Electric log trucks in Sweden

[nativewolf]

https://electrek.co/2022/07/07/electric-timber-truck-sweden/

Will be interesting to see how it does over the winter.  Wonder what chemistry?  Scania is based in Sweden but is now part of the VW group but who knows for how long.   This truck is doing short hauls from yard to mills.

[Gary_C]

That must be some kind of gimmick (joke). The wood is actually being transported by rail from the woods to a rail siding, unloaded from the trains, stacked in the rail yards, loaded on the electric powered trucks and transported 30 km (~18.6 miles) to the mill. Every mill I have ever seen in this country either has rail service directly to the mill yard or does no rail shipping at all. So that so called electric log truck is little more than a yard shuttle.

Some mills also use their large loaders that do multiple duty to feed the mill, unload trucks in the yard and at the mill plus pull log trailers to shuttle logs from the yard to the mill. If they could build an electric powered log loader/shuttle machine that could run for an eight hour shift without interruption for charging, they might have something. 

Reminds me of the recent GM demo of their new electric F-150 pickups. One of the reporters at the event asked the GM executive in charge where the electricity came from. She replied, "from the building." Now if they could just get buildings to travel with these electric trucks.  ;D

[barbender]

I think the biggest news here is GM producing an F150😁

[sawguy21]

They bought Ford, you heard it here first :D. Seriously, I can't see that working here. The larger mills have rail service for shipping finished product and waste but are too far from the source of supply which is constantly changing. Diesel powered trucks are still the most efficient way to move logs from stump to dump.

[stavebuyer]

I am sure it will work in CA as they no doubt will ban logging by 2035 too.

[Southside]

I am going to open a service business to California, sell new vehicles in Nevada, Oregon, and Arizona, remote paperwork so the sale happens out of state then flatbed them to the customer.

Want to invest in the startup? Amazing how short sited that 2035 plan is.

[SwampDonkey]

If you ever see "The Planet of Humans" (Youtube) you get a glimpse of a subset of the abandoned and failed green energy projects and a peek at some of who's profiting from it. 

[Joe Hillmann]

The story says the truck can haul 80 tons but only 64 tons on public roads.  The problem is they are including the weight of the truck and trailer in that figure without saying what the truck weighs.

My guess is the empty truck and trailer weighs 15 to 20 tons so in reality it can haul 40 to 50 tons.  Which is still more than what is allowed in the US.  But it feels like they are cherry picking their numbers.

[scsmith42]

Still, 160,000 CGWR is pretty impressive.   

[Joe Hillmann]

160,000 is impressive. But it means very little without knowing what the truck weighs you have no idea what it can legally haul.  The empty truck could be 20 tons or 60 tons.  Which is a big difference in what it can actually haul.  The story says it can HAUL 64 tons on public roads.  I don't know if the author doesn't know the difference or if the companies PR is intentionally being deceitful.

[Ianab]

I think some folks are equating "electric" with golf carts and Nissan Leaf cars, which obviously can't tow much.  But if you look at it like an electric freight train, hauling 50 tons is nothing. 

Obviously a truck also has to carry it's batteries, so allow a few tons there. But chances are the electric motor is lighter, and it's possible to do away with gearboxes and diffs if it's a "clean slate" electric design. Not sure what they are using in this case, but designs I've seen (with working prototypes) use a motor driving each individual wheel with a simple 2 speed transmission. The whole drive train is about the same size and weight of a convetional axle / diff assembly. (and contains a couple of 200hp motors) 

Hey, it won't fit every use case, but for short stop/go work shuttling logs to or from a rail siding?

If you think an electric log truck is crazy, a local company has put in an order for electric Ekranoplanes (ground effect seaplanes).  Cruise about 250mph @30ft, with a 200 mile range. Being electric their cost per mile is about the same a boat, just 10X faster. 

Ironically I'm sitting at the beach in the Cook Islands right now. You might think that a small island (about 20 miles around) would be ideal for electric vehicles... Haven't seen one bigger than an e-bike. Reason, electricity is expensive. They have been investing in solar power, but the base load generation is diesel, about the most expensive way to make electricity. May as well just put the diesel in the fuel tank of a cheap used Toyota and drive. I did notice that most of the street lights are now solar though. If you take the cost of the power + installing cabling to the poles, it's probably cheaper to just bolt self contained units with a solar panel / battery / LED lamp to the top of a pole. Just an up-sized solar garden light. I imagine they have a short life with the salt air, but that would be the same for a mains powered lamp and wiring anyway. 

[sawguy21]

Interesting you would mention seaplanes. Harbor Air out of Vancouver B.C. recently successfully flew an electric powered De Havilland DHC-2 Beaver from Vancouver to Victoria. That would be eerie, I have been in one with the radial piston engine which is extremely noisy. They had to move the motor well ahead of the cockpit to maintain the center of gravity.

