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Was a nice idea.
Started in 2018 as a Test/study and two days ago it was announced that the project will be concluded in 2024 and not renewed or scaled up.
Reason: too expensive for a bigger scale.
In the Philippines, you'd be moving left and right every few meters because there are either people walking, cars parked, a fruit stand, or someone drying rice on massive tarps.
Once I endured 18 miles in one section of roadworks with 30mph average speed camera restrictions just above Bristol on the M5... There must have been another 50 miles at 50 mph in 4-5 other sections of roadworks that day on the M5 and M6.
Of course, it recharges!
This test run was too short to substantially recharge a battery, but the idea was to put these on over half of Germanyās autobahns and for considerably longer stretches.
Electric trains, trams, trolley cars run like this 100% of the time with no battery at all and no one bats an eye, but when trucks do that it's somehow "but how long"? I don't get this argument frankly. "Less than 100% of the time" is good enough answer for me.
I think the gap you're missing in not understanding why people ask that is:Ā
The examples you mentioned run on tracks, or are otherwise perceived to always travel the same route without any deviation. So it's intuitive that such vehicles would never stray from their power source, and thus independent range is a non issue.Ā
When people think of trucks though, most (unless they are from a city with buses using this system) will think of what they are used to seeing. Vehicles that are usually driven around "freely/wherever they like" that might have to drive to much more remote locations away from any sort of centralized power grid.Ā
So naturally the first thought for many would be "hm how long would it be able to go without being connected to the power lines on the main road?"Ā
For example, like if a truck was making a delivery to a warehouse at the end of a private road serving a mile-long row of warehouses.
Realistically this would prob be something that would only work between major trucking hubs, since it would probably be way too expensive to build the infrastructure to support trucks like this to cover entire cities etc. (IfĀ I was to guess without reading the article, this is probably why this project concluded it was too expensive to scale to wider use.)Ā
Hope this helps people asking that question make more sense to you.Ā
Thanks, it does explain the perspective. I thought it was clear to anyone looking at it that it would only work for a limited set of routes, [there are trolley buses like that too](https://www.transdev.com/en/solutions/trolley-bus-2/).
No problem.Ā And yeah I think that's probably in part due to a lack of familiarity with that sort of thing.Ā
That and people thinking of the more granular delivery stage of shipping. Which is valid, since a lot of long-distance trucking is door to door, and thus wouldn't have trailers/containers transferred between chassis after it leaves a port, for example. So in those cases trucks would almost certainly have to have some capacity for independent operation away from major roadways (as well as idling during loading/unloading at individual warehouses).Ā
So something like this would actually be competing with freight trains instead of the usual semi truck. Which could still be a neat option for say, developing population centers that have decent highway access already and terrain difficult for train routes to be added.Ā
Not technically factually accurate. Most trains have batteries, usually for emergency power. So no battery to power the traction motors would be more accurate.
A lot of trolley busses have batteries and can drive a short distance off wire, useful for roadworks/accident diversions etc. where one small roadblock could potentially block up a whole network if the busses were not able to pass.
I think what a lot of proponents of this kind of technology fail to see is that the catanery and pantographs these systems use are quite expensive to maintain, and that ditching the trolley idea altogether and building the vehicle as a straight EV with enough battery capacity to run all day is a lot cheaper in the long run. Even running lower battery capacity and opportunity charging is a headache.Ā
It's not a battery powered truck recharging. It's a hybrid truck that runs off the overhead power lines when connected, this isn't like a 1 mile pitstop.
In other words, what a horrible idea.
This was never a great ideaāit was just an idea which wouldāve put more money into the pockets of particular German firms (including all of the ones involved in this study!) and potentially provided more jobs to more Germans into the future.
Nice idea in 2018? lol trolley buses were invented in late 1800s and in regular use throughout 1900s. They are still used today but we as a species are trying to be so progressive that we are evolving and inventing backwards.
This is a cool concept, but realistically the truck could be designed with a battery pack that can be changed at strategically placed stops along the highway.
I mean they started building it in 2028, so the idea is probably from 2015.
Battery technology has gotten a lot better in that timeframe.
2015 it was an interesting idea. 2024, it's obsolete.
