
Germany is opening its first electric highway for trucks - mariushn
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/07/tech/e-highway-a5/index.html
======
ChuckNorris89
So basically they reinvented the trolleybuss[1] that's been around for over
100 years and still popular in some European cities by putting a tram
pantograph[2] on top and moving them on highways.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybus)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tram](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tram)

~~~
chewz
Exactly. Trolleybus had been popular in my city when I was a child. Then
declared obstacles and replaced with oridinary buses.

Time to bring trolleybus back instead of EVs that as any individual cars have
no place in a city.

~~~
sergiosgc
> (...) as any individual cars have no place in a city.

That's one view. The other is that cities are too dense. There is no reason,
in the era of fast digital communications, to pack humans so densely that we
are discussing the right to use an 8m² space in the city for personal use.
It's an attack on the symptom rather than an attack on the cause.

~~~
chewz
Not a matter of taking 8m2 for personal use but rather of eliminating 8m2 for
green, parks, pavements. Adding friction for pedestrians with unnecessary
traffic lights etc.

In a city bikes and public transport should be all you need. Cars do not
belong in the city.

~~~
FerretFred
> _In a city bikes and public transport should be all you need_

Agreed! And what better time to get rid of those diesel-belching, noisy buses
and bring back trolleybuses? The problem is in the UK (IMO) is that
politicians generally can't think beyond the next election, so anything like
this gets ignored.

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GhostVII
It seems like it would be to expensive to build and maintain this kind of
cabling over a significant portion of the highway, but it would be interesting
to have it over smaller sections so trucks can re-charge without stopping.

~~~
jessriedel
Naively, the ability to re-charge without stopping seems of limited value.
Given predictable routes and the existing network of specialized stops for
trucks, I expect that battery swapping and overnight charging of trucks is
sufficient, and does not require maintaining expensive overhead wiring
infrastructure stretching over miles. Just consider what is going to require
more hardware: a single battery swap station, or miles and miles of overhead
wiring necessary to recharge a truck battery given known limits to battery
charging speeds.

~~~
Reason077
Battery swapping is an inefficient use of resources.

Batteries are expensive assets and make up the bulk of the cost of an electric
truck. You want to have all your batteries inside trucks, working as much as
possible, not sitting around stored at swap stations waiting to be used.

Fast charging infrastructure beats battery swapping, and recharge times aren’t
really an issue. In Europe, truck drivers are required to take breaks every
4.5 hours anyway.

~~~
jessriedel
> You want to have all your batteries inside trucks, working as much as
> possible, not sitting around stored at swap stations waiting to be used.

Batteries don't sit at swap stations just waiting to be used, they sit there
charging. (The big difference is that the vehicle, which is also an expensive
asset, doesn't have to be attached to them while doing this.) Stations will
have the minimum number of batteries on hand to ensure there is always one
available to swap in.

Insofar as you need extra capacity to handle fluctations in usage, leading to
charged batteries sitting around, you have a a strictly worse problem if the
batteries are permanently attached to vehicles (since vehicle demand
fluctuations don't go away, and you have the additional problem that you can't
remove batteries from vehicles that aren't going to be used for a while).
Another way to see this is that swappable batteries is just an extra ability;
you can always charge the battery attached to the vehicle if you want.

If you have a link to a technical argument for what you're trying to gesture
at, I'd love to see it, but the argument you've given doesn't hold water.
Arguments relating to the cost of the swapping infrastructure are at least
plausible.

> and recharge times aren’t really an issue. In Europe, truck drivers are
> required to take breaks every 4.5 hours anyway.

In that case, there is no point to the overhead charging system discussed in
the OP article.

~~~
Reason077
_”Stations will have the minimum number of batteries on hand to ensure there
is always one available to swap in.”_

Therein lies the problem. You may be able to optimise your network, scheduling
truck routes according to availability of swaps, etc. But it’s always going to
require a substantially greater number of batteries than trucks.

And for what gain? Time savings are zero-to-minimal, and fast charging is
cheaper, easier, and more flexible than swapping.

