Due to Biden’s regulations, truckers are driving older engines longer because they can’t afford newer diesel models. The result is more pollution.
California’s EV Rules Reduce Truck Sales by 50 Percent
The Wall Street Journal reports You Can’t Buy That Diesel Truck.
California’s Advanced Clean Fleets rule 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.
Dealers say trucks are piling up on their lots—electric models because truckers won’t buy them, and diesel rigs that dealers consequently aren’t allowed to sell. Dealers say they incur monthly interest penalties on unsold truck inventory that can amount to more than $99,000.
“Without significant modifications, there is a very real likelihood that some dealers and their customers will start going out of business in the near future. This will hit small businesses the hardest,” the dealers write.
Driving Range (AI Generated)
- Tesla Semi: The Tesla Semi has a range of approximately 300 or 500 miles. The 500 mile extended-range version starts at $180,000.
- Freightliner eCascadia: The eCascadia’s driving range depends on the battery capacity and configuration. The 438 kWh battery has a range of 230 miles for the 4×2 configuration and 220 miles for the 6×4 configuration. The 291 kWh battery has a range of 155 miles for the 4×2 configuration.
- Volvo VNR Electric: The Volvo VNR Electric has a range of 275 miles.
- Kenworth T680E: The Kenworth T680E has a range of 150 miles.
- Peterbilt 579EV: The Peterbilt 579EV has a range of 150 miles.
- BYD 8TT: The BYD 8TT has a range of 167 miles.
In contrast to the above EV estimates, the driving range of a diesel semi is 900 to 2,000 miles on average.
EV Foothold
TruckParkingClub provides a closer look at how heavy electric trucks are gaining a foothold.
Heavy-electric truck adoption in the U.S. is growing, albeit slowly. Charging infrastructure rollout is lagging, truck-model recalls slowed market launches, and two battery makers—Romeo Power and Proterra—liquidated assets and entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy, respectively.
As of January 2024, of a fleet of 12.2 million trucks, just 13,000 were electric, according to the Environmental Defense Fund analysis. That analysis defined these trucks as Class 2B to Class 8 vehicles, ranging from step-up vans to tractor-trailers.
Even as battery technology for electric trucks continues to evolve, manufacturers will face formidable challenges on the path to widespread adoption.
Despite the potential to increase the range of electric trucks by 30%, the large size and hefty weight of Daimler Trucks’ lithium iron phosphate batteries—plus their lower energy density and poor performance in extreme temperatures—make them less than ideal for cross-country treks in varied conditions. Nissan projects exclusive use of lighter-density solid-state batteries by 2028; but drawbacks remain, including the high price of lithium, a lack of viable recycling options, and the risks of lithium electrodes shorting out as batteries age.
Disparities in charging infrastructure in rural areas remain a significant barrier to electrification. Another common concern in the passenger vehicle market is charging time, which could impact truckers operating on tight schedules. This, however, can be mitigated by improving charging technology and exploring the use of China’s battery swap technology in the American market.
Foothold Math
13,000 / 12.2 million = 0.1 percent. That’s not much of a foothold.
Tesla (TSLA) Semi Rollout
Elon Muck said he would be producing 50,000 EV semis a year. That was in 2017.
As of December 21, 2023, the Tesla Semi Fleet Has Almost 100 Trucks
Tesla delivered the first Semi trucks in December 2022, but little has been said about the Class-8 truck or its dedicated production line at Giga Nevada in the past year.
Now, Tesla’s VP of Engineering Lars Moravy reveals that Tesla has tripled its Semi fleet, with volume production planned for 2024.
It took Tesla 5 years to produce a single truck. And we are now up to a grand total of 100, almost.
50,000 promised in 2017. Almost 100 delivered by the end of 2023.
Issues
Lack of charging stations is a huge issue. Also, what would the price of electricity be if we were to meet the zero emission goals in the stated timeframe?
And totally made in the US with 100 percent US components? Forget it. We do not have the minerals needed for the batteries.
O.K. EVs will happen. But the pace will not be remotely close to what is expected.
4 Million Semis on the Road, Only 35 Class 8 Truck EV Charging Stations
On April 1, I noted 4 Million Semis on the Road, Only 35 Class 8 Truck EV Charging Stations
I keep seeing reports that diesel EV are less expensive if one takes in the cost of diesel at 6.5 or 7.0 gallons per mile.