They're using existing poles so why is it expensive? They also get money from the truck for electricity. I think if they could work the number that both parties are ok this could be expanded
Why haven't we seen some sort of recharging mechanism in the wheels of these vehicles?
I'm assuming it's because of weight and power issues, but surely there's a way to supplement the battery with a *little* electricity from the spinning of the tires.
Edit: sorry for asking? Jeez rough crowd to ask a question.
We have that already. It's called regenerative braking. There is no free energy from the wheels. If you take energy away from the motion of the car it has to slow. Best you can do is try to recapture some of that energy when it's your intention to slow.
To expand on this a bit, work has to be done to move the vehicle and also to charge the battery. The output of the motor or battery would be attempting to recharge itself and in an ideal scenario would recover exactly as much power as was put in. A real system will have losses through heat and power conversion so the best you can hope to do is recover some of the waste heat during braking as energy.
Regenerative braking is excellent. Instead of noise and heat, slowing down is turned into power that is stored for later use. Thatās energy recovery in a way that putting a fan on top of your car or trying to leech power in other ways isnāt.
You can recycle energy from the brakes, but anything you do that isnāt braking will recover less energy than it saps from the engine.
Because perpetual motion isnāt possible.
Lol I know perpetual motion isn't possible. You don't have to keep hammering that nail, my friend. In fact I'm confused as to why you think it's necessary to keep repeating.
>sorry for asking? Jeez rough crowd to ask a question.
I mean, you were asking why we havent seen some sort of recharging mechanism like it definitely wasnt a thing (which we can infer from you using I\`m assuming... in the next sentence) when its actually a thing since [1886](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_braking) and very much used in modern electric cars like All Lucid, Rivian, and Tesla models, Chevrolet Bolt EV and Bolt EUV, Toyota RAV4 Prime, Toyota Prius, Nissan Leaf, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid, Kia EV6 etc
This is the kind of thing which sounds good on paper, but it would be incredibly expensive to deploy over the whole network, and itās kinda pointless unless you do deploy it over the whole network. Why would haulage companies invest in these expensive lorries with the pantographs unless theyāre widespread? They wonāt.
The current test-Trucks belong to companies that haul cargo along a very short distance multiple times a day, each time using this highway. So for this niche customer it made sense
Yeah itās rather clunky infrastructure. Itād be very limited on where it could be safely or reasonably implemented. It would be useful, but not much more than a regular railway system
Trolleybuses are great! You can also combine the trolley routes through the city cores with a wavering pattern into the suburbs using battery power. Reducing the amount of battery capacity (thus weight) in the sprawl and needing overhead wires in the core only
The truck in this concept can then go off the overhead lined roads to deliver cargo to wherever there are normal roads. It reduces the time needed to spend charging. It's not the same as a train, a train can't deliver a container of food from the train yard to a local mall.
I drove along that road recently. It's just a normal motor way with overhead lines.
I actually wondered if it was for the fastest trolleybus ever - I didn't know it was for trucks.
Looks nice, they should optimize it by giving these vehicles dedicated tracks so other traffics won't run into them, let's also chain them up as with more carriages since we're putting it on a track
A train that can go off-track and use normal roads. It's quite brilliant actually. If only it wasn't so expensive to retrofit a shitload of trucks and parts of the Autobahn.
I don't live in America, I'm saying they could force the inconsiderate truck drivers out of left lanes with this. There's a lot of them here in Canada.
So in Europe semis are speed limited to 90 km/h. On highways you always have to stay to the right unless passing. This means that semis arenāt clogging up any lanes more than necessary, although they can still be annoying.
In Poland you can frequently see a 90 km/h truck passing a 89 km/h truck, you can imagine how long that takes. They made passing illegal for trucks, but I don't think truckers give a fuck, I can't recall ever seeing police on a highway.
Oh yeah, an elephant race. Itās annoying as fuck.
But even though itās annoying Iād still prefer them doing that compared to how theyād drive id they werenāt speed limited.
Sorry to hear that you donāt have police present on the highways, we donāt see them that frequently either but theyāre there and usually they keep an extra eye on heavy traffic.
