[OneDonOne]

And how will renewables like solar and wind wirk with Class 8 trucks, shipping, aviation or process heat or as feedstock? How have they worked in Germany, which has shut down her nuclear plants and Russian hydrocarbons?

Please - tell us.

[Valgrim]

I'm gonna be the annoying guy who points out the obvious thats being repeated again and again for the last 50 years...

For transport, trains! Trains of different sizes, shapes and designs, solve most of the transport issues. The fact that western countries are behind on this doesnt mean it's too late to start.

For heat, better insulation and heat pumps do wonders!

For feedstock maybe feeding animals is simply bot the way we should move forward.

And I say all this as a person who drives a gas car 70 miles every day, lives in an old house with bad insulation and eat meat several times a week

[OneDonOne]

By feedstock, I mean the hydrocarbons that are required for the bulk chemicals, fertilizers, plastics, rubbers, detergents, pharmaceuticals etc. that we take for granted.

And you still need trucks for last mile haulage.

[AnthonyMouse]

Class 8 trucks are solved. Volvo, Freightliner and Tesla all make electric semis. They're not a large percentage of the installed base yet but there is nothing that needs to be invented, only adopted, and the latter will pick up as the battery costs continue to decline.

Chemical feedstocks are only a small percentage of the petroleum market. The large majority is fuel. If you stop burning it there is plenty of supply and you're not worried about whether you can get any from Iran.

[OneDonOne]

Not only are electric trucks are unprofitable, it means you switch your dependency from Middle-Eastern fossil fuels to Chinese rare earths. At least we can make biofuels from sugarcane

[AnthonyMouse]

Electric trucks already have a lower TCO than diesel trucks. LFP batteries don't even contain rare earths.

[defrost]

You can also process rare earth concentrates on your own soil, there's no need to offshore that to China and Malaysia other than "No waste ponds in my Backyard".

[TheTxT]

You don’t burn your batteries though. You build them once and then use them for 20 years. They will just keep working when the next war erupts on the other side of the planet.

[stared]

> Please - tell us.

No need of sarcasm here. Or going the route of a false dichotomy.

Again, not all dependencies can be eliminated. But it is better to have less dependencies.

Closing nuclear plants in Germany was a disaster, and here we agree.

[OneDonOne]

One of those dependencies w.r.t large solar panel buildouts, will be charcoal. [0] And lots of it.

[0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335083312_Why_do_we...

[triceratops]

Solar panels are recyclable. Once you have enough for your needs you can stop burning charcoal.

You can never stop burning oil if all you use is oil.

Also I wasn't aware you could extract oil, gas, and coal with no environmental impact. I must have just dreamed the words Deepwater Horizon.

[gpm]

> Class 8 trucks

Half of the "heavy duty vehicles" (which I believe is roughly similar to the classification you are using) sold in China in December were electric. Between rapidly improving batteries and maturing technology for swapping batteries as a refuelling strategy electrification of trucks is the obvious and inevitable future. They are simply cheaper to operate.

[OneDonOne]

Good for the Chinese. The rest of us do not have the upfront capital to purchase these trucks. And there is still the matter of fertilizer, concrete, bulk chemicals etc. And solar panels. There is a very good reason why solar psnel factories (like JinkoSolar run off coal or hydro and not solar power.

[rickydroll]

That's one of the wonderful things about automotive infrastructure. You can make gradual incremental changes and slowly improve the entire system. It may not be fast enough or cheap enough, but you can still make it happen.

[jemmyw]

> The rest of us do not have the upfront capital to purchase these trucks.

We can afford what we can do. We don't need to do what we can afford. If we wanted to build and deploy electric trucks enmasse like China then we could do it, regardless of upfront capital.

[coffeebeqn]

Right the US lacks capital for tech investment..

[wookmaster]

not sure lacks is the correct word...

[rstuart4133]

> The rest of us do not have the upfront capital to purchase these trucks.

