Electric cars.

We went to the truck fest yesterday and had a good chat with the sales team at Volvo. We went in to great detail regarding the specs of electric trucks, payload penalty and poor range which will result in every day goods we purchase costing more.

At the show they had an electric Volvo 4 wheeler fitted with a curtain sider body which had 4 batteries to give the truck a range of up to 200km. Each battery when fitted to the truck adds 600kg, so this truck had a kerb weight of 10,995 tons, roughly 3 tons heavier than the diesel equivalent. A 4 wheeler diesel truck has a gross weight capacity of 18 ton which in general relates to a 10 ton payload. As electric trucks are considerably heavier, the government increased the gross weight by one ton, which still only gives this spec truck an 8 ton payload, a 20% decrease.

Volvo trucks at the moment will fit up to 6 batteries to a truck, increasing the weight by 3.6 tonnes with a range of up to 300km. Now for me, my lad was averaging 420km per day last week, so with a 300km range, he is going to have to stop for a charge with a 3.6 ton less payload. Volvo state that by using rapid chargers that are designed for HGV's will decrease the life of the battery, they recommend charging at base over night. The guy at Volvo said to me, if every HGV went electric tomorrow, you would need at least 20% more trucks on the road to move the same amount of freight.

Road haulage companies have raised all these issues with the transport secretary and even though there is a consultation in to increasing the gross weight of vehicles by 2 tonnes, they are not increasing the axle weight, which means this consultation is pointless as you will not be allowed to use the extra payload without having to incorporate heavier axle's.

 

How long does it take to re-charge a truck @gks ?

 

6ft 3 inches.
But you might hurt your shoulder.

 

When i started driving HGV's the first 4 wheeler had a pay load of 11 tons and that was when it was 16ton gross weight flat bed with sheet's the lorry was very light which ment high pay load, ok the lorry was basic but done the job

 

That was not so straightforward as the specs of the weight and payload, but the guy said the truck they had at the show being charged at 250kWh could get an 80% charge in 70 minutes, which would give the truck 160km. So, if I had a Volvo truck with 4 batteries it would rarely get to it's first drop without having to be charged. It is 95 miles from our yard to Scotch Corner, so there would need to be infrastructure with chargers round Scotch Corner, the A66 is a very busy road for HGV's.

 

Here in the UK it starts from £69,000.

 

Thanks gks.

So am I right in thinking that's quicker than charging a car?

 

I may go back to being a driver, 70 minutes charging + 45 minutes for break time more play time less work time, were going backwards

 

250kWh sounds like a lot of electricity to me, and that is one lorry.
More I hear the more I think it just won't be there for a lot of years.

 

Using one of the Tesla ultra rapid superchargers 350kWh and your the only one charging, yes that is about correct. Most charging stations allow 2 vehicles to be charged at anyone time though, the length of time to charge then increases.

The Tesla chargers at Tebay are 150kWh, when they had that queue of cars waiting to get charged last boxing day, they were only charging around the 64kWh range.
To charge the Volvo truck we seen in 70 minutes was based on it being the only vehicle being charged, when sharing the length of time can basically double.

 

Scotland's first electric-powered heavy goods vehicle has started making regular trips delivering whisky. Chivas Brothers have begun a two-year trial transporting casks between its bottling plant at Kilmalid near Dumbarton and a Beith warehouse. The lorry will be able to make the 50-mile round-trip up to five times each day before being recharged overnight.

 

Oh no, its going to push the price up, I can barely afford it now.

 

I was watching a video on the Autonomous buses Stagecoach has started running from Fife to Edinburgh. Though autonomous, the buses are still diesel-powered and one of the things they are most interested in is whether the autonomous control is more or less fuel efficient than a human driver. Not something I had considered.

 

The accounts for year ending 2021, were 654m turnover with a gross profit of 242m.