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Nikola Motors Electric Semi Truck

22K views 201 replies 15 participants last post by  brian_ 
#1 ·
#3 ·
What would the electricity requirement to propel a 80,000 pound vehicle up a 5% grade for 5 miles?

I've heard gas turbines become less efficient the larger they get

I just have serious doubts 400 KW would be enough to do the job of driving the vehicle up a mountain while weighing 80,000 pounds
 
#4 ·
I can't give you any of the numbers. But I can assure you that this vehicle was sized for the job.

Keep in mind that hills don't last forever. So the truck can draw significantly more than 400kW when going up a hill, due to the 315kWh battery. The whole point of a series hybrid is that the range extender must cover only the average load. 400kW is enough for that.
 
#6 ·
Gas turbines become MORE efficient as they get larger
and 400Kw is 533Hp -
Some (only a few) of today's truck engines exceed 600hp - BUT they only achieve that power at maximum rpm
Using an electric drive this truck would have 400Kw available all of time + being able to pull from the battery
 
#7 ·
Exactly. The peak power of the truck is actually 1.5 Megawatts. With the turbine running, the battery can supply the other 1.1Megawatts. Of course as you drive this way, the battery SOC starts to drop. But there isn't a hill in the country long enough to deplete the batteries. And then of course you regen down the other side. With 80,000 lbs, regen starts to be a lot more significant.
 
#10 ·
I don't think the trucking industry is aware of the big changes that are coming soon. Drivetrain technology for heavy trucks have been mostly stagnant for decades (more so than cars). I guess it is a consequence of an industry with only a few competitors (Cummings, CAT, International, Detroit, etc.) and very conservative customers. Brand loyalty is fierce in trucking, almost religious.

In the end, fleets demand efficiency. The manufacturer that brings a platform to market that delivers better performance with significant efficiency gains than current trucks will have a winner. We know it works, but convincing this industry is the hard part.
 
#11 ·
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!"

 
#13 ·
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!"

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I found it interesting that there is no real audio - just added music. Does the gear whine sound that bad?

More importantly, the truck is doing nothing that requires a working fuel cell, or even a large battery. It certainly isn't demonstrating 1,000 horsepower, or high performance in hauling weight, accelerating, or stopping. As far as I'm concerned, this is still a marketing prop - not a viable development mule, let alone anything close to production.

To be fair to Nikola Motor, the truck by the other company which has ripped off Nikola Tesla's name has not demonstrated high performance, either. ;)
 
#12 ·
I question the wisdom of using a fuel cell. The PEM in a typical stack undergoes severe degradation for such an expensive part. Also, the overall efficiency of the H2 cycle is quite low compared to just using an NG gas turbine like Capstone.

At least with NG, you are up running right away with a pervasive infrastructure. No need to risk success on a technology that has yet to prove viable in truck transport. When the batteries get better (and they will quickly) you just ditch the turbine for an ideal all battery solution.

H2 seems like a greenwashing gimmick cooked up by extraction industry to forestall pure BEV and provide a market for soon-to-be stranded assets.

I get the idea that it is more profitable to sell a device that forces the user to buy proprietary "fuel" forever. However, I think the fleets are wise to this trap.
 
#18 ·
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.

Makes me think the point of their vehicles is oil consumption, not transportation.

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.

But we know now that they start with the premise of building machines to provide a large market for their consumables. Transportation is just an afterthought for them.
 
#19 ·
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.
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.

Makes me think the point of their vehicles is oil consumption, not transportation.
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. ;)

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.
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.
Wrightspeed
 
#25 ·
The electric car lost out to the ICE when people became aware how cheap ICE's were (Fords Model "T") and how much further they could go on a small amount of liquid fuel.
Practicality and cost only were the reasons
The main handicap back then for the electric vehicle was , and still is, the weight and cost of the battery, together with its range restricting effects.
Without the "green" movement, the EV would still be a rare specialised transport option.
 
#30 ·
Telsa Motors is just unprofitable due to high component costs and general lack of automotive industry competence,
Nope wrong again - they are making about 25% on each car sold
Don't confuse money spent on improving a production process with the unit cost of the cars

SpaceX rockets do burn petroleum products (why not hydrogen?).
And where do you think the hydrogen would come from?
 
