full horsepower but when braking or turning ships we do need all of the horsepower. We are operating the most powerful high speed diesel engines available, there are only two manufacturers in the world that produce engines are these ratings. These are ~78 liter engines producing up to 3500 hp at 1800 rpm.

We run high speed engines because they do have the highest equivalent of a turn down ratio. They can idle at 4 gallons per hour fuel consumption and peak at 175 gph. Quite impressive. That and low overhaul cost are the money saving aspects.

I edited my previous post to cover legal challenges.

 

[Brian Malone]

dik who are the entity(ies) you are referring to with "they've"? Governments, scientific researchers, energy providers, environmentalists?

I'm not intending to zero-in on your comment exclusively, I see use of a "they/them" commonly in climate discussions, and find many discussions get muddled when an anonymous entity is placed as a key stakeholder. Without identification of the entity, how can any constructive action be planned/taken?

 

[3DDave]

Sounds like an excellent place for hybrid electric to be used. Very high power for short duration requirements.

 

[Tmoose]

I wonder what a cutting edge world class 3500 hp electric tug would look like.
The solar panels might have a vaguely familiar look.

https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2024/04/29/00/07/pirates-8726523_1280.jpg

 

[dik]

High speed electric trains work very well. China has a maglev that clips along at 460km/hr.

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

-Dik

 

[dik]

As part of Norway's push for elimination of fossil fuels, even their Ferries in Oslo have been converted to electric.

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

-Dik

 

[dik]

Battery manufacturers. Non-flammable batteries for EVs are currently available. One of the tests they go through is to drill through one. This creates the short circuit for the fire that lithium batteries would have.

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

-Dik

 

[dik]

Hybrids are a problem, too. I think their time is limited.

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

-Dik

 

[Oops409]

So non-flammable EV batteries available, yet automakers still using fire breathing lithum-ion?

 

[dik]

It's a cost issue. There is not a huge difference in the price, but it's there.

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

-Dik

 

[Oops409]

Which brings back memories of the rear gas tank fires in the Ford Pinto.... How many lives does it have to affect, and how much physical damage is required, to motivate the people/government to demand the non-flammable batteries with the toxic fire hazard?

At least the Pinto gas tank held up better to water exposure...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2yjvKcN2Es&feature=youtu.be

 

[TugboatEng]

There have been hybrid boats built. However, California says no to hybrid. They want electric only.

We are building an all electric boat. It's going to be 2.5x the cost of a standard boat.

One of our competitors has built an electric boat but has nowhere to charge it.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

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.

Yes, this is EXACTLY the type of unintentional effect so many of these government actions have. They over regulate something to the point where they cause a worse problem than the one they were trying to fix.

 

[A8yssUK]

I thought this thread might like this; I was researching something else and it cropped up.

https://www.energy.ca.gov/publications/2024/hydrogen-zero-emission-tugboat-project

IMHO Hydrogen would seem like a better idea for vessels rather than just electric... technically feasible but $40 mil might be a bit much right now

 

[BrianPetersen]

So non-flammable EV batteries available, yet automakers still using fire breathing lithum-ion?

The less hazardous types either have other disadvantages (e.g. LFP a.k.a. LiFePo has lower energy density, and is unhappy at low temperatures) or haven't had all the issues worked out yet to the point of being commercialised (solid-state batteries, which eliminate the liquid electrolyte, which in the case of a normal lithium-ion NMC battery, is a combustible liquid).

LFP is available in some models. The standard-range Ford Mach e has a LFP battery. So do the standard-range Tesla models. But the "I want to tow my huge trailer across the country without ever stopping" get NMC batteries, with their combustible electrolyte, in the interest of getting as much range as possible. Having less range doesn't make for good ad copy.

 

[dik]

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?

Planes are also part of the problem.

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.

China is rapidly moving away from coal power plants. They have refused 85 permits this year. They are rapidly going to solar, and nuclear.

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.

They are moving much faster to BEVs than the Americans are. It will be interesting when all the world has migrated to BEVs and the US refuses to.

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?

They were... their rate of change to renewable energy nearly puts them in #1 spot.

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.

Natural gas is still a fossil fuel and is a real big problem. It's just cleaner than coal.