But I’ll tell you what. If EVs were less expensive in practice, all things considered, penetration would not be 0.1 percent.
Heck, it’s tough selling them with $40,000 tax credits even in California which has more chargers than anywhere else.
Trains are 20-30 times more efficient/cheaper at long haul transport. The same is true of ships, of course. Trucks and planes are not very different in their cost, surprisingly.
Li-ion batteries are as good as it gets – electrochemically.The periodic table decides that, not a salesperson. Small improvements will be made in structure and stability, but nothing spectacular remains to batteries in terms megajoules of energy per kilogram.
The 25-50 times deficit of batteries compared to hydrocarbon fuels cannot be wished away.
Meh, give it another 5 years. EVs have basically only been a thing for a decade and what you can get now makes the early 2010s stuff look like complete garbage. I’d imagine the same will be true in another decade.
EVs are not supposed to make sense. Not a flaw but rather a feature. Batteries that won’t be subject to thermal runaway with much greater density and much longer life are available but we can’t have them because the world has invested too heavily in Lithium so Lithium it is period full stop. Having to charge a Semi EV every 150 to 250 miles is like returning to the era of the stagecoach. We need to invest everything we have into the development of fusion or some other cheap source of reliable power if we wish to continue to advance as a species. There are batteries in development that use iron, graphene and aluminum. Why aren’t we investing in that direction?
I believe Mr. Fusion was only available in the DeLorean.
China is switching from diesel semi trucks to CNG and BEV trucks. 220,000 bpd of diesel fuel demand has been displaced so far. Remaining diesel demand is still 2 mbpd. I believe that CNG sales are roughly double BEV sales.
Just like they replacing personal ICE vehicles with BEVs and PHEVs.
Long term this will result in lower demand for gasoline and diesel fuels. As this gains momentum worldwide, it will help keep prices of gas and diesel lower in the future.
EV semi’s only make sense for local routes and areas where power is cheap. Another arena where hybrid technology makes a lot of sense, both cutting pollution and greatly increasing efficiency
Kargo leaves Kalifornia only in trains eventually … guess who benefits:
The guy who wants everyone to pay more taxes … rhymes with muffet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BNSF_Railway
energy density is against you
yae cannae chnage the laws of fissiks
I have a relative that has huge Class-8 dealership. He’s a very smart guy with an engineering background. He says that unless a major breakthrough in EV technology comes about, EV trucks only make sense for local routes where the trucks will back in the yard for overnight recharging. Long distance, over-the-road trucks don’t make sense if a driver has to spend hours recharging his rig. They only get paid when they are moving.
EVs are probably nice for moving cargo around the porta and maybe some local deliveries. Makes no sense to have a cross country EV. But it’s OK, as most energy is hybrid delivery system. All this electric eliminating ICE is fantasy land
Simple solution to all the nonsense; all those coal mines, strip wells, and truckers should just stop mining, fracking, and trucking for an extended vacation and watch the grid and food chains collapse and the hunger games begin by week three. Problem solved.
Dictating a whole new technology politically is nonsense. The numbers show this. And it will continue. The ranges DO NOT account for hills, mountains, or heat. It just isn’t plausible. The cost of power is the wild card as well. Now, power costs is not taxed for roads and road maintenance. Another free ride. It is not being done for us, the people. It is a result of a political narrative. Imagine Kennedy telling us, that we are going to Mars instead of the moon, because it is hard. The entire space industry at that time would have thrown up their hands and just said, nope. We should be doing that and looking for REAL options. Keep the grubby little political fingers off of it.
Perhaps AI Data center power requirements will outbid the truckers.
They both will raise the cost of electricity to the sky.
I used to think it was just stupidity and arrogance that was responsible for the utter incompetence and complete lack of understanding of physics at the EPA and other government agencies/bodies. But then I realized nobody could be that stupid. This is a sophisticated attack on America using psychological means to encourage or cause us to destroy our own infrastructure and economy. Yes, I am saying the EPA and California state government is completely under some form of mind control. There is no other explanation that makes any sense.
I mean imagine! No new trucks in the California market ever! We’ve got maybe 10 years until the old ones start dropping out of service for either mechanical reasons or just to many of them have been destroyed by accidents, etc. This will be a bit slower, but the effect will be almost as good as dropping a nuclear bomb on each manufacturing hub of the state. Everything from Tesla cars to California raisins will cease production.