#32 ·
Exactly, all of Tesla's profits go into the factories to make the next gen products. I like how the Tesla haters forget that buying factories and equipment and investing in IP adds to the book value of the company.

Of course basic economics and business logic gets in the way of their pro-oil agenda.

Cars work fine on non-fossil energy, but rockets still need fuel. If we didn't unnecessarily burn all the oil in the world for cars, that would leave a lot of cheap oil for rockets, which means more cheap launches and orbital services. See how that works?
 
#31 ·
Wow, the Koch Bros. are bringing their revisionist history here.

Brian, in case you are not aware, this whole message board proves you are full of it.

If the clever folks here can make all this EV work on a shoestring for decades, what is the excuse of the major car and truck manufacturers? Go check the cost curves of all the components including the batteries. You really think those numbers are stopping anytime soon. You must be one of those folks who though a 21" LCD TV would cost $10k forever. Oh brother! Go back to the 90's pal.

Go read some Upton Sinclair if you doubt the history of Big Oil. The collaboration of the government and oil industry is legendary and documented in the annals of law. The success of Internal Combustion is ONLY due to the intervention of government at the behest of oil companies. If this was tin foil hat stuff, there wouldn't be plenty of Supreme Court cases to read about over the past 100 years. Get your head out of the sand.

http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/

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. That is what we want here. Go peddle your stinky fluids to the gullible.

I'm afraid this thread has gone off the rails into politics. I'll leave with my original thesis. Nikola is just a desperate attempt to keep the oil/gas train going. I'm pretty sure transportation customers are done with this nonsense.
 
#35 ·
The Nikola Motors truck is hard to justify technically, but even harder to write off as an attempt to keep burning fossil fuels, as their currently proposed product is hydrogen-fuelled. The previous proposal burned natural gas (in a turbine), but they changed their minds. Sure, the hydrogen comes from steam reformation of natural gas, but the fantasy which goes with products like this is that it will be made by electrolysis of water using renewably-sourced electricity or thermochemical processes driven by solar heat.

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.
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).
Car manufacturers do not supply fuel.
 
#36 · (Edited)
Don't try to cross someone that can land rockets.
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.

I think if people understood the technology (automotive or aerospace), instead of just swallowing the hype, they would still be impressed but they would be impressed by the much larger group of people who have actually done the work (not just famous investors), and would be in a better position to make decisions. They would not be so impressed by the Nikola Motors truck.
 
#41 ·
Yep, in much the same way that extracting oil. natural gas, or coal, polluting land and oceans, poisoning everyone with lead, mercury and particulate emissions, then possibly irreparably damaging the climate is a clever idea.

I think we are already finding out it wasn't the right idea.

Modern business has always been about privatizing the benefits and socializing the costs.
 
#43 ·
That story is still playing out.

People naturally assume that industrialization was "necessary". Try telling that to tribal cultures that have been happily existing for thousands of years.

It remains to be seen if this Faustian bargain will play out in the long term favor of humans. Remember, this fossil fuel experiment has only been in process for about 100 years. Contrast that with 100,000 years of human existence.

It is the height of hubris to think that a decision made 100 years ago was necessary in the face of an already thriving human population that existed fine for millennia. That decision was made to maximize the profits of a tiny fraction of the world's population.

In other words, we may have mortgaged the future of the entire human race for the 100 year comfort of a few.
 
#44 · (Edited)
��. 100 years ago ??
Ever heard of the "Bronze Age"?...3000+ BC !
Burning fossil fuels has been used by humans for thousands of years to make tools, wepons, cook, as well as for heat to enable them to migrate and live in cold regeons that would otherwise not be possible.
Even the oldest known civilisations (60k+ yrs Abororiginals) used fire to clear and rejuvinate the land.

I would suggest you continue the GW rant on the Global Warming thread in chit chat.
 
#47 ·
My prediction on the NG/H2 boondoggle:

1. Cost per mile will ultimately doom the technology.
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. Fuel Cells are more delicate/expensive and less reliable than people realize. Over the road trucking will punish those systems.
4. Carbon tax looming, see #1.
5. The upfront cost of a fuel cell vehicle and H2 infrastructure is much larger than the same for BEV. Projected out 20 years, there is no comparison. Remember, when making a long term business decision, you use PROJECTED costs, not today's.

