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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday August 13 2019, @08:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the east-bound-and-down dept.

Daimler Ships out First Electric Freightliner Semi Truck in the US:

First came the electric Freightliner box truck, and now we have the semi truck. Daimler said on Monday it's built the very first eCascadia semi trucks and they're on their way to the first lucky customers in the US.

If the eCascadia looks and sounds familiar, that's because it's based on Freightliner's normal Cascadia semi. Rather than its internal-combustion engine, there's a battery-electric powertrain with a 550-kWh battery pack. Daimler has previously said the electric powertrain makes 730 horsepower and is good enough for 250 miles of range. Plug the big semi into the right connector and 80% of the battery's capacity returns in 90 minutes.

The electric semi isn't exactly going into production just yet, however. Instead, the first eCascadias will be part of a "Freightliner Innovation Fleet" before the truck enters series production in late 2021. Penske and NFI are the two companies that will add the electric semi to their ranks first.

[...] Effectively, Daimler has beaten Tesla to the electric semi market. The Silicon Valley-based automaker has promised the Tesla Semi will enter production soon, but so far, it hasn't. Instead, the Semi has been used to deliver other Tesla vehicles and haul between the Gigafactory and various places.


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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 13 2019, @03:35PM (2 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 13 2019, @03:35PM (#879711) Journal

    Drivers also need to recharge. Discharge. Refuel themselves. So maybe it is not so horrible.

    This might not be ideal for long haul. But Elon Musk had said that a lot of trucking is short haul. Or so I seem to remember.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday August 13 2019, @05:00PM (1 child)

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Tuesday August 13 2019, @05:00PM (#879746) Journal

    Drivers are also known for stretching it to the very edge limits of what is legal... and beyond. (Hence the pushback on having e-logbooks which would unalterably show hours driven).
    "If you're not turning you're not earning", and a 2+ hour downtime every 3.8 hours (presumably the 250 mile range is at 100% and not 80%) doesn't seem like it would work well with people limited to 11 hours driving on a 14 hour shift before mandatory 10 hours rest time. I wonder how 'hot swappable' the batteries are.
    At least I can't see how HOS works out for anything less than a 'Pony Express' style service where another rig picks it up. But I only looked at the possibility of switching to trucking as a career and have never done it.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 13 2019, @06:35PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 13 2019, @06:35PM (#879776)

      What about local distribution from a depot? You know, actually drop off a bunch of stuff to retail locations and have others handle each item being put into and taken out of the truck? I recall those stops taking more than 30 min when I worked retail, so hook up during that time and extend the range. I thought there were "The cab has a battery and the trailer has a battery, and the dock there has a charger" systems in the pipeline....