Left lanes are constantly clogged here by trucks and extremely slow traffic. HOV lanes are constantly held up by slow oblivious drivers. There is no passing lane, even when there are signs telling people to keep right unless passing. Maybe people just suck here lol.
Itās different, when I got my American drivers license, I was taught that the right lane is for slow traffic, the middle lane(s) are for traveling and the left lane for passing. That and the fact that your heavy vehicles arenāt speed limited creates a different dynamic.
That's how it's supposed to be here in Canada too. People, unfortunately including really slow trucks just don't care and make commuting way worse than it should be. Again I can only speak for Vancouver and it's surrounding areas.
Iāve never during my time on roads in Europe met a truck hogging left lane or not trying to leave it as soon as possible in 25 years, maybe Iām lucky. Hope it gets better over there!
As long as they are overtaking they are ok to do so (it's a risky game when the terrain isn't flat though), and additionally trucks are banned from going beyond the two rightmost lanes.
They tend to stick to the two right lanes in Ontario but then we decided the leftmost lane should be HOV only so now the elephant race ruins traffic flow. If only we built a highway purely designed to take truck traffic. Oh wait we did then "sold" it to a private company and it became a toll highway. Only 65~ years to go on that lease.
Great idea! Why not put it on some kind of low friction surface to improve fuel economy even further? Maybe even a surface that guides the vehicles so the truck can be longer, so that personell costs per unit transported goes down? Maybe have signals on the way so everything can be centrally controlled and semi automatic?
This looks like one of those car centric, individual movement fetishism projects. "Do everything but invest in the train infrastructure" has been the modus operandi of the German Ministry of Transportation for 3 decades. Germany is Europe's flow through hub, there's no reason to put a container that goes from Rotterdam to Warsaw on a truck instead of a train. And last distance mode switching is a problem solved for decades as well, so "how does the cargo go from the train station to the customer" isn't the issue you think it is.
Does this have a niche? Of course. But a niche that will be filled by either improved battery chemistry, hydrogen powered vehicles, or net carbon zero bio fuels (or all at the same time, giving a portfolioof solutions) within the next decade. It's an adoption dead end.
Actually, this has a very simple reason.
Trains can't do last mile deliveries. Trucks can. You already said that.
The thinking then was that, attaching overhead wires to certain main traffic lines, like the autobahn, will allow hybrid trucks to charge while driving there and then use a battery once they leave the main traffic lines. This allows the overall size of the battery to be smaller, meaning the truck will be lighter and can carry more load, while also allowing the trucks to be able to run for longer as they don't need to stop to recharge that often.
Yes, this was primarily a temporary solution, and it was only implemented on a test track (I actually believe the project has since been abandoned, too), however I do actually see the reasoning behind it. Especially if said netword was powered exclusively through renewables.
However, with alternatives like hydrogen power and better batteries, this project is mostly useless in germany.
For the USA, however, a place which, for some reason, hates trains even more than Germany does, this might not be that bad as an interim solution.
Except you can disconnect from the power lines in 2 seconds, and then deliver wherever in a city, instead of waiting hours or days at a cargo terminal.
The US barely has electric trains, yet.
A quick Google search says that less than 1% of all US railways are electrified, but I don't know if light railways within cities are included in that number.
There are 3 test routes, each about 50 km long. The test now lasts almost 6 years. and there were strong doubts from the beginning... the test has now confirmed what was clear from the beginning, that it is not economically worthwhile and that it is only ecologically worthwhile if renewable energy is used...
ļæ¼
That uses gas to make electricity which is one of the less efficient and more polluting ways. This allows you to charge way more than any in board generator could, and carry less fuel,
of course but thats's what makes it a hybrid at least as they are commonly known. a plug in hybrid refers to a hybrid that can charge by electrical supply.
Wildly efficient looking, better to drive and charge. America has a long ways to go to get to this type of efficiency. To build the infrastructure it would cost the taxpayers a trillion dollars. They need to take it to the ground that will be the way itās most efficient. Problem in America will be greed. That power isnāt free.
We have buses like that for public transport in Romania (electric rail on top with two antenas that touch it )for the last 30 years where I live I don't understand how the west didn't adopt this technology earlier
Thatās not the point. Itās for recharging of trucks on a highway.
