Yet EPA officials said the rule will not mandate the adoption of a particular zero-emission technology. Rather, it will require manufacturers to reduce emissions by choosing from several cleaner technologies, including electric trucks, hybrid trucks and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.

For comparison, the New York Times coverage

  • Semi-Hemi-Demigod
    5•8 months ago

    Considering locomotives are diesel-electric hybrids, it would make sense to move trucks to a similar technology. Replace the weight of a huge engine and transmission with a smaller generator and battery pack.

    • @aubeynarf
      1•8 months ago

      I don’t believe locomotives have batteries - the generator output directly feeds the traction motors. The locomotive power curve is basically - a shitload of power near zero speed to get the train moving, or a shitload of power at cruising speed to keep it moving; not so much stop and start and various speeds like most road vehicles. So a battery energy reserve doesn’t do much.

      And locomotive engines are some huge, heavy mofos.

    • @[email protected]OP
      9•8 months ago

      Gasoline and diesel are different fractions of the oil with different hydrocarbon chain lengths. Refineries have some flexibility to choose one over the other, but they always produce both. Getting rid of just one isn’t really doable; you need to get rid of both.

  • @[email protected]English
    1•8 months ago

    Don’t get me wrong - I’m glad consumer EVs are a thing for multiple reasons, but I’m frustrated that more publicly-funded research wasn’t done on heavy-duty systems. The obvious entry point in the American context (since we hardly publicly fund anything except our military) would have been to focus on battery and series-hybrid implementations for heavy transport and armored vehicles, which could likely be adapted fairly easily to civilian markets.

    But I think what stopped it is that it would have required a ton of infrastructure investment, and that’s one of the things we don’t care about funding most of the time. That, and all the ICE manufacturers and oil companies probably lobbied their asses off to kill anything like that.