Electric Pickups ?

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I ran the Cat D7E and had them on my jobs. I don't think they are all they are cracked up to be. They still burned fuel and polluted like any other dozer. Not sure if that's the way of the future or not. There may be technology / learnings from the electric drive system that will lend itself for zero emissions drivetrains, I guess time will tell.
 
I haven't looked into the grid capabilities off the rest of the country but Texas is barely able to keep up with power demands on a hot summer day. Renewables are making the power market unstable because more want to buy wind or solar but both are unpredictable. Nobody is building new gas plants because investors want renewable energy and coal is going away. Now we are going to go to all electric vehicles. No charging infrastructure and not enough power on the grid to support 10% of the ev charging needs. I'm not saying we won't go to all electric at some point but it won't be in the next 5-15 yrs.
This is being spun several ways for rural America.
- One is that electric pickups and tractors are way off for rural folks so we still need to increase the ethanol blend to use as much corn as possible...
- Another is that this is a great opportunity for the rural electric coops. I think they mean replace most of the existing infrastructure using Federal subsidies. We still have some original two wire REA poles from the 1940s.

We are shutting down coal and nuc plants here. We are also building natural gas plants for peak loads. I believe all the fracking has created a surplus of natural gas.
 
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Our engineering colleges need to be working on battery technology and motor/battery interfacing or intergrating as the case may be.
An alternator application that would allow the main battery to recharge while in use would extend the distance of travel between inrterims
of service. This could be driven by wind resistance, ground or shaft drive or combination thereof and automatically shut off on an up incline
and restart on level or down hill grade. If we can think of it we can do it. This does not apply to the Lifting a turd by the clean end crowd,,,,,
A perpetual motion machine? That would be great. No doubt they'll figure it out, batteries will be the key.
 
Lucky> The perpetual motion machine has already been invented. It's called a Child..... (batteries not needed)
 
Wonder how much longer diesel and gas will be available? As I figure sooner or latter they will force this on us.
 
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Our engineering colleges need to be working on battery technology and motor/battery interfacing or intergrating as the case may be.
An alternator application that would allow the main battery to recharge while in use would extend the distance of travel between inrterims
of service. This could be driven by wind resistance, ground or shaft drive or combination thereof and automatically shut off on an up incline
and restart on level or down hill grade. If we can think of it we can do it. This does not apply to the Lifting a turd by the clean end crowd,,,,,

Thermodynamics don't work that way though. It takes more power to turn that alternator than it produces. Whether it be ground driven, wind driven, whatever.

Perpetual motion is bogus. That energy comes from somewhere, there's no free lunch.

Regenerative breaking does work and has been used on hybrid and electric vehicles for years. In that scenario, energy that would normally be converted into heat by the brakes, is converted to electricity and fed into the batteries.

Electric big rigs are a long way off. As mentioned, our infrastructure isn't there. And battery tech is just not there yet. Their range is too short, and it takes too long to recharge them, plus you have the added weight and the cost of them. The Tesla battery is over $100k.

Hydrogen will never take off. It takes more energy to produce than it contains.
 
I really think the downfall of electric cars will be laziness. It's hard enough to get people to put gas in their cars once or twice a month. You want me to remember to plug this thing in every night for 8 hrs, OMG what next go to work 🥵
 
Buck: You could have a reliabe autonomous vehicle right now if you want to lay out the shekels.
''That'll be a cash on the barrelhead son, not a fourth not half but the entire sum"............
No money down, no credit plan, Just cash on the barrelhead, I'll take you down the road....
Where is Del Reeves when you need him?
In my opinion autonomous and reliable can't re related. I work on some autonomous equipment used by 2 of the largest retailers around. They are very troublesome and need a lot of maintenance. A lot of problems are operator induced but so far I don't think I would trust them unless they use totally different technology. These small units have as much in electronics on them as a non-autonomous unit cost, hard to imagine it would be feasible for the average person.
 
Electric big rigs are a long way off. As mentioned, our infrastructure isn't there. And battery tech is just not there yet. Their range is too short, and it takes too long to recharge them, plus you have the added weight and the cost of them. The Tesla battery is over $100k.
Somebody should inform the locomotive industry of all of this, they've been using diesel-electric for a century already! First one was used in a Russian oceangoing tanker in 1903!

Trouble with pure electric is dragging that dang extension cord down the road with you...

https://www.npr.org/2017/01/29/5120...ds-largest-electric-shovel-turned-into-museum "They plugged it in just like you plug in an electric lamp or something." explains Betty.
 
Some of the giant dump trucks used in mining (400 ton capacity and 3000 HP range) use a giant diesel generator set with AC electric motors on the four sets of tires with VFD's (variable frequency drives) for speed control. No mechanical clutches or drive trains. Speed/acceleration control and dynamic braking through the VFD's and the computer that controls the speed of each axle. They are electric trucks. Just need a huge on-board generator to produce the electricity. As well as a hydraulic system for steering and assist in braking.


Conservation of energy law prevents you from having a motor to run a generator that runs the motor that runs the generator.
 
I've got too much stuff that uses gas or diesel to be plugging it all in everyday. Hopefully I'll be retired and have time to just saddle up the horse.
 

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