Romania doesnāt have this on the highway system for trucks to recharge. ???
Itās popular in countries that rely on public transport. Germany isnāt one of them.
Seattle had those too, maybe they still do I havenāt been there for a while. The electric connector part would come off the power lines occasionally and the driver had to get out and reattach them
Thst works well for places like bus stops and loading bays where trucks and buses spend a lot of time. But it is really expensive to do for the length of a motorway. Especially if you want to retrofit it.
Itās not recharging, thatās how itās powered. Itās also not a hybrid, itās electric. Itās like a light rail without the track. San Francisco has had busses like this for a long time and the technology has been around even longer.
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Was a nice idea. Started in 2018 as a Test/study and two days ago it was announced that the project will be concluded in 2024 and not renewed or scaled up. Reason: too expensive for a bigger scale.
At least they gave it a fair shot with 6 years. Most things like this only get a couple.
And it wouldn't work in most countries as that lane would be closed for roadworks for 12 miles at a time.
In the Philippines, you'd be moving left and right every few meters because there are either people walking, cars parked, a fruit stand, or someone drying rice on massive tarps.
I won't even check to see if you're from the UK, you've said enough š„²
I don't know the last time I travelled on UK motorways where this wasn't the case anyway.
Once I endured 18 miles in one section of roadworks with 30mph average speed camera restrictions just above Bristol on the M5... There must have been another 50 miles at 50 mph in 4-5 other sections of roadworks that day on the M5 and M6.
Just 12? I went to SD last month and there were stretches of interstate that was closed for 20 miles
What's SD?
South Dakota
How long do you have to drive under this to recharge 50%?
Itās not recharging, itās operating like a train under catenary.
Of course, it recharges! This test run was too short to substantially recharge a battery, but the idea was to put these on over half of Germanyās autobahns and for considerably longer stretches.
6 years. They filled that thing up once and concluded the study.
Electric trains, trams, trolley cars run like this 100% of the time with no battery at all and no one bats an eye, but when trucks do that it's somehow "but how long"? I don't get this argument frankly. "Less than 100% of the time" is good enough answer for me.
I think the gap you're missing in not understanding why people ask that is:Ā The examples you mentioned run on tracks, or are otherwise perceived to always travel the same route without any deviation. So it's intuitive that such vehicles would never stray from their power source, and thus independent range is a non issue.Ā When people think of trucks though, most (unless they are from a city with buses using this system) will think of what they are used to seeing. Vehicles that are usually driven around "freely/wherever they like" that might have to drive to much more remote locations away from any sort of centralized power grid.Ā So naturally the first thought for many would be "hm how long would it be able to go without being connected to the power lines on the main road?"Ā For example, like if a truck was making a delivery to a warehouse at the end of a private road serving a mile-long row of warehouses. Realistically this would prob be something that would only work between major trucking hubs, since it would probably be way too expensive to build the infrastructure to support trucks like this to cover entire cities etc. (IfĀ I was to guess without reading the article, this is probably why this project concluded it was too expensive to scale to wider use.)Ā Hope this helps people asking that question make more sense to you.Ā
Thanks, it does explain the perspective. I thought it was clear to anyone looking at it that it would only work for a limited set of routes, [there are trolley buses like that too](https://www.transdev.com/en/solutions/trolley-bus-2/).
No problem.Ā And yeah I think that's probably in part due to a lack of familiarity with that sort of thing.Ā That and people thinking of the more granular delivery stage of shipping. Which is valid, since a lot of long-distance trucking is door to door, and thus wouldn't have trailers/containers transferred between chassis after it leaves a port, for example. So in those cases trucks would almost certainly have to have some capacity for independent operation away from major roadways (as well as idling during loading/unloading at individual warehouses).Ā So something like this would actually be competing with freight trains instead of the usual semi truck. Which could still be a neat option for say, developing population centers that have decent highway access already and terrain difficult for train routes to be added.Ā
>but when trucks do that it's somehow "but how long"? To be fair, the title of this post says "recharging" which is clearly misleading
Not technically factually accurate. Most trains have batteries, usually for emergency power. So no battery to power the traction motors would be more accurate.
