Last week's poll: Are large electric vehicles practical?
The roads are yet to be dominated by fully electric passenger vehicles but that isn’t stopping the development of large electric vehicles weighing several tons.
As reported previously, a Swiss consortium is to electrify a Komatsu diesel dumper truck capable of transporting material down a quarry 20 times a day. Regenerative braking on the journey downhill will power up the truck’s 700kWh battery pack and reclaim more energy than is required to make the return trip. Excess power could then be fed back into the grid, according to the truck’s developers.
This led us to ask if electrifying large vehicles is practical, and over 500 respondents were largely optimistic that it is.
A total of 36 per cent of respondents agreed that it is a good idea in certain applications, whilst 24 per cent thought the technology ready to be applied to trucks.
A fifth of those who took part thought that the electrification of trucks is hindered by power/battery requirements, and 15 per cent held the view that infrastructure can’t support it. The remaining five per cent couldn’t find a fit, electing instead to choose the 'None of the above option'.
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