And there is no way out, because one thing that can be said about politics is that where stupidity cannot prevail, arrogance can. There is no way the government will change course, if anything they’ll double down. Plan accordingly.
the range is not the issue imho… it’s the payload. The battery is so heavy… that’s result is significantly less hauling ability.
”
O.K. EVs will happen
”
EVs will. Not necessarily in 3rd world countries like the US and Botswana. But, at some point, somewhere, sure.
What will NOT happen, anywhere, is BEV trucks for long haul. Battery energy storage density will never match that of combustible fuels.
The EV trucks which will “happen”; will be powered directly by the infrastructure. Effectively: Containers will be dragged along road/rail infrastructure; almost without anything added to them. Efficiency wins in the end, and it’s hard to beat that for efficiency, assuming one is a country sufficiently advanced to be able to do the build out and operation without too many hickups.
“50,000 promised in 2017. Almost 100 delivered by the end of 2023.”
And these are exactly the idiots running Every.Single.Thingin America by now.
Their “solution” to the above “problem”: AI. As in, another pileof similarly pure hype.Just one which hasn’t (this time around….) had time to prove itself similarly yet.
And when (not if…) that happens: It will be something else, similarly fully dependent on pure idiots falling for it, since pure idiots are the only ones flat out stupid enough to ever do so.
Underlying it all; is a “syyyystem” ensuring the class of negative intellect Fed beneficiaries can continue to do this unimpeded: None of this waste would last minute and a half, if the nonsense had to be self funding. As in making any money, any return. But that is not even remotely necessary; since ALL wealth; every penny; in the idiot colonies of The West are now solely obtained by having a totalitarian government of the world’s dumbest piles of garbage steal it from more competent people, in order to hand it out as 100% debasement driven; and only that; so called “asset” “appreciation.” All of it. Whether any of the drivel even pretends to make any sense, is completely orthogonal(actually worse..) to whether the genuine imbeciles “making money” from “inveeesting” in it, or not.
Hence; The 100% value destroying idiot charades can keep being repeated. Just make up yet another; equally obviously nonsensical to anyone even semi literate; pile of pure hype;and repeat. And The Fed and Junta will keep robbing competent literates in order to pay off its captive retard classes of nothing but imbeciles yet again. And again. And again. “Self driving” this; “battery” that,”Green” this, “Fintech” that, “AI” thismedat…… ALL OF IT being so fully, 100% plain retarded, than even an average 5 year old ought to be able to see straight through it. Yet here we are, with a country fully “owned’, hence ran, nothing other than exactly sub-5-year-olds. Without any exception at all.
You lost me after the first two sentences.
There trying to make this transition in years, but it’s going to take decades. If they persist important sectors of the economy will grind to a halt.
Logistics companies are the main operators of large trucks and they make their buy decisions strictly on efficiency and cost per mile which entails a holistic approach that includes all factors. In addition to energy and maintenance costs they also take into account for what the truck is used. A truck used to only ply a 150mile route between two factories won’t need a big battery where an interstate hauler will. It all depends on the specific need of the company and that makes calculation tricky for us looking in from the outside. Truck EV adoption if cost-effective could come faster than we think. It’s not just trucks and cars. Other heavy equipment like cranes and mining gear are also going through battery adoption. Not surprisingly one adoption point that has become important is that electric motors are almost silent which makes them very attractive for working in cities.
mishtalk about this: America Is Lying to Itself About the Cost of Disastershttps://archive.is/Zhwi7#selection-783.0-783.54
residents were hit with a $134,000 assessment
https://archive.ph/4kLAD#selection-5955.300-5955.346
The incumbent truck companies don’t appear to really be trying.
Tesla recently presented on the semi in Europe: https://youtu.be/52HFCr-I9HA?si=GRP-3lIRknHeRmrX
Tesla has been solving charging needs as they arise, not before. They’re building the factory now, will deploy charging as needed to support sales.
No worries comrades! It is the bright shining future of techno fascist communism! We shall all grow poorer together in the quest of creating more oligarchs and their political and business class with shiny new toyz.
I rarely agree with what I read here on EV’s – but this tidbit rings absolutely true.
“EVs will happen. But the pace will not be remotely close to what is expected.”