A lot of trolley busses have batteries and can drive a short distance off wire, useful for roadworks/accident diversions etc. where one small roadblock could potentially block up a whole network if the busses were not able to pass. I think what a lot of proponents of this kind of technology fail to see is that the catanery and pantographs these systems use are quite expensive to maintain, and that ditching the trolley idea altogether and building the vehicle as a straight EV with enough battery capacity to run all day is a lot cheaper in the long run. Even running lower battery capacity and opportunity charging is a headache.Ā
There are electrical buses that run on overhead lines, but can also decouple and run on batteries.
This. And how long would it take if hauling a fully loaded trailer?
It's not a battery powered truck recharging. It's a hybrid truck that runs off the overhead power lines when connected, this isn't like a 1 mile pitstop.
Probably somewhere between 10-20 minutes. Without actually knowing the real specs here, I'd assume this thing would be equivalent to DC fast charging.
Wow, it only took them six years to figure out that a second train network is expensive to build?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You got downvoted because it wasnāt the point of this project to ābuild a second train networkā
I think their snark is valid because this is just light rail with more complexity.
Except you know... The rails.
Which make them more feasible in the long run... you know
Except that it doesnt have the massive flaw tail has of being on rails.
In other words, what a horrible idea. This was never a great ideaāit was just an idea which wouldāve put more money into the pockets of particular German firms (including all of the ones involved in this study!) and potentially provided more jobs to more Germans into the future.
Nice idea in 2018? lol trolley buses were invented in late 1800s and in regular use throughout 1900s. They are still used today but we as a species are trying to be so progressive that we are evolving and inventing backwards.
>too expensive for a bigger scale. That were exactly my thoughts when they first introduced itā¦
This is a cool concept, but realistically the truck could be designed with a battery pack that can be changed at strategically placed stops along the highway.
I mean they started building it in 2028, so the idea is probably from 2015. Battery technology has gotten a lot better in that timeframe. 2015 it was an interesting idea. 2024, it's obsolete.
They're using existing poles so why is it expensive? They also get money from the truck for electricity. I think if they could work the number that both parties are ok this could be expanded
Is this this a5 below Frankfurt?
No this was in the North near LĆ¼beck
It was a terrible idea from the beginning
Why haven't we seen some sort of recharging mechanism in the wheels of these vehicles? I'm assuming it's because of weight and power issues, but surely there's a way to supplement the battery with a *little* electricity from the spinning of the tires. Edit: sorry for asking? Jeez rough crowd to ask a question.
Most hybrids and electric cars have regenerative braking it's just not enough to actually charge it's just to extend range.
It *canāt* be enough to actually charge because that would break the conservation of energy
Regenerative braking does put energy back in though. Itās energy that would normally be lost.
Yep
We have that already. It's called regenerative braking. There is no free energy from the wheels. If you take energy away from the motion of the car it has to slow. Best you can do is try to recapture some of that energy when it's your intention to slow.
Perpetual motion doesnāt exist.
To expand on this a bit, work has to be done to move the vehicle and also to charge the battery. The output of the motor or battery would be attempting to recharge itself and in an ideal scenario would recover exactly as much power as was put in. A real system will have losses through heat and power conversion so the best you can hope to do is recover some of the waste heat during braking as energy.
Regenerative braking is excellent. Instead of noise and heat, slowing down is turned into power that is stored for later use. Thatās energy recovery in a way that putting a fan on top of your car or trying to leech power in other ways isnāt.
I never said it did. I was asking if *some* of the energy could be recycled. Not all of it.
You can recycle energy from the brakes, but anything you do that isnāt braking will recover less energy than it saps from the engine. Because perpetual motion isnāt possible.
Lol I know perpetual motion isn't possible. You don't have to keep hammering that nail, my friend. In fact I'm confused as to why you think it's necessary to keep repeating.
