User Info
| America's Scam, Part 65023 in forum [Market-Ticker]
*
|
Maynard
Posts: 3161
Incept: 2007-11-27
South Houston Online
|
The whole thing is insane. I was driving out to the beach in WA couple months ago and there is a new 10-20 car charging station in Aberdeen Wa. There is probably ONE Tesla in the area. Its a logging town...Who paid for that! The grid can't handle what he describes and Physics is a bitch.
|
Supertruckertom
Posts: 4547
Incept: 2010-11-07
USA
|
So far today averaging 8.6 mpg with a light load heading South on I-65 running from Indianapolis to Nashville then to Atlanta. Took 10 minutes to pump 75 gallons of fuel, top off the oil and washer fluid. Hooked my trailer and did all of my paperwork and a final bathroom break in another 20 minutes.
Port of Long Beach, where California Air Resources Board has mandatory CNG powered trucks, is about the only market I can see him being able to get any sales. That would likely be because of a future government mandate.
2 Megawatt diesel generators are huge. Circular logic will have most of the recharging stations generating the electricity on the premises rather than bringing it in. A hybrid drive train is a better solution in air quality critical areas.
CNG is even better.
----------
Preparing to go Hunting.
|
Tsherry
Posts: 5486
Incept: 2008-12-09
Spokane WA
|
|
Vernonb
Posts: 2541
Incept: 2009-06-03
East of Sheol
|
Karl,
As a side note how safe are these batteries in a crash? That's a huge amount of electric capacity to be hauled around on a freight transport vehicle. I've seen too many 18 wheelers flipped over or wrapped over guard rails in the winter along the I-80 corridor. Emergency sirens go off at least 2 times a night.
We are equipped with equipment and supplies to handle fuel spills and potential fires/environmental release from current trucks in accidents. What are the implications to control the scene, however, if one of these freight trucks with such huge batteries catch fire?
----------
"Mass intelligence does not mean intelligent masses."
|
Tickerguy
Posts: 172775
Incept: 2007-06-26
|
If it wrecks and the batteries short it's going to suck -- badly.
It is basically impossible to put an electrically-fed fire out unless you can cut off the energy. In the case of a battery fire until the energy in the battery is expended, forget about it -- it's going to burn.
Lithium cells are especially nasty in this regard because the heat from one of them burning will cause the separator (which is basically a plastic) in nearby cells to melt, which shorts THEM. This is a cascade-failure that will run until the entire pack is consumed, and since the pack is inherently buried in the vehicle you can forget about being able to draw enough heat away from it (e.g. with a firehose) to actually put it out.
Oh, don't get all excited over graphene batteries. Yes, IF they can make them work and IF they can manufacture them they promise materially higher energy density (good) and extremely-low (nearly zero) internal resistance, which means their charge acceptance rate is nearly infinite.
HOWEVER, this also means that IF one shorts internally it will not heat up -- it will electrically explode, since the available amperage will be very close to infinite. In other words the energy will all be released at once, which tends to result in what is sometimes called "rapid unplanned disassembly."
----------
I don't give a flying **** if you're offended.
|
Maynard
Posts: 3161
Incept: 2007-11-27
South Houston Online
|
Yeah, ask Boeing how well tracking down their failure went. Lets just say containment is the strategy.
|
James56287
Posts: 703
Incept: 2008-07-28
|
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail....This handy chart from the EIA shows that liquid hydrocarbons, in almost every form, are orders of magnitude more energy dense and lighter in weight. Battery technology is going to need to come a very long way in order to be comparable from that perspective.
|
Gianmarko
Posts: 190
Incept: 2013-03-11
Bern, Switzerland
|
check one of latest videos from Thunderf00t, he makes a very good debunk of the battery promises. try to ignore the BS about global warming, the rest is very good.
bottom line is, the "miracle battery" has been already invented and it is the li-ion cell. i dont believe these cells can be improved by 7% per annum as some claim. and the "improvement" often only consists of more cell surface in the same space (less insulation, less safe, more weight) or a cell so slightly larger as it happened in AA rechargeables that mysteriously do no longer fit battery compartments.
regarding the multi MW recharging stations, of course they can be built, and what will happen is that when you have more than one truck recharging, the power will have to be shared and recharging times will increase
still i wouldnt want to be nowhere near a MWh battery being recharged at 2C. one MWh is equivalent to one metric ton of TNT, which i assume will make a hell of a firework.
