
Daimler has new electric trucks and a buyer for them - jseliger
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/09/daimler-has-new-electric-trucks-and-a-buyer-for-them-the-united-parcel-service/
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tmrmn
DHL is already successfully producing its own electric trucks for the last
mile, albeit with a lower load capacity.

[https://www.streetscooter.eu/](https://www.streetscooter.eu/)

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adrianN
And they do so because German car manufactures weren't interested in building
an electric delivery truck for them...

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dx034
Which shows that Tesla is not the only new player in town.

Given that much of the value chain isn't provided by OEMs anyway, commercial
vehicles (where comfort and optics aren't as important) can be produced
without the help of an OEM.

~~~
ulfw
Which also goes to show how ridiculously easy an electric vehicle is to
produce, considering there isn't much to the engine nor transmission (the two
most complex items) necessary.

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dpflan
Once electric vehicles become more prevalent than gas-powered vehicles,
imagine the affect on the city and its noise levels. A place like NYC where
these trucks will be tested seems to be defined by the "hustle-and-bustle" and
the noise/sound of vehicular movement is part of that. I wonder what the
overall affect on noise of the city will be: you can hear more birds than you
thought existed in the city? You no longer are begrudgingly awoken by the
garbage truck in the early morning. What are the positive and negative results
of reduced vehicle noise?

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josefresco
Some "road noise" is caused by tires making contact with the road surface.
This might not apply in stop-and-go traffic, but certainly has an effect on
highways which pass through many cities. Also, _honking_.

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dsfyu404ed
To add on to that:

Just cruising down the highway in an wouldn't be appreciably quieter if EVs
weren't chock full of things to mitigate NVH because low NVH is a selling
point that the manufacturers of EVs need to reinforce/live up to.

The fan on most cars is louder than the engine at idle. An EV still needs a
fan to draw air over an A/C condenser at idle.

~~~
dx034
Only where it's hot. I've driven several EVs in Europe and not noticed a fan
noise at all. But you only use the A/C ~5-10% of the time here.

Tyre noise is different, on motorways EVs are not much quieter (for cars, not
for trucks). In cities the difference is huge.

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larrydag
I'm curious how this will affect trucking productivity. Drivers need to be in
their vehicle to be making money. Most trucks, I imagine, have a range of
about 300 miles. A 60 mile range is very short. Since recharging could take
hours(??) what is the remedy? Can these batteries be swapped? Does the
maintenance cost outweigh the productivity cost?

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Brakenshire
Just from the figures provided, if you're using close to the range each day,
it's €3500 a year in savings, one daily recharge cycle up to €7000 a year, two
recharge cycles up to €10500 a year. And then perhaps reduced maintenance on
top. It does seem quite significant if the capital and battery replacement
costs aren't too high.

I also wonder whether logistics companies can fit charging into their existing
operations; delivery vehicles have to come back to a depot once they are
empty, and there must be a period of downtime while the van is being filled.

These companies also know the distances each van has to travel to deliver it's
combination of packages, in effect you have the information to eliminate range
anxiety. You could have a percentage of your fleet electric, and put them on
routes which were high density and near the depot. You could then be confident
that they will return to depot with charge to spare, and recharge them at the
loading bays while waiting in the normal course of operations.

This truck can charge fully in an hour, so assuming a half hour turnaround
time for reloading, there would be no downtime on a route thirty miles or
less. As the range and the speed of charging increase, the percentage of the
fleet which you could switch to electric would increase.

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louhike
Do you mean 3500€ by "E3500" ?

If it's hard to put the euro symbol with your keyboard, try maybe to write
3500 euros, I had to stop to understand what you meant.

~~~
Brakenshire
I'll copy and paste your Euro symbol, thanks!

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petard
Can someone point me to studies that model the effect of replacing all fuel-
based vehicles with electric counterparts on availability of things like rare
earth metals? I'm all for electric cars and such but have been wondering about
the consequences on earth resources since current battery tech is not exactly
environmentally-friendly either afaik.

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coob
Batteries don't need rare earth metals and neither do newer electric motors.

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cjrp
Do any currently-non-rare metals suddenly become rare when you increase
worldwide electric vehicle production 100x though?

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seanmcdirmid
No. Rare earths actually aren't "rare", they just require a lot of processing
because they are pretty diluted where they are found. So using those other
metals more doesn't make them magically rare, since they are mined
differently.

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cjrp
TIL, thanks

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rwmj
We had fleets of electric trucks in the UK back in the 1970s:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_float](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_float)

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jk2323
That is good news. Trucks are congesting Europe's streets and long-distance
cargo should be transported preferably via train.

This is also interesting and should be applied on a wider scale:
[http://www.cargobeamer.eu/](http://www.cargobeamer.eu/)

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thriftwy
Some day, somebody is going to figure out how to do JIT train shipments and
make a lot of money here.

Having said that, trains have last-mile weakness. Trucks are congesting
Europe's _highways_ mostly. Wait until you see a train arrive to a terminal
not far from city center, dozens of smaller trucks rush to get their cargo. At
least trucks can arrive to their own depots located on the outskirts, while
anybody who wants to ship by rail has to come to the same common terminal.

It's far from a silver bullet.

~~~
jk2323
> Having said that, trains have last-mile weakness.

This is exactly where an electric truck might come in handy.

>At least trucks can arrive to their own depots located on the outskirts

All cargolifter terminals will be far outside of a major city. An exception
might be harbors.

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thriftwy
"will be far outside of a major city"

Then you have the problem of last mile again and see a lot of trucks on
street.

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codeulike
The big car companies often produce EV announcements like this but when you
look the small print its always years away from mass production. They are
literally just trying to get press attention away from Tesla instead of
putting the effort into properly competing with Tesla. They are making 500 of
these trucks and the range is 60 miles. Its very meh.

And this will keep happening because in the core of it, the big car companies
are too big to pivot to electric. Even Nissan and BMW who have divisions that
have put in some good effort will likely be foiled by their own dealer
networks and inertia.

The Chevrolet Bolt looked brilliant but they're not bothering to build or sell
many and it looks like they might not even make a Right Hand Drive version.

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helb
_> its always years away from mass production_

Mass prodcution in 2019 sounds pretty good to me. But yeah, it's still
technically _years_. :)

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codeulike
Lets meet back here in 2019 and see if they actually bother.

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helb
Yup, I wouldn't bet on them. But it still sounds a bit better than these "50 %
of cars will be electric by 2050 (so we do nothing now)" statements.

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neo4sure
Oh man such ugly vehicles. Daimler, you should be ashamed of your selves.