Also, truck batteries are going to be much bigger than car batteries. A long-
range truck pack will weigh several tonnes. A station that can swap these
quickly in a semi-automated way is likely to be a substantial, expensive
undertaking.

~~~
jessriedel
> But it’s always going to require a substantially greater number of batteries
> than trucks.

I already addressed this is my comment. It's a loss that applies just as well
to batteries that cannot be attached to vehicles, so it's not an argument
against detachable batteries.

> Also, truck batteries are going to be much bigger than car batteries. A
> long-range truck pack will weigh several tonnes.

Stations already have massive underground infrastructures for dealing with
fuel, which has an effective energy density that is less than a factor of two
smaller than batteries. And unlike fuel, which must be stored on-site for the
entire time between fuel shipments (~24 hours), you don't need to store a
comparable number of batteries on site, just enough to have them continuously
charging.

> A station that can swap these quickly in a semi-automated way is likely to
> be a substantial, expensive undertaking.

Putting in miles and miles of overhead charing capabilities is, I claim,
significantly more expensive. But I'm not interested in having a detailed
conversation on the expense of swapping machinery if we can't even agree on
the simple point about utilization rates of swappable batteries being as least
as large as non-swappable ones.

------
PinguTS
Which actually isn't that kind of a news. Because the first such thing where
deployed in Sweden in 2016.[1]

Sweden even has a second prototype project right now, which uses electric
rails which can be used by trucks AND cars.[2]

[1] [https://www.scania.com/group/en/worlds-first-electric-
road-o...](https://www.scania.com/group/en/worlds-first-electric-road-opens-
in-sweden/)

[2] [https://www.freightwaves.com/news/technology/sweden-gets-
the...](https://www.freightwaves.com/news/technology/sweden-gets-the-worlds-
first-road-that-recharges-electric-trucks-as-they-move-over-it)

~~~
_Codemonkeyism
Implemented by Scania (owned by Volkswagen) and Siemens. The same are now the
main partners behind the one in Germany.

~~~
touristtam
When did Scania (and Saab presumably) ownership changed?

~~~
alkonaut
Saab-Scania (70's-90's) was split into Scania (trucks) and Saab Automobile.
Scania maintained independent for a long while but is now owned by VW.

Saab Automobile was bought by GM (90's-2000's), who completely ruined the
company, sold it for pennies, and now it's bankrupt.

------
t4ko
[https://new.siemens.com/global/en/products/mobility/road-
sol...](https://new.siemens.com/global/en/products/mobility/road-
solutions/electromobility/ehighway.html)

For those wondering about not electrified sections, trucks equipped with the
system use hybrid drives.

There are some points that would need more explanation for me: \- I don't see
any billing system described here. According to their page this system cut in
half the energy consumption so there is still a significant electricity
consumption that will be paid somehow. \- What's the durability of the truck
attachment and the cables ? Cable replacement/maintenance would mean blocking
at least one lane for a significant amount of time so I hope it's not a
frequent operation.

More specific to Germany, I really don't want to sound like I am against EV
but it's something I genuinely wonder about : Say this system becomes popular
and tens of thousands of trucks start sucking electricity out of the grid, the
electricity demand will skyrocket. Is Germany going to raise the electricity
prices to import or build clean plants or just restart a few coal plant ?

~~~
imtringued
Take a look at the primary energy consumption here in this chart [0]. As you
can see despite 45% of electricity coming from renewables it's still only 14%
of the total energy consumption. Just the mineral oil consumption alone
contributes 2.5 times more energy than renewables. This looks bad at first
glance except you have to consider that the efficiency of ICE cars is
extremely low, somewhere around 25% or even less depending on the fuel.
Electric motors will massively reduce the total amount of energy needed for
transport no matter what the source of energy is.

[0]
[https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g...](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_image/public/paragraphs/images/fig10-germany-
energy-mix-energy-sources-share-primary-energy-
consumption-2018.png?itok=84UVNr7M)

------
matteuan
I don't understand how they could justify this investment. Aren't railways
cheaper and more efficient anyway?

~~~
NikkiA
Railways are great for bulk transport of goods, but road trucking excels at
smaller loads with finer-grained destination selection. The railway equivalent
to what these trucks facilitate would be wagon-load freight, which is largely
considered impractical in europe[0] and generally lost out to road trucking
post war[1].

To explain why this isn't necessarily the case in america [0], it's important
to understand that america didn't have a huge rebuilding effort post-war [1]
that relocated industry away from the rail lines that had been servicing them
for a hundred years. Post-war europe did have that rebuilding effort, and it
saw a lot of medium industry spread out as the costs to remain in denser
populated areas near rail hubs increase. Thus road networks became the feeders
for these industries rather than proximity to rail freight depots and rail
spurs. Maintaining wagon-load rail delivery in that environment became much
more expensive as a result.

~~~
croisillon
I think you forgot to post the [0] and [1] notes

~~~
NikkiA
In this case I was using them as cross-references.

~~~
croisillon
oh ok!

------
blackdogie
If these cables could be used to recharge _and_ power trucks then you wouldn’t
need total coverage if they were all electric.

~~~
dredmorbius
Right, and gravity can be creatively applied as well.

Short-range (100-1000m) off-grid capability, or unpowered downhill segments
(relying on regenerative braking to battery storage) can further reduce
infrastructure needs.