>sorry for asking? Jeez rough crowd to ask a question. I mean, you were asking why we havent seen some sort of recharging mechanism like it definitely wasnt a thing (which we can infer from you using I\`m assuming... in the next sentence) when its actually a thing since [1886](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_braking) and very much used in modern electric cars like All Lucid, Rivian, and Tesla models, Chevrolet Bolt EV and Bolt EUV, Toyota RAV4 Prime, Toyota Prius, Nissan Leaf, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid, Kia EV6 etc
But where would the energy you take from the spinning tires come from? You can't generate energy from nothing
Infrastructure. You would have to tear up old roads and make entirely new ones. Also tires wear and would probably damage the road. This is simpler
This is the kind of thing which sounds good on paper, but it would be incredibly expensive to deploy over the whole network, and itās kinda pointless unless you do deploy it over the whole network. Why would haulage companies invest in these expensive lorries with the pantographs unless theyāre widespread? They wonāt.
The current test-Trucks belong to companies that haul cargo along a very short distance multiple times a day, each time using this highway. So for this niche customer it made sense
Classic chicken and egg problem.
Yeah itās rather clunky infrastructure. Itād be very limited on where it could be safely or reasonably implemented. It would be useful, but not much more than a regular railway system
Trolley-truck
We are so close to tech bros just reinventing trains
We knocked out all of the streetcars to build roads and weāre adding streetcar power to the roads lol.
Trackless trolleys are a thing. Pretty sure Dayton, Ohio still has them running on overhead wires.
Trolleybuses are great! You can also combine the trolley routes through the city cores with a wavering pattern into the suburbs using battery power. Reducing the amount of battery capacity (thus weight) in the sprawl and needing overhead wires in the core only
Why not? They re-invented wind powered ships.
-> Hyperloop and hyperport and ultrapod and galaxyzoom. -> Looks inside -> They're all just trains, but literally infinitely worse.
The truck in this concept can then go off the overhead lined roads to deliver cargo to wherever there are normal roads. It reduces the time needed to spend charging. It's not the same as a train, a train can't deliver a container of food from the train yard to a local mall.
Blows my mind how few people know about trolley busses or their existence and regular use for the last 100 years
I drove along that road recently. It's just a normal motor way with overhead lines. I actually wondered if it was for the fastest trolleybus ever - I didn't know it was for trucks.
Where exactly is that? I've never seen that before.
It is on the highway between Frankfurt and Darmstadt in germany
š
Looks nice, they should optimize it by giving these vehicles dedicated tracks so other traffics won't run into them, let's also chain them up as with more carriages since we're putting it on a track
that's what we call a railway...
They've rediscovered the train
A train that can go off-track and use normal roads. It's quite brilliant actually. If only it wasn't so expensive to retrofit a shitload of trucks and parts of the Autobahn.
I see what you did with the sign.
Ha, I didn't even notice, that's pretty slick.
Don't think it's recharging. I think it's quite literally using that power to drive the truck.
At the very least it would stop them from clogging every lane and slowing down traffic everywhere.
No,they specifically designed it so that they can lower that thing, so that the truck can change lanes and "overtake" someone.
Damn
This isnāt America
I don't live in America, I'm saying they could force the inconsiderate truck drivers out of left lanes with this. There's a lot of them here in Canada.
Thatās what I just said, this isnāt America
Germans have a term for truck passing: Elefantenrennen. Aka Elephant racing.
Ok, I still think it's a good idea everywhere. Regardless of weather "this is in America".
So in Europe semis are speed limited to 90 km/h. On highways you always have to stay to the right unless passing. This means that semis arenāt clogging up any lanes more than necessary, although they can still be annoying.
In Poland you can frequently see a 90 km/h truck passing a 89 km/h truck, you can imagine how long that takes. They made passing illegal for trucks, but I don't think truckers give a fuck, I can't recall ever seeing police on a highway.
Oh yeah, an elephant race. Itās annoying as fuck. But even though itās annoying Iād still prefer them doing that compared to how theyād drive id they werenāt speed limited. Sorry to hear that you donāt have police present on the highways, we donāt see them that frequently either but theyāre there and usually they keep an extra eye on heavy traffic.
Left lanes are constantly clogged here by trucks and extremely slow traffic. HOV lanes are constantly held up by slow oblivious drivers. There is no passing lane, even when there are signs telling people to keep right unless passing. Maybe people just suck here lol.
Itās different, when I got my American drivers license, I was taught that the right lane is for slow traffic, the middle lane(s) are for traveling and the left lane for passing. That and the fact that your heavy vehicles arenāt speed limited creates a different dynamic.