@supertruckertom
imagine that. using diesel generators to recharge electric trucks. it doesnt get much dumber than that but then again, in the era or the BS, even this becomes not only possible, but mandated by law.
|
Bodhi
Posts: 3383
Incept: 2008-02-23
USSA
|
Quote:To put some perspective on this that means that one such truck charging will place approximately the same load on the grid as 1,400 houses. One truck.
What happens when 20 of them show up at the truck stop? You know they do that today -- they fill their diesel tanks and they're on their way, although they typically only fill said tanks half as often as these batteries will require charging.
So it won't be 20 of them it will be 40 since their range-before-refueling is about half of common OTR trucks now. Now we're talking about the load of roughly 57,000 additional houses that will be instantly presented to the grid and which the grid must be able to support -- per truck stop or terminal! Just like Netflix, Amazon and other content providers expect others to bear the cost of building out the Internet infrastructure to support their business models, Elon Musk expects others to bear the cost of building out the electrical grid to support his "clean" cars and trucks. Socializing costs and privatizing profits, although in Tesla's case it's just mitigating losses.
----------
"A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves." ~Edward R. Murrow
|
Jayhawk
Posts: 49
Incept: 2010-08-20
San Diego, CA
|
Actually, it's bad, but not quite as bad as your numbers reflect. Batteries are rated in kilowatt-hours (kWh) which is a measure of energy, rather than kW which is a measure of the rate at which they can deliver power. But doing the calculation based on energy still makes Tesla a moron.
Today's freighter gets an average of 6.3 miles per gallon of diesel, which contains 40.74 kWh of energy. So to provide 90% of 400 miles would require the equivalent of 133.3 gallons of diesel, or 5432 kWh. Multiply by 90% and then by two to get the charging rate, since we are doing it in half an hour, and we get a charging rate of 9777.6 kW plus waste.
That's not undoable, since at 400 volts it would only be 24 amperes, but it's pretty sizeable. On the other hand, if those are 12v batterys... Yikes, that would be 815 amps, which is not something I would want to be messing around with at a truck stop.
In the old diesel boats we routinely dealt with 400V at up to 3000A, but that was carried by solid copper bars that had a cross section of 3" x 6". Can you imagine the size of the cable that you would be plugging into the truck that is carrying 815A? Or even 410A if they were using 24V batteries.
Your post also points the feeble economy for electric. At 40.74 kWh/gal and $.07/kWh, electric energy works out to $2.85 per gallon equivalent for diesel. Gasoline would be higher, since its energy content is significantly lower than diesel. Plus, of course, where can you get electrity for $.07/kWh?
If you live in San Diego, electricity is costing you a bit over $.30/kWh while gasoline,at $3.25/gal, is costing you slightly under $.09/kWh.
|
Payup
Posts: 2
Incept: 2017-11-26
Indianapolis
|
Karl, long time lurker, love your work, first-time poster. Musk's and Wall Street's "sucker born every minute" behavior aside, I would appreciate your thoughts and the blog communities feedback on a company named Brilliant Light Power as it may relate to the subject of mobile power generation for truck-sized transport. I stumbled across them a few years ago via the Solari forum, I think. At first, I thought it was rubbish, but the progression of the technology has me taking a second look. It is well beyond concept, into prototypes. For those of you into physics, make sure your coffee is topped off before digging into the companys web site and company update (links below). Im just now digging into the various validation reports from other scientists. In a nutshell, the energy release of H2O to Hydrino and oxygen is 100 times that of an equivalent, amount of high-octane gasoline and independent of the grid. Could it be mobilized to drive the electric wheels of an 80,000 lb semi? Website: http://brilliantlightpower.com/suncell/Company Update: http://www.brilliantlightpower.com/wp-co....
|
Eleua
Posts: 18164
Incept: 2007-07-05
N 47.72/ W 122.55
|
Question for the forum:
Name one economic problem of the past 25 years that isn't related to "cost shifting."
