Electrifying Large Vehicles
When I joined EV World as their VP Marketing in 2008, it was “common wisdom” that we were one hell of a long way from electrifying large vehicles like buses, cargo ships and Class 8 trucks. Good news: as presented here, that’s no longer the case. In fact, when I go to the Advanced Clean Transportation Expo in Long Beach each year, I’m finding that it’s stuffed with everything from alt-fueled school buses to agribusiness combines. Good to see.
Amusingly, the author notes that one of the trends that is facilitating this process is “V2G (vehicle-to-grid) On The Horizon.” (Emphasis mine.) It’s one of these things that’s been on the horizon since the indigenous North Americans saw the tips of Columbus’s sails as these folks stood on the beach, astonished, looking out into the Atlantic in 1492. Seriously, if this ever happens it will be nice, but until it gets closer, I would urge silence so as not to make a mockery of the entire electric transportation enterprise.
It seems to me that buses would be both easier to convert to electricity, and far more cost beneficial, and far more environmentally beneficial.
The bus has a large frame, into which multiple very large battery assemblies could be placed without displacing necessary passenger room, the bus makes extremely frequent stops, so recuperative braking would be more beneficial in terms of operating efficiency, and the bus runs for many, many hours per day rather than just an hour at most per day – like most cars. So the payoff in terms of energy cost reduction would more quickly pay back the investment.
Also, due to buses often being used in high population density cities, the “lengthening of the tailpipe”, extending the emissions out to a fossil fuel power plant rather than having those emissions at the vehicle, would be a very good move for public health in those cities.
I never understood why buses were the primary target for initial EV conversion.
Also, you are correct, of course, insofar as V2G.. The concept is nothing short of stupid. An electric vehicle lives and dies on its range… A very large share of the cost of EV’s reside in the battery capacity, in order to give the vehicle more range. There is no way that an owner would then accept the grid using their battery in rapid cycling to balance grid load, leaving their battery with lower charge and more quickly degraded through its life cycle. It’s a stupid concept. Shockingly stupid… and EV advocates really need to just stop repeating it.