[jillesvangurp]

IMHO (and this is just my relatively uninformed opinion), the key driving force here will be the shift to electric trucks. These are more expensive to buy but cheaper to operate. At least right now. And also easier to turn into self driving platforms.

ICE trucks are really hard to operate. You are basically micro managing the gears, dealing with lot of fairly complex bit of equipment, etc. Electric trucks basically have no gears, heaps of torque and don't really require much more than just pointing them in the right direction. Apparently as easy as driving a normal car.

So, electrification strikes me as a core requirement for self driving. And of course electric trucks are also more environmentally friendly. Less brake dust (regenerative braking) and less emissions. And the batteries are recycled at the end of their life. So there's that.

The shift to electric trucks is already happening of course but its very capital intensive. Millions of trucks with a price tag of hundreds of thousands each means a lot of capital will have to be expended. Trillions basically. That alone will ensure it will take quite long to complete. A decade minimum before most new trucks are electric and then at least another decade before most ICE trucks have been retired. And the first generations won't be self driving. So these new trucks would be in service for a decade plus before being swapped out for self driving ones. So, if that takes another decade to happen, we're talking 30-40 years. Minimum. But with the first ones on the road as early as less than a decade from now. It's going to be a slow process.

Insurance is basically about risk. Insurance companies like to minimize risk and maximize profits. An electric truck that is less likely to break down regularly is less risky and would on paper require a lower insurance fee. And then a self driving truck is less likely to get into accidents or other liability related issues. Which again means lower fees. So, that helps.

[jaclaz]

You seem to me way too optimistic/entusiast on the matter.

Volvo (which is BTW one of the more optimistic companies) is still today excluding long-haul trucks from being fully electric, and they have just started production of short-haul and "regional" electric trucks.

And of course full self-driving is still beyond the horizon.

BTW, and only as a side note, traditional trucks already use engine braking or retarders extensively, so I don't think that regenerative braking will change much when it comes to the amount of brake dust.

[slfnflctd]

It continually boggles my mind that more people aren't interested in hybrids here. There's a company called Hyliion that's been working on this for a while (I have no involvement or investment with them, just interested), and there are likely others as well, but there still doesn't seem to be a lot of uptake or discussion about it.

Hybrids seem to me like a net win all around for at least some use cases. I'm not sure where the value proposition is breaking down (or if anyone's even put in the effort to figure out whether it actually is breaking down).

[jaclaz]

For long-haul hybrids do make a lot of sense, moving on the highways/out of cities on fuel, then switching to electric when entering them but - isn't there always a but - there is a much simpler solution already available, you use a "normal" truck for the highway, arrive on an exchange parking, leave the trailer that then is brought into the city by a pure electric truck.

Surely there can be particular routes/scenarios where hybrids may offer an advantage, but it is not (at least to me) very clear which ones they are.

[jillesvangurp]

I think companies looking to switch to electric trucks are primarily motivated by the lower maintenance/operational cost and lower electricity cost. It's a big investment but over the lifetime of the vehicle it's worth the money. The environmental benefits are a nice plus point of course but not the main thing.

Using a hybrid, you get back a lot of the maintenance hassle and on top of that your fuel is again more expensive. It's basically most of the downsides of an ICE truck without most of the upsides of a full battery electric truck. So, the business case for hybrid trucks is just a lot more murky. I'm sure there will be some companies that will try this but the money is going to be in full battery electric.

[slfnflctd]

I appreciate that perspective, I know many share it.

> you get back a lot of the maintenance hassle and on top of that your fuel is again more expensive

The entire value proposition of hybrids is that they both reduce the amount of required maintenance on the ICE part (plus the brakes) and reduce the amount of fuel needed-- while maintaining all the flexibility of ICE vehicles. As a bonus, they require far fewer batteries than full electrics at a time when battery supply is clearly going to be constrained for the foreseeable future.

Fully electric trucks will have trouble anywhere with long stretches of cold weather. Operating outside of their ideal temperature zone will result in much lower efficiency, exacerbated by the weight of the batteries remaining the same regardless of charge level.

I think there are ideal niches for both approaches. Honestly, I also think most pure ICE drivetrains should be converted over to varying types of hybrids in the long run, because it almost always seems to be a net win to me... but I could be wrong. Would love to see more R&D put into it, in any case.

[AnimalMuppet]

> The entire value proposition of hybrids is that they both reduce the amount of required maintenance on the ICE part (plus the brakes) ...

Is that a net win? It reduces maintenance on the brakes, it may reduce maintenance on the ICE, and it adds a whole bunch of new stuff to maintain. Does anyone have data on the net effect? Does anyone have data for trucks?

[slfnflctd]

The Prius is still one of the most commonly used vehicles for rideshare & taxis, and I am 100% certain this is due more to long term lower cost of ownership than any other factor. Whether that success can be replicated in large trucks is an open question, but like you I very much want to see more research & data on it.

[jillesvangurp]

Tesla just launched a long haul truck with 500 mile range. They are not the only ones targeting long haul. The perpetuating myth here is that this is somehow hard or impossible. The reality is that this is just a matter of including a few extra tonnes of battery and multiple companies have trucks on the road that can do this. Which is what Tesla did. They also have a fairly efficient drive train. And a charging system to top this thing up. Early days but it seems like it's starting to become worth the trouble.

Nikola advertises a battery electric heavy truck with 330 miles of range. Nikola and Volvo seems to still be pretending that they are going to use hydrogen but at the same time they are selling a lot of battery electric at this point and not a whole lot of hydrogen trucks. Mostly ranges are creeping up to the point where drivers must stop to take a break anyway that is long enough to top the battery up. So, the range anxiety argument is simply not there. It's a pure cost driven thing. And it's not like hydrogen fueling is particularly fast or cheap.

Of course, a lot of companies are opting for shorter range trucks because they are much cheaper and because that suits their needs. Long haul electric trucks are more expensive. Because of the extra batteries. So, yes, the sweet spot of the market is short haul, for now. But there's nothing inherently hard about longer range trucks. It's just a cost and supply chain issue. As battery production scales and prices come down further, we'll see more companies dip their toes into long haul.

Self driving is a thing that multiple electric truck and van companies are talking about at this point as something that they want to do. It's still pretty far out but it's not that much harder than self driving cars. But as I said, the bigger challenge here is simply replacing fleets which is an inherently slow process. But of course that's exactly where the money is going to be for manufacturers.

[jaclaz]

For long range trucks (electric) there could be (in theory) yet another possibility, adding a trailer on the highways.

Not entirely unlike existing multi-trailer (used on some roads in Australia), so called Road Trains, but limited to two trailers, the main one and the battery trailer:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_train

the truck would enter the highway, stop at a service station, add a "powerpack" battery trailer, drive until the next station, swap battery trailer as many times as needed, then leave it at the last service station before destination.

[snowypine]

Agreed with electric trucks! Here's another W22 company focusing on building electric trucks - https://www.sixwheel.com