You don't need any upfront capital. Do it when the trucks become due for refurbishment a truck. Then it's almost a no-brainier, as its cheaper convert it to an EV: https://www.januselectric.com.au/

[AnthonyMouse]

> The rest of us do not have the upfront capital to purchase these trucks.

Isn't this the purpose of a loan? You have a truck with a higher purchase price that adds ~$2000/month to your loan payment but then you save ~$3000/month in diesel.

And you're saving a lot more than that in diesel when it's $5/gallon.

[hollerith]

>They are simply cheaper to operate.

We don't know that. Beijing might have been investing in them as insurance against its not being able to get enough diesel fuel to run an all-diesel fleet of trucks, so countries that are self-sufficient in oil shouldn't just blindly imitate Beijing's move.

[gpm]

We know that because we know how much they cost, how much they cost to operate, and the same for diesel trucks. The technology here isn't a bunch of state secrets.

[hollerith]

Here you're just repeating the assertion I called into question ("they are simply cheaper to operate") -- or more precisely you are implying it. Does your not repeating it outright mean you mean to slowly distance yourself from it?

If you have evidence that there is a fleet of electric trucks anywhere (big enough to make a dent in China's transport needs) whose actual total cost proved to be less than a fleet of diesels doing the same work would have cost, then share it. If all you have to offer is words to the effect that "an examination of the relevant technologies by any competent analyst will of course find that the battery-powered fleet would be cheaper", then I repeat my assertion.

[gpm]

I was not in fact repeating the prior assertions. I was explaining why we know they are cheaper to operate. Because we know the costs of both them and the alternative. No fancy deductions needed where we're arguing "well electricity is cheaper than diesel but we don't know how much they use" or something.

I am certainly not backing down from the claim that "they are simply cheaper to operate". That is an absolutely trivial claim that is entirely obvious to anyone even remotely familiar with numbers in this space.

I would note I was discussing trucks that swap batteries - and thus the "paying drivers to wait around while trucks recharge" step doesn't exist. I'll also note all the other costs you are listing are capital costs not operational ones. Broadly speaking for most uses we appear to have crossed the threshold where the total cost of ownership is lower for most tasks, but for some niches (like "ice road shipping") I doubt the buildout is worth it (yet).

[maxglute]

To attach some rough numbers, TCO of PRC electric truck (which cost 2x diesel) went from paying for itself in 4-5 years at $60 barrels to 2 years at $100. Diesel increase to $150, it pays for itself in 1 year.

[hollerith]

OK, then can you name one deployed fleet of trucks anywhere that uses swappable batteries?

According to an unreliable source that gives fast answers to my questions, U.S. freight companies spent approximately $32 billion to $36 billion on new diesel Class 8 trucks in 2025.

Now are we to believe that these companies and their investors are foolish? That they didn't do calculations and consult experts before spending this money?

Are we to assign more weight to comments here on HN assuring us that electric trucks are cheaper in total cost of ownership than diesel trucks? -- comments that cost the writers nothing but a few minutes of time?

Countries dependent on the Persian Gulf's remaining open to international shipping trade shouldn't just blindly copy U.S. freight companies here: for those countries, any extra cost for an electric fleet might be worth the peace of mind of knowing they will always be able to deliver food, medicine and other essentials to their populations. France for example takes all aspects of its national security seriously and relies almost completely on imports for any fossil fuels it uses. In response it is electrifying as much of its economy as practical (and continuing to invest heavily in nuclear electricity production and renewables).

[AnthonyMouse]

> maturing technology for swapping batteries as a refuelling strategy

This seems like a non-problem to begin with. There are electric semis with a 500 mile range, which at 60 MPH is over 8 hours of driving, i.e. the legal maximum in most places. The same trucks can also add 300 miles of range in 30 minutes, which adds five hours of driving in the time it takes for a typical lunch break. Why do you even need to swap the batteries?

[triceratops]

If electricity is cheap enough you can synthesize hydrocarbons. For aviation, and shipping, and even trucking if EVs and trains can't do it.