Crossing the Country on Electricity
As we know, one of the major problems impeding trucking replacing diesel with electricity is the fact that it takes significantly longer to refuel. This asks the question of how far electric commercial motor vehicle technology has to go before it stands even a chance against replacing diesel as the leading form of heavy-duty trucking. How long would it take a truck to cross the country on electricity alone?
Model Assumptions
- The truck will travel the entire length of I-80, starting either in San Francisco, California or Teaneck, New Jersey and driving to the other one. Total distance traveled: 2,900 miles.
- The trucker will travel an average of 55 miles per hour while he is on the road.
- Different trucks have different ranges and charge time. For our hypothetical, we will use the Freightliner eCascadia. It is the middle of the road in both range and charge times.
- Charging stations are plastered all over the I-80, so the trucker spends zero time looking for an active charging station and can charge at 0%. It will be a long time before this is a reality.
- Our driver is trying to be efficient with his time. As an electric battery takes more time for each individual percentage point than the last, the trucker will charge until 80% battery capacity and refuel at 0%. The driver, however, will start each day with a full charge, as he charged it overnight while sleeping.
- Refueling will not be considered as time on the clock for hours-of-service purposes, and the driver will get eight hours of sleep every day. Your mileage may vary in real life.
The Math
The eCascadia we are using can travel 220 miles at 100%, meaning that at 8:00 AM, the driver is able to clock in four hours before having the stop to refuel and have lunch.
The truck takes ninety minutes to charge up to 80%, which means it will be 1:30 PM before the trucker can hit the road for another three hours and twelve minutes, then charging for another ninety minutes. A twenty-four hour period of driving the electric vehicle as such will look like this:
- 220 miles traveled from 8 A.M to noon.
- 1.5-hour charging time (1:30 P.M.).
- 3.2-hour traveling time (4:42 PM).
- 1.5-hour charging time (6:12 PM).
- 3.2-hour traveling time (9:24 PM).
- 1.5-hour charging time (10:54 PM).
- 1.1-hour driving time before hitting the sack.
In total, the trucker spend 11.5 hours driving, 4.5 hours charging, and 8 hours sleeping. He gets to travel 632.5 miles in a day.
At that rate, it will take him a little over four and a half days to reach the end of I-80. If he left on Monday, he would get there at roughly 4:00 PM on Friday, give or take.
Conclusion
Four-and-a-half days to go from coast to coast is not a bad time, however, our example is very generous with its numbers. For instance, it assumes the driver times his meal and bathroom breaks with charging perfectly.
Filling a diesel tank from empty to full takes roughly fifteen minutes and provides more range than the average projection for current electric vehicles. While some fleets will find it viable to replace their trucks with electric counterparts at first, the technology will still have a ways to go before it has a chance to supersede the tried-and-true fossil fuels.
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