Is this even possible with a 400 KW Gas Turbine for an onboard generator?
https://nikolamotor.com/one
https://nikolamotor.com/one
I found it interesting that there is no real audio - just added music. Does the gear whine sound that bad?Nikola One in Motion - "Behold, the 1,000 HP, zero emission Nikola One semi-truck in motion. Get ready for the pre-production units to hit fleets next year in 2019 for testing. The Nikola hydrogen electric trucks will take on any semi-truck and outperform them in every category; weight, acceleration, stopping, safety and features - all with a 500-1,000 mile range!"
IAToxJ9CGb8
Hybrids provide their greatest advantage in urban stop-and-go situations; long-haul trucks are the opposite situation. There are short-haul hybrids; they don't make sufficient economic sense to be successful in the market, yet.Considering that hybrid drivetrains have been around for cars and locomotives for more than a decade, you would think all the current truck builders would have them.
That's extraordinarily simplistic, and makes no sense. Companies buy trucks to do a job effectively, at minimum cost. Fuel consumption is part of both effectiveness (higher consumption means shorter range and/or less payload) and cost (obviously). Go ahead and build a truck which is cost-effective and uses less fuel; I assume you have billions of dollars for development.Makes me think the point of their vehicles is oil consumption, not transportation.
At least we agree that this design makes little if any technical sense, given the reality of the source of hydrogen. The natural gas turbine hybrid is Wrightspeed's design; they have targeted entirely different truck applications so far, where the technology makes more sense.This Nikola machine is just a thinly veiled attempt to create a natural gas consumption machine (via H2 reformation). They would consume less NG if they just build a hybrid drivetrain with a gas turbine genset.
There are lots of great DIY projects in this forum, and they are built mostly of parts from those very automotive manufacturers, plus a contribution from old forklifts (many of which come from the same companies, such as Toyota).The crew on these boards are proving that you can buy an EV and never have to deal with the car manufacturers again for anything, especially the fuel.
Elon Musk can't land a rocket. SpaceX can, which is an impressive technical achievement, but not really surprising given the technology available to them. Landing tail-sitting rockets and jets has been going on for half a century (that's how the Apollo moon lander worked; experimental aircraft such as the Ryan X-13 Vertijet did it even earlier), although the Falcon sets a new level for scale and use in Earth's gravity.Don't try to cross someone that can land rockets.
That makes sense for hydrogen fuel from natural gas, which is the current system. The Nikola Motor scheme is based on the silly idea of locally (at the dispensing station) producing hydrogen for fuel from electricity.My prediction on the NG/H2 boondoggle:
1. ...
2. NG Reforming at the dispenser will fail when the locals find out they have a NG refinery in their backyard. Oops, nobody told them they are shifting the entire carbon load of a fleet of trucks into their local gas stations.
3. ...
4. Carbon tax looming, see #1.
5. ...
Yes, and the proposed network is widely dispersed (as it would need to be)... so the electrical energy sources will be necessarily disparate.1. Electricity sources are region specific.
So that 6.3% suddenly becomes 1.13% of total energyIn 2016 while total world energy came from 80% fossil fuels, 10% biofuels, 5% nuclear and 5% renewable (hydro, wind, solar, geothermal), only 18% of that total world energy was in the form of electricity....