Cost shifting problems I can think of off the top of my head:
Housing bubble/banking Medical billing Airline economics (big routes and jets subsidize small routes and small jets) Illegal immigration (costs to produce are shifted to taxpayer via welfare) Tesla/Netflix/Amazon
----------
Diversity + proximity = WAR Until bullets fly and people die, nothing is going to change. Once you see what the problem is, you can't unsee it. That kind of sums up the last month since the election, a giant amber alert for Trump's balls. - Davkj1
|
Quik49
Posts: 10287
Incept: 2007-12-11
|
Of course it will work....You forgot the part where 7/8 of the trailer IS the battery...they all have solar panels for a continuous stream of lecticity...then of course there's the convoy that is connected with wireless power to share the load back to the end trailer with a 399 mile chord....it's all good...Elon knows wtf he's doing...just ask him.
----------
|
Eleua
Posts: 18164
Incept: 2007-07-05
N 47.72/ W 122.55
|
I keep hearing of how hydrocarbon direct powered cars (gasoline and diesel) are going to go bye-bye because of coal, nuclear, hydroelectric powered cars (electrical cars), and we are all going to have charging stations at our homes and businesses. Right.... I've always poo-pooed this idea because the sheer electrical build-out to accommodate all of this is staggering, to say nothing of what the distortions in the energy market are going to be when those joules of energy we presently get from liquid hydrocarbons have to be put into the electrical grid. Hydroelectric (what powers a good chunk of the homes in my region) is already at 100%. Nuclear?  Good luck getting the politicians, leftists, and other green-tards to approve that. Coal? Same thing. Oh, I know...solar and wind.  It simply cannot happen. We are not going to shelve petrochemical energy to drive electric cars, and I don't care if they are all connected and driverless. IT ISN"T GOING TO HAPPEN!!! We don't have the energy resources. We don't have the political will to use them. We can't retrofit the entire grid, even if we did have the energy production. Oh, and about the "smart, driverless cars..." I'll never forget this. I landed at DCA one afternoon and there was a power outage in the terminal. I tried to pay cash for a slice of pizza, and the grommet-head, Millenial couldn't make change, because she couldn't count backwards from 100. Additionally, not a single toilet worked in the entire terminal, because they need electricity to work. There was **** overflowing in EVERY hopper in the DCA terminal. In the airport of the capitol city of the "most advanced nation on earth," we can't make change or take a dump if the grid does go down. How in the flying-fornication are we going to be able to drive in that scenario? IT ISN'T GOING TO HAPPEN!!! We couldn't do the Apollo program today. In 1967? Yes, but not today. We are not getting smarter. We are just getting more clever in telling ourselves we are.