What would make sense would be big rigs converted to run on compressed natural gas…..even though natty spot price has doubled in the last six months, it is still 5 times cheaper than diesel fuel, and a whole lot cleaner as well. I am told that this is what China is doing, in a big way, so much so that their petroleum imports have been dropping, misleading analysts to believe they are in recession ….
My guess is that big rigs will ultimately move to Hydrogen fuel. It makes much more sense in large vehicles than it does in cars.
Well, Elon is a huckster. A SMART OPERATOR. RICH beyond imagination, and Buys X and is a HERO (Actually, he IS) but this shit has to STOP!
The way forward for EV trucks is to have battery swap stations, rather than pull over charging.
Unacknowledged assumption in the adoption of EV semis is that there will be sufficient generation and transmission capacity to provide power to all of the charging stations. https://www.trucking.org/news-insights/heavy-dose-reality-electric-truck-mandates
After Diesel is outlawed in California they can haul with ox carts and Conestoga wagons through Donner Pass.
Nope. Those animal teams will produce too many burps and farts releasing methane gas.
It will have to be teams of human porters made up of illegals 🙂
On the face of it – this really is bonkers. However, is this reporting correct? Apparently there maybe a limit of 10% ZEV sales starting next year in CA. You would have thought that dealers would be pushing to sell off stock this year and so increasing new sales of ICE vehicles. Something deoesn’t smell right about that WSJ report….even if the sentiment is well founded.
Jon, even IF there are sales, WHICH IDIOTS buy them? MAYBE ULTRA-LOW LOCAL HAULS….that would work but the long-hauls are where the MONEY is and these EV’s cost WAY to much (interest, principle payments) making short haul even LESS possible…
Older trucks do not necessarily cause more pollution. Replace the pistons, rings, sleeves and catalytic converter. Good to go.
If by “older”, we mean no older than 2010 or so, then mostly true. Otherwise, no. Trucks before 2010 pollute much more.
You sound like you know diesels. For the rest – Newer trucks use urea to limit NOx emissions and particulate filters. Diesels have a catch 22 – you can lower particulates by increasing compression, which burns the fuel a bit better but results in high NOx emissions. To lower NOx, you can reduce compression, but you get more soot. New trucks boost power to incredible levels by increasing compression/fueling and dealing with the NOx/particulates with urea with a selective catalytic reduction system (SCR) and a particulate filter. (There are trucks that don’t use an SCR, but they don’t generate as much power and generally get lower mileage.)
Do you have to piss into a catheter while driving?
You’d have to be a total f789ing re-tard to think an EV truck makes sense… add up the massive weight of the battery — and work out how much you have to reduce your load to compensate for that… then consider the range limits
A transition to this would end the economy as it would cause shipping costs and inflation to explode higher
Jeff Green – let’s hear the other side of this
If batteries don’t work, what about extension cords?
As a kid I played with slot cars. They got their power from the track. Or go the tram or trolley car route with overhead power lines. Better yet just stick with diesel until they work all the kinks out with self driving trucks using battery packs that can be swapped out every X miles much like teams of horses were swapped out every 20 miles or so for stage coaches.
Only maybe sensible use for electric trucks now is the short hauls from the docks to the nearby warehouses.
I don’t understand why the U.S. isn’t using China’s battery swapping technology, that seems to make way more sense than building a bunch of charging stations.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferdungs/2024/04/30/china-is-quietly-reinventing-the-truck-industry—are-the-us-and-europe-missing-the-boat/
MPO, we have friends that live in an industrial City in a China coastal town and they are saying that Pollution will never be solved. It is similar to the LOVE Canal of the 70’s in NY. They said that you can smell the sulfur in the air….you also are ignoring the Industrial Waste from Battery Manufacturing.
Never is a long time.
People said the same here in the US in the 40s through the 70s. Go look at old photo’s of places like Pittsburgh from the 40s and the smog and pollution rivals anything you see in China today. As a kid growing up in the late 60s and all through the 70’s I remember constantly smelling exhaust fumes and sulfur.
https://www.treehugger.com/think-air-quality-doesnt-matter-look-at-pittsburgh-in-the-s-4862509
The Catalytic converter and the switch to unleaded gas in he 70’s was a huge break through.
China is roughly where the US was in the 50s in terms of pollution and regulations. Things will likely look a lot different in 20 years.