New Class 8 Electric truck

[Bill D]

I asked our UPS driver why no more elctric trucks. He said after 5 years or so they needed new batteries. they were used here in the valley where it is flat and I believe in San Diego.
Truck was made in Stockton, California.
I seem to remember they rebuild the engine once in their ICE trucks then scrap it. I bet a five year old ups truck is worn out. Ups scraps all trucks none are sold.
Bill D

 

[Trueturning]

Well, it helps to actually look, first page google results

Government data show gasoline vehicles are up to 100x more prone to fires than EVs - Electrek

Again, my previous statements stand WRT data

You see there is a way to pretend that you are not spewing BS, and that is by asking a loaded question.

Like, 'I wonder how often Trueturning beats his wife?'


'Oh, no, I wasn't saying anything like that, no no, I was just asking'


THe information is out there.


Go look up the information, then have a discussion, but please, don't play like you are an unbiased observer, it is boring

Ok yet I did find this one “ A recent study conducted by AutoInsuranceEZ using data from the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) showed that electric cars in the US caught fire at a rate of 25.1 per 100,000 sales compared to 1,530 for ICE vehicles and 3,475 for hybrids.Jan 25, 2022”

Article says it is much more problematic having a fire actually.
“ Whilst the occurrence is lower for EVs, when an EV does catch fire, the consequences can be very problematic. The mixture of chemicals in the battery can prove extremely volatile and difficult to extinguish. Several EV fires have destroyed garages and neighboring vehicles and fire departments have had to be educated on how to deal with EVs specifically. EV fires can continue to reignite for days after initially being extinguished. It doesn't help that the occurrence of EV fires can be unpredictable, with research conducted by IDTechEx suggesting that a third of EV fires occur when the vehicle is stationary, parked, and not charging.”

Article here; EV Fires: Less Common But More Problematic? | IDTechEx Research Article

Fair enough. I bet no study was done on garages catching on fires though. That does not involve a crash you know.

 

[Ries]

No problem if that is how you do it. Full trust.

Actually, pretty much the opposite.
I have been making informed decisions to risk buying new technologies and equipment since about 1970, eyes wide open.
Some times its completely without problems.
Other times, I have had to kludge, repair, and adapt.

When I do this, I am basing my decisions on the history and the facts- and, for instance, when I was a very early adopter of cordless drills, in the late 70s, and bought the then new and revolutionary Makita 7.2 volt system, many people I knew just shook their heads at me. I stitll have a bright orange Makita 6010d in a drawer somewhere, just like Tesla, that thing was a controversial game changer, and the naysayers have all long since been proven wrong.
Compared to today's standards, those drills were not extraordinarily powerful, and they were definitely more expensive than corded drills at that time. But they were amazing, and I loved em.
Of course I upgraded to 9 volts when it came out, and now, 40 plus years later, I run mostly 18volt cordless for drilling, driving, and tapping.

No "trust" was involved- just the idea that taking a pretty slight risk ended up saving time, money, and frustrations.

The reason I used the CVT as an example is because its actually a really similar situation to electric cars.
The CVT was, indeed, invented in 1890 or so. The first commercial electric cars were 30 years old at that time.
Neither is "new".
DAF, in europe, was selling CVT's as the only option in their cars starting in the late 50s.
The big auto companies started coming out with products using CVT's in the late 80s- Ford had a Fiesta with one, and by the early 90s, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, and others were all selling production models in the USA. Mercedes has offered a CVT since the early 2000's.

And yet, as recently as 2 or 3 years ago, you can still find articles in mainstream media in the USA, questioning whether Honda is crazy to offer a CVT.
(And my Honda Fit, which has the CVT, has one that is a belt and two expandable pulleys. It routinely gets 40 to 45mpg.)

Its a pretty exact parallel to electric cars-
GM was selling (or leasing) a production electric car 20 plus years ago.
There have been quite a few production models from a variety of manufacturers for over ten years now.

But, just like CVT's, we keep seeing silly articles claiming its new, unknown, potentially dangerous, and just weird and unamerican.

Nobody is saying, you, or anybody, HAS to buy an electric car.
Dont. Evaluate. "Do your own Research" by watching youtube videos.

