well for long distance still probably science fiction , but for urban deliveries Mercedes believe that its closer than you may think
We’ll start to see the demise of electric cars now people have to pay at services and car parks to charge them.
If Volvo have anything to do with the batteries, it’ll be donkeys years away 
OVLOV JAY:
If Volvo have anything to do with the batteries, it’ll be donkeys years away
And I’d say gas is nowhere near the finished article yet .
The biggest problem with electric vehicles is the range limit. I put my phone on its wireless charger the other day and had a thought, could you do that with electric cars? Since all you have to do to generate electricity is to pass a wire through a magnetic field, would it be possible to make new roads/upgrade existing ones with built in magnets. As the car cuts the magnetic field, it generates it’s own electricity and charges whilst it’s moving.
As ever, I doubt the drawback would be technological, but financial.
Our Battersea depot use a couple of battery powered vans…don’t think they have much of a range though and with the weight of the cells and body, anything more than half dozen eggs means it’s overloaded
The battery technology is years away, the only commercially viable battery is the Lithium Ion type which was first available in the 1980’s.
The battery you use for mobile phones lap tops and cordless drill ETC was first developed in the 1970’s, there is a massive amount of energy in a 400 litre tank of diesel that no battery technology could replicate in the near future, even the best electric cars which require much less power than a truck are still rare on our roads because of their limited range and prohibitive cost.
Unless a method of storing a massive amount of power which would be similar in weight size and cost to that of a diesel tank and the fuel it contains its just a pipe dream.
I’ve driven the Tkmaxx leccy trucks. We are a million miles away from all electric trucks. They are heaps of ■■■■■■
Slightest hill loaded you’re lucky if it will do 20-30mph on a motorway! Misjudge your range and it’s not a tow truck you need it’s a lowloader! In winter there is no in cab heating either so you freeze your ■■■■■■■ baws off!
They are actually quite nippy round towns/cities, like driving a go kart. But its trying to get to the city that’s the problem. Hills, motorways etc you should be paid danger money.
I’m surprised hydrogen fuelcell technology doesn’t seem to be mentioned more?
Batteries just a short term sop to green credentials as far as I see it.
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be a bit of a pain juicing up away from depot if they do connections like the cars, i’e 1 station for a Nissan , 1 station for a tesla (or 4 if at the tunnel) , 1 station for a Renault. the industry doesn’t seem to want to come up with a single multi fit charging point, pull up and somebody’s on your makes point and yer stuffed for an hour or so.
Munchkin:
I’m surprised hydrogen fuelcell technology doesn’t seem to be mentioned more?
Batteries just a short term sop to green credentials as far as I see it.
Hydrogen requires more energy to get it than it contains.If/when they’ve sorted that problem it would be simpler and cheaper to just burn it in conventional internal combustion engines.
As for electric powered vehicles they’re just an over hyped expensive way of creating an inferior type of vehicle propulsion to appease misguided global warmist believer hippies and eco ■■■■’s.Usually based on the equally misguided idea that electric power can be produced economically or even safely in the case of nuclear.
As for electric trucks cost of the technology will be the biggest drawback especially and let alone if/when road fuel taxation is transferred and applied to electric charging.
mike68:
Unless a method of storing a massive amount of power which would be similar in weight size and cost to that of a diesel tank and the fuel it contains its just a pipe dream.
The cost of electricity shouldn’t be underestimated.IE you won’t find many people who’d prefer to use electricity to heat their homes than gas or oil.Let alone if road fuel taxation is added to to it. 
Carryfast:
Munchkin:
I’m surprised hydrogen fuelcell technology doesn’t seem to be mentioned more?
Batteries just a short term sop to green credentials as far as I see it.Hydrogen requires more energy to get it than it contains.If/when they’ve sorted that problem it would be simpler and cheaper to just burn it in conventional internal combustion engines.
As for electric powered vehicles they’re just an over hyped expensive way of creating an inferior type of vehicle propulsion to appease misguided global warmist believer hippies and eco ■■■■’s.Usually based on the equally misguided idea that electric power can be produced economically or even safely in the case of nuclear.
As for electric trucks cost of the technology will be the biggest drawback especially and let alone if/when road fuel taxation is transferred and applied to electric charging.
I’m not a believer in the doomsday man made global warming scenario that we’re continually being force fed either, IMO it’s nothing more than an excuse to invent new taxes.
Anyway, I digress. There is one reason why we need to be looking at alternative power sources, there is only a finite amount of fossil fuel on the planet and one day we will run out.
I remember a good few years ago when fracking was first considered. It was discarded as being too expensive for what it yielded, now it’s considered essential to meet our energy needs.
Unfortunately, we will only seriously start looking at alternative energies when it becomes too expensive to continue with fossil fuels.
