It sounds as if electric trucks are great for long-range land transport.
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It sounds as if electric trucks are great for long-range land transport. But they require heavy batteries, so rather than putting them on the road (where they'll damage the road surface), why don't we build special metal tracks for them to go on? And, on long trips, join a bunch of them together so that you only need one motor and driver for a load of them travelling in a convoy? I bet you could make freight transport a lot more efficient if you did that.
@david_chisnall i mean yeah but at some point we have to talk about how these private roads are largely controlled by a cartel of competing business interests, and if those competing business interests were capable of solving this problem which they've had enormous incentive to solve, they are electing not to do it.
i think batteries are absolutely the answer rn this very instant; i don't think anyone anywhere has forgotten that rail freight is an option. Getting them to use it isn't some simple matter of someone having an epiphany that railroads exist and that green tech can be used to power them.
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It sounds as if electric trucks are great for long-range land transport. But they require heavy batteries, so rather than putting them on the road (where they'll damage the road surface), why don't we build special metal tracks for them to go on? And, on long trips, join a bunch of them together so that you only need one motor and driver for a load of them travelling in a convoy? I bet you could make freight transport a lot more efficient if you did that.
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It sounds as if electric trucks are great for long-range land transport. But they require heavy batteries, so rather than putting them on the road (where they'll damage the road surface), why don't we build special metal tracks for them to go on? And, on long trips, join a bunch of them together so that you only need one motor and driver for a load of them travelling in a convoy? I bet you could make freight transport a lot more efficient if you did that.
@david_chisnall And a bonus! Having them on the rails would keep them off roads where cars are. No one else would be killed by the truck smashing into them from behind. Yay, trains.
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The first time i read a shitpost about that, i thought the same thing as you did, "haha that's a funny and brilliant way to remind us that trains exist and are great".
Then i did some research and reading and i suggest you do too; you'll learn that rail freight is already extremely developed pretty much everywhere; cheaper than road freight; and when trucks are used, it's not because some fucker wanted to burn oil for fun but because rail didn't work for that.
So yes, electric trucks are, in fact, not a dumb idea.
Sure it would be even better to engage less in our ultra consumerist society and buy less random garbage so that eventually results in less trucks on the roads - and less trains on tracks, because in the US, one of the reasons why passenger trains suck so much is because the tracks are saturated with freight trains, whose traffic has a higher priority.
You're welcome!
@jpetazzo @david_chisnall You're right. There's a reason railways aren't already reaching all destinations.
That's why electric trucks are a perfect complement to rail freight.
It's even possible to reduce battery size by letting trucks charge with overhead wires.
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@NMBA @david_chisnall I dream of the day a train pulls up in a station and a pile of delivery robots pile out of the wagons and off down the road
@NMBA @etchedpixels @david_chisnall it’s surprising how long small scale intermodal freight lasted in Germany - into the 1990s! https://bahnwelt.de/neuigkeiten/sanierung-eines-historischen-von-haus-zu-haus-behaelters/
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It sounds as if electric trucks are great for long-range land transport. But they require heavy batteries, so rather than putting them on the road (where they'll damage the road surface), why don't we build special metal tracks for them to go on? And, on long trips, join a bunch of them together so that you only need one motor and driver for a load of them travelling in a convoy? I bet you could make freight transport a lot more efficient if you did that.
@david_chisnall - Now that is thinking out of the box.
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@david_chisnall
How about replaceable batteries, changed at fuel stops/services, changeable in whole or part, with a turn around time similar to liquid fueling. It shouldn't be impossible to design a secure vehicle-mounted battery cradle, a secure connector to supply the fitted motor, and a small loading crane or lift truck to automate the transfer. Recharging could be by local renewables at the fuel stop, supplemented by off peak electricity.@SometimesLovely @david_chisnall
> changed at fuel stops/services
Only in China. Since 2021. -
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@jpetazzo @david_chisnall but why? Have you ever been to a parcel sorting center? Why, with our current level of software and robotics, is there no system where standardized boxes are automatically routed cross-country, leaving just the first and last mile to trucks?
@cm @david_chisnall you're inches away from reinventing the intermodal shipping container, my friend
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@david_chisnall and if you put up wires above you can ditch the Batteries alltogether…
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@david_chisnall Meanwhile #Vietnam is doing boring stuff, like #HighSpeedRail along it's major cities...
- Almost as if #Japan, #Korea, #France and #Germany had the right idea doing that!
- Plus it's pretty clear that it's unsustainable to have everyone own a #car - or even #scooter, and #PublicTransport is the only #scalable and #sustainable option...
- Almost as if #Japan, #Korea, #France and #Germany had the right idea doing that!
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It sounds as if electric trucks are great for long-range land transport. But they require heavy batteries, so rather than putting them on the road (where they'll damage the road surface), why don't we build special metal tracks for them to go on? And, on long trips, join a bunch of them together so that you only need one motor and driver for a load of them travelling in a convoy? I bet you could make freight transport a lot more efficient if you did that.
@david_chisnall we could also hang wires above these special roads and have a system so that the trucks don't need batteries anymore and can just be power by the electric grid.
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@david_chisnall
What's amazing to me is that we already did this in the early 1900s in the Western US and the trains were electric.
@david_chisnall @ryanjyoder Internal combustion was a distraction. We would be far more advanced as a species today if it hadn't been for it.
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@david_chisnall
What's amazing to me is that we already did this in the early 1900s in the Western US and the trains were electric.@ryanjyoder never knew that!
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@ryanjyoder never knew that!
@saja0486
It's a pretty amazing history.
http://www.pdxhistory.com/html/red_electrics.html -
@saja0486
It's a pretty amazing history.
http://www.pdxhistory.com/html/red_electrics.html@ryanjyoder I’m from Eugene, and I want to ask my stepdad about it now. He was born and raised in Oregon and was a kid during that time frame or at least not long afterwards. Would be interesting to hear what he knows about it or experienced.
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@saja0486
It's a pretty amazing history.
http://www.pdxhistory.com/html/red_electrics.html@ryanjyoder thanks for the link.
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@saja0486
It's a pretty amazing history.
http://www.pdxhistory.com/html/red_electrics.html@ryanjyoder looks a lot like the train cars in the former Eugene electric station restaurant. I believe the restaurant used to be the Eugene train station back in the day.
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@ryanjyoder looks a lot like the train cars in the former Eugene electric station restaurant. I believe the restaurant used to be the Eugene train station back in the day.
@saja0486
Oh that'd be really interesting to know. Do you have a link? I'd be curious which line the cars were from. -
@saja0486
Oh that'd be really interesting to know. Do you have a link? I'd be curious which line the cars were from. -
@david_chisnall
What's amazing to me is that we already did this in the early 1900s in the Western US and the trains were electric.@ryanjyoder @david_chisnall
Southern California had something similar until cars became more popular.
