[just_some_user]

Cool, but I don’t see the real benefit. Electronic trucks already work quite well, start at around 150k (vs. 150k for a retrofitted e trailer), and are afaik mostly limited by the charging infrastructure. If you now add a an electronic trailer to your diesel truck, you now also have to care about charging.

Yes, in Europe the legally required rest periods can already be used for efficient charging, but this is not an benefiting exclusiv to the trailers, but for general electronic trucking.

[sandworm101]

Charging time. A truck/driver doesnt remain stopped. It drops a trailer and picks up another. And a truck needs charging on the open road where there just are not any charging stations. But a trailer remains parked at a loading bay for hours, a commercial facility where installing chargers makes sense. A trailer therefore has more oppertunity to charge than a truck.

And if a company wanted to, parking a trailer to let it charge is far cheaper than paying a truck/driver to sit around.

[crote]

But that's the thing: you already have to pay a driver to sit around!

In Europe there's (simplified) a mandatory 45-minute rest break after 4.5 hours of driving. Similarly, there's a mandatory 11-hour rest period after the daily maximum of 10 hours of driving. And it is very strictly enforced, with every commercial truck having been equipped with a sealed and certified data logger, plenty of random checks by traffic police, and heavy fines for any kind of violation.

If the truck is already sitting idle ~half of the time due to driver rest requirements, why not take that opportunity to charge it as well? Similarly, if you are building the usual highway-side rest stop with truck parking, a petrol station, and a restaurant, why not add a charging station as well? It can even do double-duty as rapid car charger!

[wongarsu]

In Europe (at least in Germany) we already have a lack of truck parking spots along many routes. And that's with parking spots that are just a bit of Asphalt and maybe a portapotty, or big asphalt parking lots attached to a rest stop

If we had enough chargers that any trucker could pull into a truck stop at their prescribed rest period and find a free charger, electrifying trucks would indeed be a no-brainer. But in the world we currently live in we don't have enough chargers to make that reliable. We barely have enough non-electified parking spots, and in your world they would all have to be electrified as well. It's a mix of a chicken-and-egg problem on the commercial side and a lack of will on the government side

But there is never a lack of will from the government to try all kinds of pilot programs that look cool but are mostly caused by the need to somehow sidestep the lack of sufficient charging infrastructure

[WildGreenLeave]

I have driven a lot in Europe and a lot in the night (I like to avoid traffic jams and use the no speed limit on the autobahn), I have to say that this does almost exclusively belong to Germany in my experience. Which makes perfect sense because Germany is in the center, has a lot of truck traffic and long autobahns so it makes sense the parking lots are limited. I have not seen this in any other country other then quite exclusive circumstances.

[eru]

I guess the problem is that they don't charge for these parking spots, hence they are underprovided?

[Dreami]

At least from the truckers I watch on YouTube from Germany, there is already a shortage of rest stops for trucks. Sometimes you can see them even in the entrance of the rest stops, parked in a dangerous spot. If they all have to charge, then that becomes a problem, because they can’t find a space even „creatively“.

Not saying that electric trucks are bad, just one more problem to solve

[vladvasiliu]

Yes, I was thinking about this exact situation (drivers waiting around in the "wrong" spots). But that is already a problem, which should be fixed, whatever energy the truck uses. So if they should increase parking spaces anyway, might as well add charging infrastructure while at it.

Yes, I know it's a bit more involved than just pouring concrete and calling it a truck stop, but at some point politicians need to actually do something about this push for electrification.

[crote]

The hard part is getting the NIMBYs to let you build any truck stop. Adding a bunch of chargers afterwards is a piece of cake.

[mothballed]

That's interesting. In blue collar parts of USA it is not too bad to get a truck stop in. Truckers are a constant flow of money into town that is welcomed, and more importantly they just stop at the highway exit area and then get the fuck out after shedding their currency without going into actual town where the residents live.

[eru]

The electric truck doesn't make anything worse here, does it?

[mapt]

So build them stops.

[cucumber3732842]

Not all trucking is the super trucker pissing in a jug OTR stuff you see on youtube (those are the guys with the most down time to make youtube content though). There's god knows how many LTL and reefer fleets doing local delivery and mostly home at night that could benefit from something like this.

That said I don't the cost is low enough for them yet.

[olyjohn]

In the US, truckers outside of truck stop have very few places to park. Truck stops and rest areas are already crowded st night. Trucks often have to park illegally on shoulders and offramps, because a lot of times they don't have the hours to make it to a destination. If we don't even have parking infrastructure for trucks how are we going to build enough charging for all of them. You gotta park before you can charge.

[SonOfLilit]

I think many long-haul truckers work in pairs for this reason?

[crote]

You can, but (at least in Europe) it is rarely done.

A big problem is that it doesn't count as a daily rest if the vehicle is moving. This means in practice that the longest you can drive in pairs is 4.5h A, 4.5h B, 4.5h A, 4.5h B, 1h A, 1h B, followed by at least 9 hours downtime. Still a 20-hour non-stop drive, but not even remotely 24/7. You'd need additional standby drivers at a remote base, at which point you could also just swap the trailer to another truck.

In practice this means it is rarely worth it. Combine it with the schedule going out-of-sync with the days, and for regular freight it is almost certainly more expensive than just giving each driver their own truck.

The exception to the rule is high-priority cargo which for one reason or another can't be done via air. Take Formula 1, for example: with back-to-back races they have just three days to tear everything down, drive it across Europe, and build it back up again. It's a 15-hour drive without any delays, so having a solo driver rest for an additional 9 hours halfway through is unacceptable. With a driver pair it is easily achievable, and the additional costs are irrelevant.

[mapt]

Regulations are a bit different, not just on what counts as rest, but on physical format.

The normal US front-engine is rare in Europe.

The US extended sleeper generally doesn't exist in Europe

The European compact cabover generally doesn't exist in the US.

The scale influences this more than a little bit. The longest drives you'd find it sensible to make hauling freight inside Europe are between 12 and 18 hours of nonstop travel, while in the US they're more like 40-60 hours.

[reactordev]

And split the revenue? No way Jose. Team driving is not preferred.

[nradov]

What are you talking about? All of the major long-haul trucking companies hire team drivers.

https://schneiderjobs.com/truck-driving-jobs/driving-opportu...

[reactordev]

Yes, they do, and you should look into how team drivers are paid. It’s not a good deal.

So again, team driving is not ideal for the worker, only the mega carrier. You’ll make less as a team driver than a solo driver.

[jimnotgym]

I suppose the trailer has a lot of space for solar panels on top, which the tractor does not. But those could be connected to the tractor rather than the trailer. Of course

[bluGill]

Last time I ran the numbers, in ideal situations a truck/trailer could generate enough power from solar alone to drive on the highway. Ideal means the truck is already at speed, it is towing multiple trailers (length is only legal in a few states), they are used the most efficient solar panels made (significantly better than the mass produced panels most people are putting on their house - at a massive increase in cost), it is near noon, and it is near the equator.

[jimnotgym]

This wasn't a discussion over whether panels were sufficient to push a truck. It was a discussion if the tractor unit or the trailer was the best place to electrify