Always wondered why it doesn’t make sense to use diesel/electric in large trucks. Assumed it’s because cost/complexity doesn’t out weight benefits, but not sure why. Thanks.
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Electric locomotives do not need to carry batteries. The electrical energy comes from either overhead wires or electrified rails.
An electric truck would need to carry batteries, and lots of them. The energy density of a battery is much lower than the energy density of gasoline or diesel fuel. In other words, the fuel weight of an electric tractor-trailer would be much greater than the fuel weight of a diesel tractor-trailer. Tractor-trailers can legally carry a finite amount of weight, and so it’s not economical for a tractor-trailer to carry (literally) tons of batteries.
In order for electric tractor-trailers to be economical, we would need to either find a way to deliver electricity directly from the power grid or improve the energy density of batteries.
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