----------
Diversity + proximity = WAR Until bullets fly and people die, nothing is going to change. Once you see what the problem is, you can't unsee it. That kind of sums up the last month since the election, a giant amber alert for Trump's balls. - Davkj1
|
Tickerguy
Posts: 172775
Incept: 2007-06-26
|
Quote:Actually, it's bad, but not quite as bad as your numbers reflect. Batteries are rated in kilowatt-hours (kWh) which is a measure of energy, rather than kW which is a measure of the rate at which they can deliver power. But doing the calculation based on energy still makes Tesla a moron. That was what I was accounting for. There are allegedly eight 100kwH batteries in that truck cab. Therefore if you wish to charge them you need 800kwH + losses. Losses are pretty easy; it's about 80-85% efficiency to charge a Li-chemistry battery during the bulk phase (which is up to ~80% charge state) then it starts to drop off in efficiency. The electronics loss is pretty simple too -- 90% is excellent (and I will assume "excellent".) Losses are multiplicative (so the total loss is 85% * 90%, so ~76.5% efficient.) This means to get 800kwH into the battery you must put in 800kwH/.765, or 1,045kwH (just over 1 Megawatt-hour.) Now the problem is that you want to do it in 30 minutes, which is 1/2 hour. So you must multiply the power delivery rate by TWO. Thus you must deliver 2 Megawatts to the vehicle for 30 minutes, which is 1 Megawatt/hour. 800kwH of that will get stored, and ~200kwH will be dissipated by the pack and electronics as heat, and since we're doing it in 1/2 hour the pack and electronics have to be able to sink the heat at a nearly 500kwH rate without catching on fire. If the battery was just in use at high rate (to move the truck) then it is already carrying some amount of heat in its thermal mass over ambient to begin with. Exactly how you manage to dissipate heat at a 500kwH rate to the atmosphere during this operation without setting things on fire is an interesting engineering problem all on its own. Note that if you are forced to rate-limit the charge due to heating then there is no way you'll achieve that 30 minute charge cycle. May I point out that if you actually take a Model S and try to drive it on a REAL track (not a 1/4 mile dragstrip) you'll find out all about this because when you start drawing energy out of that pack at the sort of rate the systems in the vehicle will limit the withdrawal rate from the battery so you don't turn the car into a flaming torch. At that point my little puny Mazda 6 spanks you. I will assume they intend to run 480VDC for the charging to keep conductor sizes reasonable. That is still a delivery rate of over 4,000 Amps! If there are eight charging sockets we're still talking about 500 Amps (!!) each. For your next exercise figure out the (stranded, please!) conductor size required to carry that at an acceptable heating rate and voltage drop and then determine how you're going to maneuver those pigtails (all 8 of them) to charge said truck. You need 600V insulation, a protective ground jacket over the outside casing (to detect incipient cable failure before someone gets turned into a cooked hot dog if the insulation is compromised) and a 90C insulating rating. When you get all this figured out you will realize that you DO intend to have mechanical assistance for those cables, plugs and the mating/unmating operation. Oh, and do the engineering right on the connectors too; 500 Amps will rock your world if the connection goes high-resistance on you or (God forbid) arcs, and it's utterly necessary that you make very sure they're NEVER separated or mated hot under any circumstances (because if you do you're replacing both ends as the arcing will destroy them instantly never mind splatter damage from it, especially with DC where there's no zero-crossing quench.) Yeah, this is all going to work out just fine... NOT!
----------
I don't give a flying **** if you're offended.
|
Mangymutt
Posts: 1889
Incept: 2015-05-03
Vancouver WA
|
Question aimed at SuperTruck, but by no means limited to him: What happens to the 500 mile range when going up hills or twisty turny roads, especially in inclement weather?
Distribution of electrical power is done through power lines, most of these lines are held in place by towers, either wood, steel and in some cases concrete with costs close to $1,000,000.... YES... million dollars a mile.
There is never a straight line from generation to out put, the lines need to be built, state, federal, county and in some cases tribal authorities get involved with tons of rules and regulations. EPA says it needs a study, guess what? Cross a navigable river, you now have to answer questions for the Coast Guard.
Put the line over someones private property, you need to pay for easement to access the tower and line and the lose of land usage.
Find human artifacts, more down time.
Possibly obstruct someones or worse a communities view, now everything is put on hold again.
Not to mention up keep and maintenance on lines, what if someone decides to plant trees or dump garbage under the line?
Sure you can put the line underground, but the costs for that are astronomical.
Substations will need to be built and or upgraded as well as the privately owned (Substation to your house) infrastructure.
Even if Idiot Elon had all the paperwork in hand to start a 20 mile project, he would be looking at at least 5 years and 20 million dollars to MAYBE get it done.