My point is simple- at this point, its a mature technology, and its becoming cost competitive with ICE cars, and within 5 years, will be cheaper.
Its convenient, its lower maintenance, and the people that are buying them are now mostly doing so for practicality and economical reasons, not for trendiness.

NYC just ordered 150 Mustang electric SUV's for delivery this year for Police Cars. Thats not an experiment- thats ordering a Big 3, mainstream car, for practical reasons, and fully expecting that it will cost them less per mile to run.
These Mustangs are not "highly expensive"- they are about the same price as the SUV"s that police departments all over the country buy every year.
(Nobody has made a 4 door sedan suitable for a cop car, with a V8, for a few years now- the last one was the Taurus, discontinued 3 years ago)

Electric buses for cities are going to be the same price as diesel ones- just cheaper to maintain.
Electric garbage trucks, or beer delivery trucks, or Amazon delivery vans, are all going to be bought because they are the same price or cheaper to buy, and then save money every mile you drive em.

The people who evaluate for a living, who crunch much bigger numbers than I ever do, have been evaluating the economics of electric trucks, and they are all in.
The numbers dont lie.
Amazon has 100,000 electric vans on order.
UPS has 10,000 electric trucks on order.
The Peterbilt and Kenworth class 6's are going to sell themselves.

I am not an "enthusiast"- I bought all the tech I bought to make money- been running my own business since I quit my day job in 1978, and to be competitive, you gotta be up to date. So my mindset about new things is based on experience, and being prepared to repair and adapt every thing I own.

 

[Ries]

I asked our UPS driver why no more elctric trucks. He said after 5 years or so they needed new batteries. they were used here in the valley where it is flat and I believe in San Diego.
Truck was made in Stockton, California.
I seem to remember they rebuild the engine once in their ICE trucks then scrap it. I bet a five year old ups truck is worn out. Ups scraps all trucks none are sold.
Bill D

This was an experiment, that was only in and around Modesto- UPS bought 100 electric trucks as a test. UPS owns 500,000 trucks worldwide. 100, is, as you can guess, a rounding error in terms of their truck purchasing.
But right now they have 10,000 newer, hopefully more advanced ones on order.
thats what- 2% of their total fleet? Its still pretty much a low risk experiment for them.

 

[gustafson]

Ok yet I did find this one “ A recent study conducted by AutoInsuranceEZ using data from the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) showed that electric cars in the US caught fire at a rate of 25.1 per 100,000 sales compared to 1,530 for ICE vehicles and 3,475 for hybrids.Jan 25, 2022”

Article says it is much more problematic having a fire actually.
“ Whilst the occurrence is lower for EVs, when an EV does catch fire, the consequences can be very problematic. The mixture of chemicals in the battery can prove extremely volatile and difficult to extinguish. Several EV fires have destroyed garages and neighboring vehicles and fire departments have had to be educated on how to deal with EVs specifically. EV fires can continue to reignite for days after initially being extinguished. It doesn't help that the occurrence of EV fires can be unpredictable, with research conducted by IDTechEx suggesting that a third of EV fires occur when the vehicle is stationary, parked, and not charging.”

Article here; EV Fires: Less Common But More Problematic? | IDTechEx Research Article

Fair enough. I bet no study was done on garages catching on fires though. That does not involve a crash you know.

Do you have a point?

other than your inability to do a web search until pushed?

 

[Trueturning]

Do you have a point?

other than your inability to do a web search until pushed?

I searched. You could do the same it is silly to expect that everyone will just search and then what need is there for discussion. You did not push me. If you read enough you will see that I do alter my searches and expand them quickly. I have learned things in this manner.

You never much acknowledge anything like that. I suppose you do not want to appear mistaken? It does not matter many never make such admissions like the person which you despise as a former president.


No more than yours Gus except I do give reasonable sites. That you do not glean a point is fine. I do think you often intentionally ignore most anything which disagrees with your opinion. So you ask that question.

You do not acknowledge sites or quotes except to ask if there is a point that you do not see or that you will not acknowledge. It does not make things all peachy though doing it that way.