There are battery-powered truck schemes relying on empty uphill returns for
quarry and forestry applications. Effectively the load itself is the potential
energy source and charges batteries via regenerative braking.

Clever, but of limited application.

------
learc83
There's a Civil Engineering professor at Oklahoma State University who's
pushing a similar concept to improve America's infrastructure.

It's called the Autonomous Trucking Corridor.

[https://youtu.be/_ev6hIQYKYY](https://youtu.be/_ev6hIQYKYY)

------
fouronnes3
Sounds pretty obvious when you look at it. I wonder why it hasn't happened
earlier.

~~~
fijal
It did:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybus)

~~~
NikkiA
Eh, not really, there's a gulf of inventions involving better pantograph
technology, efficient and compact hybrid power trains, sensors and self-
driving capability (the trucks will need some form of self 'lane' keeping to
stay connected to the power source) and so on that makes the two barely
comparable other than at a very cosmetic level.

------
reacharavindh
A few questions come to mind.

Can this solution be scaled to higher speeds? (Yes, electric trains reach
higher speeds with similar top mounted tech. But, they run on dedicated rails)

What about failure of a line? Could people in cars be electrocuted?

~~~
llukas
Trucks have 90kph speed limit.

------
Digit-Al
I wonder how many miles you have to drive one of these new trucks before you
offset the carbon used to make it rather than continuing to use the old diesel
truck?

------
gridlockd
> Another benefit is a sharp reduction in emissions of CO2...

Yeah... no. Half of the German electricity is coal-based, so electric vehicles
in Germany are _worse_ in terms of CO2 emissions than Diesel-based vehicles:

[https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/04/27/1842245/electric-
ve...](https://news.slashdot.org/story/19/04/27/1842245/electric-vehicles-in-
germany-emit-more-co2-than-diesel-ones-study-shows)

Combined with the total stop of nuclear energy and the unsolved problem of
storing/distributing renewable energy, it's going to stay that way for a
while.

~~~
imtringued
What makes you think that Germany will stay on coal forever?

~~~
gridlockd
I don't think that. _Forever_ is a long time.

However, so far the "Energiewende" has been a total failure in terms of
reducing CO2, despite Germany having a huge amount of renewables and extremely
high electricity costs. If Germany had any obvious alternatives to coal, they
would've long done something about it.

As it stands and into the foreseeable future, without technological
breakthroughs, the idea that electric vehicles could significantly reduce CO2
emissions doesn't stand scrutiny.

~~~
grandinj
They do: nuclear power. Already built, costs already paid, minimal extra costs
to be incurred due to running it longer.

~~~
gridlockd
> They do: nuclear power. Already built, costs already paid, minimal extra
> costs to be incurred due to running it longer.

Nevertheless, Germany has already decided to exit nuclear altogether.

------
greendestiny_re
Ultimately, self-driving vehicles require maintenance on the road, meaning a
human riding along; if the self-driving capability fails, the human will take
over the wheel.

Logistics companies want to minimize maintenance costs, meaning the self-
driving truck ends up just a regular truck, except the driver now needs to
have a PhD in electrical engineering to do maintenance.

Self-driving vehicles don't seem scalable.

~~~
dmortin
> Ultimately, self-driving vehicles require maintenance on the road, meaning a
> human riding along; if the self-driving capability fails, the human will
> take over the wheel.

Maybe in the first several years. After that the technology will mature and
maintenance won't be needed that often. And if there is a problem the truck
can stop at the roadside, like in case of a failure today, and call for help.

I guess logistics companies will keep teams on the road which can respond
quickly if a self driving truck has problems.

------
mariushn
Unfortunately, some still look at immediate costs instead of considering long-
term health benefits (and cost savings) due to lower pollution:

 _Doubts have been raised about the cost-benefit ratio of the pilot project.
Micheal Kraft, vice president of the Hessian Motor Trade Association,
considers the technology, which is already used in Sweden, to be
uneconomical._

~~~
gridlockd
The doubts are entirely warranted. Health effects are externalities, so unless
the government puts a price on it, they have no impact on whether something is
economical or not.

If something is uneconomical, it simply cannot work unless it is subsidized
and then the question is whether there isn't a better use for that money.
Cost-Benefit is always relevant. If you just care about the health effects,
subsidizing gas-powered vehicles may be more cost efficient.

~~~
fluffything
> If something is uneconomical, it simply cannot work unless it is subsidized

Or alternatively, everything else is made worse. Raise taxes on Diesel, raise
taxes on non-hybrid and non-electric trucks, forbid non-electric trucks from
autobahns, etc.

If you are a government, you don't have to make this solution better, you can
just make all other solutions worse.

------
wink
I apologize on behalf of our government that is enthralled by the automotive
lobby.