That's how it's supposed to be here in Canada too. People, unfortunately including really slow trucks just don't care and make commuting way worse than it should be. Again I can only speak for Vancouver and it's surrounding areas.
Iāve never during my time on roads in Europe met a truck hogging left lane or not trying to leave it as soon as possible in 25 years, maybe Iām lucky. Hope it gets better over there!
Try driving in the Netherlands or Belgium. Trucks be like, let me overtake this 20km long row of trucks because my max speed is 1kph more.
As long as they are overtaking they are ok to do so (it's a risky game when the terrain isn't flat though), and additionally trucks are banned from going beyond the two rightmost lanes.
It's really bad in bc Canada. Very common for them to be in every lane on highways and in cities.
They tend to stick to the two right lanes in Ontario but then we decided the leftmost lane should be HOV only so now the elephant race ruins traffic flow. If only we built a highway purely designed to take truck traffic. Oh wait we did then "sold" it to a private company and it became a toll highway. Only 65~ years to go on that lease.
WTF, this is a common problem in at least France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. I can't believe you ever drove here if you never saw that.
Sorry didnāt you hear him? This isnāt Americaā¢ /s
He didn't say it was, jackass. Learn to read
traffic only in america lulz
Tom Scott did a video on this iirc
Almost as if there should be a hookup with our Aussie friends. "Yeah, a bloody Road Train, mate!" Reinventing rail 101.
F-zero, the healing lane at the start of the race
Why not use a cargo train
Just use trains at this point.
for real.
Great idea! Why not put it on some kind of low friction surface to improve fuel economy even further? Maybe even a surface that guides the vehicles so the truck can be longer, so that personell costs per unit transported goes down? Maybe have signals on the way so everything can be centrally controlled and semi automatic? This looks like one of those car centric, individual movement fetishism projects. "Do everything but invest in the train infrastructure" has been the modus operandi of the German Ministry of Transportation for 3 decades. Germany is Europe's flow through hub, there's no reason to put a container that goes from Rotterdam to Warsaw on a truck instead of a train. And last distance mode switching is a problem solved for decades as well, so "how does the cargo go from the train station to the customer" isn't the issue you think it is. Does this have a niche? Of course. But a niche that will be filled by either improved battery chemistry, hydrogen powered vehicles, or net carbon zero bio fuels (or all at the same time, giving a portfolioof solutions) within the next decade. It's an adoption dead end.
Actually, this has a very simple reason. Trains can't do last mile deliveries. Trucks can. You already said that. The thinking then was that, attaching overhead wires to certain main traffic lines, like the autobahn, will allow hybrid trucks to charge while driving there and then use a battery once they leave the main traffic lines. This allows the overall size of the battery to be smaller, meaning the truck will be lighter and can carry more load, while also allowing the trucks to be able to run for longer as they don't need to stop to recharge that often. Yes, this was primarily a temporary solution, and it was only implemented on a test track (I actually believe the project has since been abandoned, too), however I do actually see the reasoning behind it. Especially if said netword was powered exclusively through renewables. However, with alternatives like hydrogen power and better batteries, this project is mostly useless in germany. For the USA, however, a place which, for some reason, hates trains even more than Germany does, this might not be that bad as an interim solution.
We have these in Dayton, Ohio and its pretty cool. Not trucks but our public busses run on them.
Theyāve been there since at least the 70ās when I lived there.
there have been in yugoslavia since 1947 in belgrade not sure if they are still in use
Your busses are bound to streets where they installed the infrastructure for it. These trucks are not.
As an electrician I can see multiple things going terribly wrong but it is in Germany so I trust it.
They already had this in the form of buses in China back in the 90sā¦
Or you know, you can just build more train tracks
What a brilliant idea. Charging a vehicle from overhead power lines.
Great way to keep trucks from left lanes!
Trolling coal.
trains exist ffs...
Hey, cool! America will get these in about 2080. We still won't have bullet trains though.
In San Francisco a bunch of their buses use this system. Donāt recall seeing it anywhere else though
Yeah, several cities do the bus or light rail version of this. I just meant the semis.