Captain Caveman 76:
The biggest problem with electric vehicles is the range limit. I put my phone on its wireless charger the other day and had a thought, could you do that with electric cars? Since all you have to do to generate electricity is to pass a wire through a magnetic field, would it be possible to make new roads/upgrade existing ones with built in magnets. As the car cuts the magnetic field, it generates it’s own electricity and charges whilst it’s moving.As ever, I doubt the drawback would be technological, but financial.
Wouldn’t work. You only generate a current by moving the conductor through the magnetic field, and that creates drag, putting more load on your motor, draining your battery (the one you’re trying to charge). It would be just like using a battery to spin a motor to turn a generator and using the output from said generator to charge the battery with the aim of making some sort of perpetual motion machine…
They’re as far away as it would take us to build enough generating stations to cope whilst rewiring the entire country for the network that will be required to keep all these electric toys going.
Can’t be too long till 400 electric cars turn up at Leigh Delamare one wet winter Friday afternoon with drivers all fighting each other to plug into the two or three charging points presently provided.
Let alone how the lorry park plug in zone will cope when 50 lorries all need an overnight charge and there’s 10 sockets only and 5 of them shorted out.
mike68:
The battery technology is years away, the only commercially viable battery is the Lithium Ion type which was first available in the 1980’s.The battery you use for mobile phones lap tops and cordless drill ETC was first developed in the 1970’s,
Make your mind up! The vast majority of modern phones, laptops and cordless power tools use Lithium Ion batteries…
Captain Caveman 76:
There is one reason why we need to be looking at alternative power sources, there is only a finite amount of fossil fuel on the planet and one day we will run out.I remember a good few years ago when fracking was first considered. It was discarded as being too expensive for what it yielded, now it’s considered essential to meet our energy needs.
Unfortunately, we will only seriously start looking at alternative energies when it becomes too expensive to continue with fossil fuels.
The issue in this case being that ‘electric’ isn’t an ‘alternative’ fuel source at least so long as it requires large scale if not majority fossil fuelled generation.While ‘renewables’ aren’t permanent IE the wind isn’t a reliable source of energy nor therefore is wave energy.While nuclear fuelled generation has the potential to turn the place into an uninhabitable wasteland including wrecking our agricultural capacity if/when it goes wrong.While at best just changing our dependence on oil to more expensive and rarer nuclear fissile materials like Uranium etc.
On that note fossil fuels have only two choices either they remain a cost effective fuel source or they run out.In the case of the former it’s in no one’s interests to price the fuel out of viable use and existence.While the latter won’t apply for many generations yet at which point that’s those new generation’s problem to sort out not ours.
To which the answer of our government is to close down the mining industry and go for expensive dangerous nuclear energy.Together with equally expensive pointless electric vehicles.What could possibly go wrong. 
Quite CF re the mines, not forgetting the superb brainwave of burning megatonnes of natural gas, a perfect and relatively clean heating fuel and if used for that enough for centuries to come, to make electricity…electricity which if we go down the electric vehicle route will need multiples of the present amount produced.
Make it up? you couldn’t.
Juddian:
They’re as far away as it would take us to build enough generating stations to cope whilst rewiring the entire country for the network that will be required to keep all these electric toys going.Can’t be too long till 400 electric cars turn up at Leigh Delamare one wet winter Friday afternoon with drivers all fighting each other to plug into the two or three charging points presently provided.
Let alone how the lorry park plug in zone will cope when 50 lorries all need an overnight charge and there’s 10 sockets only and 5 of them shorted out.
The bigger issue will be if/when the government says that all power needs are to be met by electricity including domestic heating with road fuel taxation levels applied in all cases.In which case we’ve got a captive market for the Chinese run nuclear energy producers and electricity bills going through the roof with no fossil fuel alternatives.Together with the risk of a massive nuclear disaster on a much bigger scale than Chernobyl. 
Roymondo:
Captain Caveman 76:
The biggest problem with electric vehicles is the range limit. I put my phone on its wireless charger the other day and had a thought, could you do that with electric cars? Since all you have to do to generate electricity is to pass a wire through a magnetic field, would it be possible to make new roads/upgrade existing ones with built in magnets. As the car cuts the magnetic field, it generates it’s own electricity and charges whilst it’s moving.As ever, I doubt the drawback would be technological, but financial.
Wouldn’t work. You only generate a current by moving the conductor through the magnetic field, and that creates drag, putting more load on your motor, draining your battery (the one you’re trying to charge). It would be just like using a battery to spin a motor to turn a generator and using the output from said generator to charge the battery with the aim of making some sort of perpetual motion machine…
I hope you realise I’m now sat here with fingers pointing in all directions trying to remember Flemings right hand rule!!