H2 is just a thinly veiled attempt to preserve the investment in the extraction industry. Greenwashing that dirty industry will not work when the alternatives are already here.

But, hey, the last time the extraction industry needed a leg up, they just bought the politicians (see Teapot Dome). Maybe it will work again this time.
 
#48 ·
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. ...
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.
 
#51 ·
*sigh* I expected much more from this forum.

1. Electricity sources are region specific.
2. The conversion efficiency from electricity to hydrogen to fuel cell to electricity again is abysmal. There is no debate about the efficiency of charging Li-Ion directly.
3. By the time any semblance of an H2 fueling infrastructure is created, BEV energy density will exceed H2.

Just math, just saying.
 
#52 ·
1. Electricity sources are region specific.
Yes, and the proposed network is widely dispersed (as it would need to be)... so the electrical energy sources will be necessarily disparate.

Caballus, you seem to assume that I am promoting Nikola Motor as a viable company offering a desirable product, and you need to argue with me. I'm not - I think the whole hydrogen fuel cell truck idea is ridiculous; I'm only answering questions and addressing misinformation.
 
#60 · (Edited)
"That page" (Wiki) has a lot of information,..
Such as that 6.3% is RE portion of electricity generation rather than total energy consumption.
It also states that electricity is 18% of total energy ....

In 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....
So that 6.3% suddenly becomes 1.13% of total energy
And that 1.3% still includes biomass, geothermal, marine power, etc..
..hence you see where the "less than 1% " figure comes from .


Worse still, most of this electricity data is based on "generation" information , which is totally useless without consideration of the capacity factors particularly for Solar (11%) and wind ( 25-30%) , which would dramatically reduce those numbers further.
Anyone wanting a significant amount of energy from wind or solar will need a lot of time, patience, money, and faith in the weather being favourable.


BUT,..the real point is ...none of this is "free energy".
The raw energy source (wind , sunshine or water) may be free, but the equipment and facilities required to convert that energy into a useable form (eg, electricity) is far from free, and infact the introduction of these intermittent power sources also increases the cost of generating power from conventional sources.
None of the countries that have embraced a significant proportion of wind or solar power have benefited from a reduction in electricity costs,.....very much the oposite !
 
#63 ·
The current allocation of renewables to the world energy supply has nothing to do with its viability and mostly due to the fact that we have (as a world) allocated ALL of our resources to the extraction industry.

Technology does not advance by itself. It needs to be cultivated. Combustion based energy is so pervasive because that is what we cultivated for the past 100 years. It is strictly a supply-side decision to maximize corporate profits over consumer value with no regard for unaccounted externalities.
 
#64 ·
Resources tend to be concentrated on those areas that give the best return relative to the need ...be that either financially, technically, or any other priority.
IE, taking the "low hanging fruit" first before working up the tree of reduced returns.
Most wind and solar are only viable because of the incentives, rebates, grants , and guaranteed sales prices, that they benefit from.
 
#65 ·
Don't get me started on the 100 years of subsidies for oil, coal, gas.

You statement is only true in a perfectly competitive market. Once established, it is very easy for the extraction industry to exclude all competitors (purchase politicians, property, IP, etc). They teach this in Business 101.

People forget that oil was discovered first. It had little value other than for refining into kersosene lamp oil (limited demand). The gasoline engine in the US was created soak up this oil (and run the already existing electric car out of business).

The consumer had no choice in this. They bought what the market presented. Although the electric car had value to city dwellers, the companies were purchased and closed to make room for gasoline engines. Gasoline was/is just more profitable to sell rather than electricity. This was a supply-side decision, not a market decision.

In economics, a market only exists when there is choice on BOTH sides. For the first time in 100 years, consumers now have choice and are clearly choosing EV. As EVs move into lower price points, they will sell as well as they do in the higher. If subsidies were ever removed from oil, gasoline demand would evaporate faster than it already is.

100 years of the oil economy has created a false knowledge of how we got here. However, a simple review of history and how oil became the fuel of choice prove otherwise. Never underestimate the power of profit to motivate and incumbency to dominate. But make no mistake, the easy way (oil) happens by default, the best way (EV) happens by intention.
 
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