Test charging stop for large EV’s, busses, trucks, mohos.

valhalla360 wrote:


If it was the businesses leading, I would agree. The problem is this is the politicians driving the process and using our tax dollars to allow them to ignore the financials. If the govt throws a few billion at it, industry happily will put together a program to test running trucks on unicorn farts.

Probably from the start of business, certainly from the start of capitalism, business has never took the cost of environmental harm into consideration. In this country, farm ground gets depleted to the point crops don't grow? Move west to new ground, until no more west. If we had understood the harm, and paid for it at the pump from the start, transportation would of been much different know. Without government control forcing change, business will not change.

Coal plants are being taken off line. We are actually entering a period where excess production capacity is steadily going down.

Fact is coal fired plants have been going off line for years because natural gas plants run cheaper and cleaner

I wasn't proposing to build coal power plants but just using that to explain the scale of what these chargers need in terms of power supply. You could use in nuclear, hydro or solar the charging stations as equivalents, doesn't matter but we are talking huge concentrated demands. A couple acres of solar panels aren't going to be even close to enough to service an individual truck stop. And more importantly, the existing power plants are already being used for other purposes. For every 14 truck stops as described, you are going to have to build the generation capability of an average power plant.

Also, not considered is the grid upgrades to accommodate such installations. Nightly charging of cars takes advantage of the grid and production already available to service the peak loads in the daytime. A trucker with flat batteries at 10am, isn't going to wait until 8pm when there is excess capacity available to recharge. If the truck stop is say 10miles from the power plant, it could easily be $10's of millions to upgrade the lines feeding a truck stop.

A large percentage of trucks on the road today never fuel at a truckstop, they have tanks at the terminals. If E-trucks could be 'fueled' where they park for the night cheaper than putting in a tank/pump and moving each vehicle twice that would be a pretty large savings. And there is a lot of acers of roofs and parking lots that could hold solar panels. If you grow food near where you eat it you don't need to spend as much to move it. The same goes for power, produce near large demands, loose less moving it.

"In 20 years they will be as common as fuel stations. Then over time, fuel stations will begin to disappear, not completely, but significantly less of them."

Not sure it will take 20 years, BB, but yes those with gasoline/diesel engines will need to plan even better than we RVers do now.

time2roll wrote:

valhalla360 wrote:
Also, not considered is the grid upgrades to accommodate such installations. Nightly charging of cars takes advantage of the grid and production already available to service the peak loads in the daytime. A trucker with flat batteries at 10am, isn't going to wait until 8pm when there is excess capacity available to recharge. If the truck stop is say 10miles from the power plant, it could easily be $10's of millions to upgrade the lines feeding a truck stop.

I believe a significant number of large trucks etc are day trippers and will take advantage of slower overnight charging at lower cost. These will be the first to get implementation. Infrastructure will grow organically as needed and as economically feasible. Depending on the mix of solar and wind there is already a growing surplus of daytime electricity.

I already said, local delivery trucks are very much viable.

But these high speed charging stations are geared toward long haul trucking.

rk911 wrote:

Reisender wrote:

rk911 wrote:

time2roll wrote:

rk911 wrote:
we won't consider an electric vehicle much less a MH until two things occur:

a full re-charge takes the same amount of time it takes to refuel now...about 10-min for a 4-wheeler and maybe 20-min for the MH.

What if the electric fuel was half the cost as gas/diesel? What if the cost was 1/4?

i don't see out-of-pocket cost as important as compared to convenience.

Well, a lot of people line up at Costco for 40 minutes to save 10 cents on gas, so I think it’s important to some.

no doubt but your question was directed at me. at least that's how i took it.

Reisender wrote:
Charging at home is a lot cheaper than fast charging. But trucks won’t have that option. I’m not sure how the economics of that will work out.

same here. we store our MH in an outdoor lot. when we bring it home to pack/unpack I connect to a 50-amp post. not sure what it would take to convert that to or add a charging port. since we're not likely to buy an electric MH anytime soon i'm not concerned with what would be needed.

Nothing would be needed. All EV’s come with EVSE’s that plug directly into a stove plug or 50 amp RV service plug.

valhalla360 wrote:
Also, not considered is the grid upgrades to accommodate such installations. Nightly charging of cars takes advantage of the grid and production already available to service the peak loads in the daytime. A trucker with flat batteries at 10am, isn't going to wait until 8pm when there is excess capacity available to recharge. If the truck stop is say 10miles from the power plant, it could easily be $10's of millions to upgrade the lines feeding a truck stop.

