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In a recent article on Jalopnik.com, Shep McAllister talks about the Nikola Motor Company and the Nikola One. The Nikola One will be the first hybrid hydrogen-electric class-8 semi.
Six months ago the Nikola Motor Company came out of nowhere and announced it was going to put the first electric-powered big rig on American roads. We've been skeptical, but Nikola just revealed a full-sized model that apparently works, and more importantly a plan to build and sell it at scale.
[...] The Nikola One is a semi-truck sleeper cab, meaning it's got a little apartment behind the driver's seat. The Nikola Two will be a day cab version that's a little shorter and cheaper, but running the same hyrdogen[sic]-charged electric motor set.
[...] So the Nikola truck is supposed to be able to cover 1,200 miles without refilling its hydrogen supply, but we've been hearing that figure and the 1,000 horsepower, 2,000 lb-ft of torque claims since the first renders of this thing were unveiled back in the summer.
It's an interesting concept and if it works out we might be seeing the end of diesel trucking in the US.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 05 2016, @01:13AM
Although Nikola is producing both short-haul and long-haul trucks, the focus of the article is more on the long-haul, where, IMO, the technology is quite useless. For short-haul, where the trucks spend most of their time in the city, and tend to spend more time waiting for things, pollution is important. You also have more flexibility to use alternative fuels because you are never all that far from your base. For long-haul, fuel economy and reliability are far more important, availability of unusual fuel is very limited, and the trucks spend much less time waiting (although still more than your average truck driver - or owner - would like). Your example of Walmart Neighborhood Markets, who pull their inventory from central warehouses, are typically short-haul deliveries. While I still wouldn't prefer hydrogen fuel even for short-haul, lots of short-haul trucks and buses are experimenting with natural gas, hybrid-electric, or other alternative fuels, and they're having some success.