Experienced Cummins Mechanic Answers Questions About Trucks

[Shrimpbox]

OTR trucks will not be electric. Rules on driver ability to drive won’t allow 5 hr or longer recharge stops. Also, moving 80,000 lbs will be incredibly energy consuming. A lot of mechanics think Elon Musk is a con artist.

New trucks being produced today with tier IV engines are not lasting the common 1 million miles before overhaul, they are only lasting 500,000 miles. Owners are running them 450,000 miles and then selling them to independent operators who have to shoulder rebuild costs. In order to get pollution down the engine makers are using extremely high injector pressures and recycling the exhaust which just gums up the engine.

Natural gas, because it is not as energy intensive as diesel fuel has trouble running situations that need a lot of torque. Driving the city bus or general delivery vehicles is light duty. Garbage trucks needing lots of torque for hydraulics are finding that natural gas does not provide enough umph to run the truck. Likewise, a 10 kw generator running on diesel would need a 20 kw natural gas genset to put out the same electric.

Bottom line from this veteran of 30 years of mechanicing, big diesel will be with us for a long time

 

[william the wie]

Seems likely.

 

[Pogo]

OTR trucks will not be electric. Rules on driver ability to drive won’t allow 5 hr or longer recharge stops. Also, moving 80,000 lbs will be incredibly energy consuming. A lot of mechanics think Elon Musk is a con artist.

New trucks being produced today with tier IV engines are not lasting the common 1 million miles before overhaul, they are only lasting 500,000 miles. Owners are running them 450,000 miles and then selling them to independent operators who have to shoulder rebuild costs. In order to get pollution down the engine makers are using extremely high injector pressures and recycling the exhaust which just gums up the engine.

Natural gas, because it is not as energy intensive as diesel fuel has trouble running situations that need a lot of torque. Driving the city bus or general delivery vehicles is light duty. Garbage trucks needing lots of torque for hydraulics are finding that natural gas does not provide enough umph to run the truck. Likewise, a 10 kw generator running on diesel would need a 20 kw natural gas genset to put out the same electric.

Bottom line from this veteran of 30 years of mechanicing, big diesel will be with us for a long time

Apparently strawmen will be with us for a long time too. Who suggested semis would go electric?

Again, the concept of electric driving has nothing to do with "recharging stations". It's for local commuting, where 80% of all driving lives.

 

[Shrimpbox]

Elon Musk for one. I guess you missed his semi roll out.

 

[Hossfly]

Elon Musk for one. I guess you missed his semi roll out.

Pogo misses everything but meals.

 

[Pogo]

Elon Musk for one. I guess you missed his semi roll out.

Pogo misses everything but meals.

Damn straight. Pogo never misses a meal. Sometimes he makes an extra one just to make sure. Urp.

 

[Borillar]

Is there a way to remove pollutants from diesel exhaust that doesn't involve exhaust gas recirculation?

 

[Shrimpbox]

I suspect engineers would have devised a way but I am not qualified to answer that question.

 

[Old Rocks]

Musk gaurantees his semis for 1 million miles. 500 miles per charge. 30 minutes to recharge enough for another 400 miles. Yes, I imagine a Cummins mechanic does not like the idea of the Tesla semi's. But one of the companies that deliver our steel has already ponied up the cash to reserve two of them. If they deliver the savings projected, the whole fleet will be gradually converted over to Tesla semi's.