I believe a significant number of large trucks etc are day trippers and will take advantage of slower overnight charging at lower cost. These will be the first to get implementation. Infrastructure will grow organically as needed and as economically feasible. Depending on the mix of solar and wind there is already a growing surplus of daytime electricity.

PartyOf Five wrote:
While I don't question any of the numbers above, I also don't question the business sense of these & so many other companies - if its not going to work, they're not going to invest $1 into it. Success (according to the masses at least) goes to those who make the most money, and the ones who lead this race are generally the ones who can think beyond the box.

With wind, solar, and other power forms becoming popular, it could be reasonable that that coal plant has fewer customers, or that it's customers need less power - enabling more charging stations at the truck stop.

From Wikipedia: In 2019 there were 241 coal powered units across the United States which generated 23% of the United States electricity in 2019, an amount of electricity similar to that from renewable energy or nuclear power... Installed capacity was about 236 GW.
So if you have 5 coal plants per state today, then each serves a couple hundred miles- is there a need for 14 truck stops within each one's service region?

If it was the businesses leading, I would agree. The problem is this is the politicians driving the process and using our tax dollars to allow them to ignore the financials. If the govt throws a few billion at it, industry happily will put together a program to test running trucks on unicorn farts.

Coal plants are being taken off line. We are actually entering a period where excess production capacity is steadily going down.

I wasn't proposing to build coal power plants but just using that to explain the scale of what these chargers need in terms of power supply. You could use in nuclear, hydro or solar the charging stations as equivalents, doesn't matter but we are talking huge concentrated demands. A couple acres of solar panels aren't going to be even close to enough to service an individual truck stop. And more importantly, the existing power plants are already being used for other purposes. For every 14 truck stops as described, you are going to have to build the generation capability of an average power plant.

Also, not considered is the grid upgrades to accommodate such installations. Nightly charging of cars takes advantage of the grid and production already available to service the peak loads in the daytime. A trucker with flat batteries at 10am, isn't going to wait until 8pm when there is excess capacity available to recharge. If the truck stop is say 10miles from the power plant, it could easily be $10's of millions to upgrade the lines feeding a truck stop.

Reisender wrote:

rk911 wrote:

time2roll wrote:

rk911 wrote:
we won't consider an electric vehicle much less a MH until two things occur:

a full re-charge takes the same amount of time it takes to refuel now...about 10-min for a 4-wheeler and maybe 20-min for the MH.

What if the electric fuel was half the cost as gas/diesel? What if the cost was 1/4?

i don't see out-of-pocket cost as important as compared to convenience.

Well, a lot of people line up at Costco for 40 minutes to save 10 cents on gas, so I think it’s important to some.

no doubt but your question was directed at me. at least that's how i took it.

Reisender wrote:
Charging at home is a lot cheaper than fast charging. But trucks won’t have that option. I’m not sure how the economics of that will work out.

same here. we store our MH in an outdoor lot. when we bring it home to pack/unpack I connect to a 50-amp post. not sure what it would take to convert that to or add a charging port. since we're not likely to buy an electric MH anytime soon i'm not concerned with what would be needed.

rk911 wrote:

time2roll wrote:

rk911 wrote:
we won't consider an electric vehicle much less a MH until two things occur:

a full re-charge takes the same amount of time it takes to refuel now...about 10-min for a 4-wheeler and maybe 20-min for the MH.

What if the electric fuel was half the cost as gas/diesel? What if the cost was 1/4?

i don't see out-of-pocket cost as important as compared to convenience.

Well, a lot of people line up at Costco for 40 minutes to save 10 cents on gas, so I think it’s important to some.

Charging at home is a lot cheaper than fast charging. But trucks won’t have that option. I’m not sure how the economics of that will work out.

time2roll wrote:

rk911 wrote:
we won't consider an electric vehicle much less a MH until two things occur:

a full re-charge takes the same amount of time it takes to refuel now...about 10-min for a 4-wheeler and maybe 20-min for the MH.

What if the electric fuel was half the cost as gas/diesel? What if the cost was 1/4?

i don't see out-of-pocket cost as important as compared to convenience.

rk911 wrote:
we won't consider an electric vehicle much less a MH until two things occur:

a full re-charge takes the same amount of time it takes to refuel now...about 10-min for a 4-wheeler and maybe 20-min for the MH.

What if the electric fuel was half the cost as gas/diesel? What if the cost was 1/4?