[Ianab]

And that's an aircraft that's not specifically designed as electric, hence the weight / balance issues. But they got it to work.

These are designed from scratch as ekranoplanes, with carbon fibre bodies, hydrofoils to assist takeoff, and about 6 electric motors spread over the wings to increase STOL performance. Most of the wing is in the prop slipstream, so the wings generate lift way above the ground/water speed.  If things go badly wrong, you become a boat with a broken engine, and need a tow home. 

Also interesting is, are they aircraft or ships? They can't actually fly out of ground effect. Air traffic control doesn't worry about under 50ft, and the only traffic you are going to hit is a ship. :-\  So they come under Maritime laws, and you will need a commercial skipper licence to fly one. 

[scsmith42]

 The story says it can HAUL 64 tons on public roads.  I don't know if the author doesn't know the difference or if the companies PR is intentionally being deceitful.

My interpretation of the down rating on public roads was due to the maximum paved road capacity - not the truck capacity.

[nativewolf]

Still, 160,000 CGWR is pretty impressive.  

It is impressive and Sweden leads the world in heavy trucks and truck logistics.  It's a result of the early mining history.  So, if they decided to trial the EV truck in this very unique situation I assume they have good reasons, it is not happenstance.  Probably very controlled, limited miles/day, easy to setup 2 high speed chargers for the truck, etc.
The EV trucks showing up in the USA are supposed to be pretty neat, haven't seen one yet.  Certainly I don't expect one will be pulling a log trailer for a few years.  

[Joe Hillmann]

The story says it can HAUL 64 tons on public roads.  I don't know if the author doesn't know the difference or if the companies PR is intentionally being deceitful.

My interpretation of the down rating on public roads was due to the maximum paved road capacity - not the truck capacity.

That is the reason.  The legal weight limit in Sweden is 64 tons(compared to 40 tons in the much of the US, or 49 tons in Wisconsin when the roads are frozen)  that is a very impressive weight.  But it doesn't tell you how much it can haul, it tells you how heavy they can legally be, including the weigh of the truck.  Without knowing the weight of the truck that doesn't give  you any useful information.
As a couple examples, my truck can legally be 32,000 pounds, which sounds like a lot of weight.  The problem is the empty truck is 26,000 pounds so that only allows me to legally haul 6000 pounds.  An f350 can haul more than that.  The local utility company ordered a new truck a few years ago once it was delivered it ended up weighing about 1000 pounds less than the legal limit.  So once they put a driver, a tank of fuel, a power pole or two and a few thousand pounds of tools in the tool boxes the truck was illegal to drive on public roads.
In the US there is an exemption for electric semis that allow them to be heavier (by only 2000 pounds) than a diesel truck to try and kind of make up for the extra weight of batteries.  A average semi engine is probably 3000 to 4000 pounds, and lets say a transmission is 2000 pounds.  The Tesla Semi's battery is expected to weigh 8000 pounds. So a fully fueled semi should weigh ABOUT the same as an electric semi.  Getting rid of the the weight of fuel, engine, and transmission is more than made up for in the weigh of batteries and electric motors.
On top of that rural roads aren't built to even handle a 80,000 pound truck so allowing them to run an extra 2000 pounds will only tax our crumbling roads even more(although admittedly 2000 pounds isn't going to make much of a difference in most cases)

[twar]

In Sweden and Norway, Scania advertises these trucks as "regional transport", not long haul. The 64GTW configuration is good for 230 km driven at 80 km/hr (tested in Northern Sweden in winter). They're fully charged in under 90 min. with a 375 kW charger.

I haven't found any reference to what the truck alone weighs, but by comparison, I did find data for a smaller Scania el-truck that is currently in use in Norway. This truck weighs 13.5 MT and the total allowed weight fully loaded is 28 MT. The motor in this truck is 290 kW, which is less that half of what the 64 GTW truck is (624 kW). I also found a similar Volvo that weighs just over 15 MT and total allowed weight of just over 30 MT with a 400kW motor. So extrapolate as you like.


I also found an article (in Norwegian) about a mining company in Sweden that will be using an even heavier configuration of the Scania that will weigh in at 74 GTW.

[Walnut Beast]

Logging truck driver and buddy team up. 

https://www.merrittherald.com/locals-develop-electric-logging-trucks/

[Walnut Beast]

Mack electric trucks.    It's no Joke. 

https://info.macktrucks.com/refuse-revolution?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIh9Xm5Py8-gIVWsmUCR1FgwsmEAAYASAAEgJFnfD_BwE