Up here in the Pacific North West along the Columbia River they have put in 1000's of wind turbines, they make a humming and rumbling noise when in use (Which is not all the time) the noise disturbs the natural flow of the wild life, birds nest on them and even sometimes fly into them, when they get to turning and producing electricity the hydro dams need to be scaled back, sure you could put a lot of electricity through the lines but if no one is going to use it you are producing for nothing.
There is a pretty good system in place that regulates the flow of electricity and they can create more of it or less of it, but it takes time and resources to do that, what happens if 6 of these Idiot Elon trucks pull into a single power source at once?
Small scale use of electric cars, like commuter or run around town cars sure, but if you are on a cross country haul with a big rig and you are half way through a 700 mile stretch and you have hills to clime with no power source for over 200 miles, guess what happens.
Elon is an Idiot
----------
"It's just a shot" - Gates
|
Vernonb
Posts: 2541
Incept: 2009-06-03
East of Sheol
|
It is now obvious all that have been praising Musk have not thought this issue through. I am sure there are many voices simply on his payroll.
Just reading the safety and charging concerns it is obvious such vessels would be unsafe as well cost inefficient and the only way to run such a program is to steal by force or deception.
Where is Nader when there is a real issue? It's obvious these trucks are a fraud and even if it were true they'd be "unsafe at any speed" including zero in the charging bay.
Just another toaster on wheels on the nation's highways.
Makes me wonder if some of that infrastructure support Trump had mentioned was to support Musk directly.
----------
"Mass intelligence does not mean intelligent masses."
|
Tsherry
Posts: 5486
Incept: 2008-12-09
Spokane WA
|
>>Yeah, this is all going to work out just fine... NOT!>>
Maybe Musk has invented Mister Fusion.
|
Thorvold
Posts: 268
Incept: 2013-09-12
NY
|
Volkswagen is supposed to build a network of electric vehicle charging stations across California as part of the settlement of the diesel emissions scandal. As pointed out by Eleua, cost shifting is already part of the plan and seems to be likely going forward given Tesla's and our government's track records. Unfortunately for Tesla, cost shifting has yet to overcome the laws of physics.
|
Little_eddie
Posts: 2170
Incept: 2009-04-30
Delaware
|
Isn't it nice having friends that love doing math.
Thank you
----------
Collapse is not the end of the world, it's just the start of a new adventure. Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that. - George Carlin
|
Vitaeus
Posts: 69
Incept: 2010-10-05
Puget Sound WA
|
Heh, been mulling over this discussion. One person mentioned old fashioned Diesel Submarines. The comparison that comes to my mind is treating each long haul truck, like the charging/shore power requirements of our current nuclear submarine fleet , only a couple of orders of magnitude larger and done at hundreds of truck stops instead of a literal handful of dedicated naval bases. Good luck with that.
|
Goforbroke
Posts: 9287
Incept: 2007-11-30
The tadpole is gone due to CV-19. I am hunkering down.
|
Quote:Elon is an Idiot No he isn't. He's an opportunist/snake oil salesman more than willing to take advantage of everyone else's idiocy and/or greed. Immoral, unethical, yes. But an idiot, no.
----------
It is death which gives meaning to life.
|
Tickerguy
Posts: 172775
Incept: 2007-06-26
|
Updated -- it's even worse than I first thought.
Tesla's Semi is short roughly 32% on an equivalent energy basis, assuming the pack in the truck is 800kw. There's not a snowball's chance in HELL he can get that back from pure aerodynamics. NO ****ING WAY, especially not while being compatible with existing trailers.
----------
I don't give a flying **** if you're offended.
|
Goforbroke
Posts: 9287
Incept: 2007-11-30
The tadpole is gone due to CV-19. I am hunkering down.
|
Outside of the box ... what if his long-term goal is not trucks, but trains? (This may just very well be the dumbest question ever asked here.)
----------
It is death which gives meaning to life.
|