Tom Scott
16 HN mentions · mentioned in 14 months, 2021–2025
4:30 · 5.3M views · Oct 25, 2021
Tom Scott visits an eHighway test in Lubeck, Germany, where electric trucks with pantographs draw power from overhead wires. He explains how this could electrify road freight.
The standard reference whenever threads discuss electrifying trucking via overhead lines instead of big batteries.
16 comments from Hacker News
> Nobody needs a kind of AI that consumes that much energy. Rather: nobody needs to spend that much on current quality AI. Say for the sake of argument that the accelerationists are correct about the timescale for future capabilities (I hope they're wrong in the short term, but run with it): If we had an AI that could drive robots — cars, androids, surgical machines, industrial equipment — at least as well as any human, but the compute meant that it took 10 kW to do so, at electricity prices of $0.1/kWh that AI is cost-competitive with $1/h human labour. If that happens and there's enough compute but not enough energy, energy prices rise to match human wages (so at least a factor of ten for this arbitrary example). To avoid energy price rises, and for current economic output, that would require the USA to have about 170 million (workforce) * 10 kW = 1.7 TW ≈ 3.9 times current US electrical production. (For the avoidance of doubt, 10 kW is a completely made up number with no real justification beyond it being simultaneously a relatively small number for an isolated valuable industrial device while also much more than a human brain). > A better justification for more nuclear energy is to electrify transportation and residential heating/cooling while navigating the climate catastrophe, don't you think? Not really, the reason for nuclear rather than renewables is more about the relative cost compared to time-shifting power generation with storage, and (most*) transportation alrea
Pantographs for trucks has been shown in operation, and we've had trolley-busses forever - this video While it's unlikely to be adopted for cars, it seems a cheaper and more reasonable first step at electrification (though the USA can't even electrify its rail and that sits there and goes nowhere and is a minimal cost). Electrification of rail is something like $5m a track/mile - electrification of all rail in Los Angeles could be done for something in the low few billions. Add electric trucks for $20-50b more, and suddenly LA is much cleaner, and you've not touched a single car.
Its a lot easier than you think. Just like trains, but on roads. The highway where trucks work like electric trains: this video And, there is electrification happening along highways, producing energy. German highway PV could generate up to 200 TWh a year: [LINK] Also, battery swapping will become a thing. You don't have to haul a ton of batteries, you can swap them in seconds along your route. There will be (eventually) a ton of battery plants replacing peaker natural gas plants, these will be built along the highways, also serving a second function of battery swap stations.
Electrification of trucks might be almost more reasonable - and it's been proof-of-concept'd: this video Many people do NOT realize just how empty most trucks are - and major intercity trucking can be relatively easily "trained" - [LINK] - but the vast majority of local deliveries are trucks that aren't even half full. When shipping (trucking is just shipping) each "transfer" costs you money and time, so you want to reduce those as much as possible. To encourage trains, you just make the transfer cost "worth" it - interstate road-mile taxes, for example would do it.
> Imagine there're 20 trucks charging at 80kW on a single autobahn rest area. Why would they need to stop to charge? Charge them on the go. See the Tom Scott video "The highway where trucks work like electric trains": * this video And if they do want/have to stop, imagine charging at a rate of up to 3750 kW: > The Megawatt Charging System (MCS) is a charging connector under development for large battery electric vehicles. The connector will be rated for charging at a maximum rate of 3.75 megawatts (3,000 amps at 1,250 volts direct current (DC)). * [LINK]