Truck & Industry News

[Bedavd]

The roads are still horrific though haha. No point on weight laws if the weigh stations are closed 90% of the time. Winter doesn’t help either, of course.

[bryntrollian]

Michigan has some of the worst roads I've ever driven on

[supersobes]

There's another Freightliner Cascadia recall, this time on the 2022 model year. 2022 Freightliner Cascadias equipped with a Cummins engine that were made at the Cleveland, North Carolina plant have the exhaust pipe installed backwards, pointing the heat directly at the batteries and creating a fire hazard.

NHTSA report: https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2021/R ... 5-6609.PDF

[Robinicus]

A couple of EV updates from Volvo

https://www.engadget.com/volvo-autonomo ... 00300.html

https://insideevs.com/news/536013/volvo ... uck-order/

[Robinicus]

And an update from KW on their wireless charging project....this one looks like an interesting alternative and a way to avoid the concern about connector fatigue/failure with traditional charging systems. It isn't talked about in this update but they have some interesting tech on trial for proximity stepping down of the charge to reduce elctro risk for people when they are close to or attempting to board

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ideanomi ... 00868.html

[Robinicus]

Busy day for stories about the future.....

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-release ... 86504.html

[Some newbie driver]

I don't freaking understand those "wireless charging" nonsense. Wireless charge is the most inefficient way to charge any electrical device BY FAR.

It's bad enough that millions of smartphones are being charged this way worldwide because people is so lazy to plug a cable. But trucks? Using 1MW charge links? Does anybody understands the HUGE amount of electricity that will be wasted doing so? Is that the owners of the trucks think their drivers are so stupid that are going to prefer to end dry on batteries than to plug a cable while on cargo bays? Wasn't supposed all that EV thing made to try to reduce our destruction of the environment? How could all they be so damn stupid?

BTW Robinicus, the "connector fatigue" concern never existed unless for those too lazy to want to solve it. When one has one connector that has to suffer lots of plugging cycles; the connector is made of two parts on both ends: the part that physically plugs and is under more stress is made in a cheap disposable way. The device has a maintenance planning that include to change it regularly and end of history. I even have used that kind of devices even on PC USB ports to avoid them ending unusable too soon.

Regards

[Robinicus]

If VHS vs Betamax taught us anything it is that the best product offering is rarely the one that takes over the market.....this wireless deal is really being received well in the market regardless of the waste etc....the one upside that is really being promoted with it is a universal charging solution the industry can pressure onto manufactures to use vs one station for tractors, another for straight trucks and courier vans, another for forklifts and so on....

[EllieODaire]

The EV industry has already moved towards the Combo CCS connector for charging, and that seems to be what Freightliner and whoever makes Amazon's electric yard-tractors are using (though they can have two plugged in at once where cars only use one). I think the allure for wireless charging is that it will be easier to automate.

[Robinicus]

Where is that facepalm thing again?

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy ... 021-10-25/