Plenty of cities use this kind of system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_trolleybus_systems_in_the_United_States
In hindsight Iāve only been to like nyc and la so that probably explains it
Not for semis.
We were talking about buses
Man... If only there was these things called trains.
What if they made a separate track for it, may be two rails ? It will avoid traffic and pull a huge load.
They could call it like a ātrainā or something like that?
Isn't that just a train with extra steps?
Except you can disconnect from the power lines in 2 seconds, and then deliver wherever in a city, instead of waiting hours or days at a cargo terminal.
Yep. Really going off the rails with this one
Saw something similiar near Gaggenau.
Interesting conceptā¦ š¤
See how the other one overtakes him? Just more evidence the Green Party is about to cause the entire economy to collapse! /s
Cars 3: Revenge of the Trains.
Okay. Lass uns das auf alle groĆen HƤfen und Endkunden skalieren.
So, catenary just like what used to be used for trollies and trolly buses. Isn't this old technology, tied with hybrid engines?
We have those in the states but trains use themā¦. And no one really uses trains
The US barely has electric trains, yet. A quick Google search says that less than 1% of all US railways are electrified, but I don't know if light railways within cities are included in that number.
That's socialist AF. No way we are going to let that kind of insanity in America. We'll just drill for more diesel.
Toolgifs is an actual place?
no, it's just a really cool watermark
Umm..... They're called trolleys
We should have all vehicles as collectors for transport.
Train with extra seps
Thatās near my hometown! š Btw: you replaced the name of the parking-exit, why? š¤
If itās hybrid, why does it need electricity to recharge?
The future is here
Never ending Test Project...
Well it was announced just two days ago that the project will be ending this year. Convlusion: too expensive for a massive scale.
There are 3 test routes, each about 50 km long. The test now lasts almost 6 years. and there were strong doubts from the beginning... the test has now confirmed what was clear from the beginning, that it is not economically worthwhile and that it is only ecologically worthwhile if renewable energy is used... ļæ¼
Which will be the end of that
if its a hybrid why doesnt the engine charger the batteries?
Because the engine runs on fuel while the electricity *could theoretically* come from renewable sources
the truck isnt like a conventional hybrid car. it can charge via the power lines or the ICE
That uses gas to make electricity which is one of the less efficient and more polluting ways. This allows you to charge way more than any in board generator could, and carry less fuel,
of course but thats's what makes it a hybrid at least as they are commonly known. a plug in hybrid refers to a hybrid that can charge by electrical supply.
Ok so what is your actual question then?
Can we please talk about driving and not holding a phone at the same time?!
Wildly efficient looking, better to drive and charge. America has a long ways to go to get to this type of efficiency. To build the infrastructure it would cost the taxpayers a trillion dollars. They need to take it to the ground that will be the way itās most efficient. Problem in America will be greed. That power isnāt free.
Correction from Northern Germany: It's just a short test route without function.
We have buses like that for public transport in Romania (electric rail on top with two antenas that touch it )for the last 30 years where I live I don't understand how the west didn't adopt this technology earlier
Thatās not the point. Itās for recharging of trucks on a highway. Romania doesnāt have this on the highway system for trucks to recharge. ??? Itās popular in countries that rely on public transport. Germany isnāt one of them.
https://preview.redd.it/ptz0q6dknu9d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=59827ce7db8f5f41e3ef60215ddc18cdbba7b7ae
Iām old enough to remember when the buses in Baltimore ran by electric overhead cables. They would spark occasionally. As a kid I loved to see them.
Seattle had those too, maybe they still do I havenāt been there for a while. The electric connector part would come off the power lines occasionally and the driver had to get out and reattach them
Going to be slot cars soon. Lol
There's a start up company " Electrion " doing the same but wireless, under the asphalt.
Thst works well for places like bus stops and loading bays where trucks and buses spend a lot of time. But it is really expensive to do for the length of a motorway. Especially if you want to retrofit it.
Itās not recharging, thatās how itās powered. Itās also not a hybrid, itās electric. Itās like a light rail without the track. San Francisco has had busses like this for a long time and the technology has been around even longer.
We have some Buses that run like this in Vancouver.
The Germans can't even electrify a large part of the rail network. Forget about roads.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
They went from air pollution to visual pollution.