 

[SVFeingold]

It's too early in the game to get many meaningful comparisons of gas and EV fires IMHO.

For one, "fire" isn't very well defined. Most people (at least the most vocal) worried about EV fires are worried about them spontaneously bursting into flames in their garage. Not so much that a fire might result from slamming into a bridge pylon at 80mph. You've got bigger problems there.

For two, there are still way more fuel-powered cars on the road, which means the vast majority of accidents involve fuel.

For three, something like 1/4 of all cars on the road (in the US) are 20+ years old. There are vanishingly few EVs that old, nevermind ones produced by major automakers. If we were to remove cars older than the first Model 3 from the ICE results, the numbers are going to look very different. There have been quite a few brand new Teslas that have burst into flames. How many ICE cars have done the same? Quite a few! But unless the analysis corrects for that it's difficult to draw any real conclusions from it, and that's the far more interesting comparison.

For four, recalls are kind of irrelevant here?

EV fires are more of a challenge to extinguish, that much is true, but it's kind of a pointless thing to bicker over unless you have a plan to somehow make everyone give up on EVs forever. It's true, we know it's true, so let's learn how to deal with it until we find a non-volatile chemistry - to the extent such a thing is possible when you cramming more and more chemical energy into a given volume. But it IS possible.

EVs aren't quite at the point where they can be a like-to-like replacement for ICE cars for everyone, but it's pretty clear they are here to stay. Whether they're "the" future or not they're 100% going to be a big part of whatever future is in store, and there's really no reason to feel personally attacked by it. Sure plenty of people are douchebags about it, but that's not the car's fault. It is a shame that everything needs to be politicized. An engine sitting there existing isn't a political statement, nor is an electric motor. Evaluate ICE vs EV for yourself based on your needs and desires and their respective merits. Why spend so much energy looking for shadow-people under the bed getting offended by like...the very concept of electricity being used to move a car? Or the reverse, where everything that happens (or doesn't) is because of Big Oil™. What an exhausting way to live.

---------------

On the topic of "trust vs. no-trust,' eh. To me it just highlights the human tendency to draw the line of acceptability for X thing juuuuust beyond their own two feet.

"Everyone who makes more money than me is evil!" says the American suburbanite who is themselves wealthier than 99% of the global population.

"Everyone who trusts technology more than I do is a fool!" says the person standing on an absolute mountain of technology to conduct their personal and professional lives as they see fit. By virtue of being a CNC machinist, you kind of lose all rights to scoff at others for "relying too much on technology." Your entire industry literally would not exist without the underlying technology and masses of people required to develop and maintain it. Not to pick on machinists: the same is true of basically every industry and career path that exists in a country like the US. Because that's what living in a wealthy modern society is. Few who grew up in the US understand what living in a true zero-trust environment is like. From that POV your "85% trust" and someone else's "95% trust" are basically indistinguishable.

For those who want to be genuinely self-sufficient you have your own two feet and two hands and there's plenty of wilderness out there. Go nuts. Otherwise stop kidding others (but most importantly yourself) that you're extra-prepared to survive in the event all the tech fails and society crumbles just because you keep some cash next to those MREs that someone else delivered, next to the drum of gasoline that someone else filled, and the generator that someone else built.

An EV is nothing special. In a good way. It's some batteries and motors and electronics. Which describes...literally most of the things you rely on day-to-day.

 

[Bill D]

This was an experiment, that was only in and around Modesto- UPS bought 100 electric trucks as a test. UPS owns 500,000 trucks worldwide. 100, is, as you can guess, a rounding error in terms of their truck purchasing.
But right now they have 10,000 newer, hopefully more advanced ones on order.
thats what- 2% of their total fleet? Its still pretty much a low risk experiment for them.

I read a little about big fire trucks. Many are custom built with special fire cabs etc. Others use a standard truck cab and frame and add fire pumps etc to that. The standard models last about twice as long before they get replaced. The wiring and stuff just does not fall apart as soon. The standard cab models have so much history they figure out everything that can go wrong and do not make them that way anymore.
Ever looked under. RV at the wiring and plumbing. Very micky mouse poorly supported vibration caused rubbing etc.
Bill D