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I really do not like people boasting about how foreign dictatorships are doing everything better while bashing our local democracies. If this guy wants to see an electric truck, he can simply walk onto European streets. They are there. And they are available from those "incubent manufacturers" that he bashes in the article.
I mean, electrification is one area where China is significantly and undoubtedly outdoing every single democracy out there. How democratic China is has no bearing on that fact.
Norway walks into the room.
It does matter because this is totally what chinese state propaganda is broadcasting to the world. The old playbook the soviets have been doing
That might be but then you have Audi with 87% less profit compared to the year before and that's not Chinese propaganda. He might be wrong about the trucks but he isn't about electrification.
It also happens to be true.
They also are using a ton of coal and oil to recharge them.
They get away with looking better on per capita CO2 production because they have such a huge population, but it’s not all solar panels and rainbows there by any means.
Even then EVs are better because they're more efficient (requiring less fossil fuels per unit distance), but also almost half of China's energy comes from green energy. Taken together this is objectively good.
I don't know if I agree. A dictatorship decides to make more batteries and so the industry bends. Land is taken by the state to build mines. Little regard for the people or the environment.
All of this makes it easier for China to just move to electric, and part of why the EVs they export are so cheap.
They subsidise by environmental impact and possibly human suffering.
* Not to mention they own the battery market.
I don’t think there’s a country in the developed world with a government that finds it distasteful to subsidize the consumption of their populace with environmental and human suffering. Moral superiority isn’t the difference being spotlit here. I think China just controls more manufacturing of its own which makes pivoting their society more efficient
I'm not sure the argument "EVs are bad for the environment actually" works as well as you think it does.
I wasn't arguing that. The way China mines and processes lithium for battery manufacture, in which they're the leading exporter by far due to their rich rare earth deposits, is destroying the surrounding areas.
That's fair, but my point is: Is there any way to make lithium ion batteries otherwise? Like is there any evidence that for instance Australian lithium is "greener" so to speak?
I see, yes my understanding is that the process can be a lot cleaner and other countries do it (like the US), China just chooses to take cheap shortcuts to take stranglehold of the market, which they now have.
A nation taking land for its strategic needs is called "expropriation". I don't know your country, but I'm sure it does that as well, because this is something all of them do.
Have been seeing e-Atros in Switzerland and Germany daily during my commutes this year, they are everywhere if you keep your eyes open.
Small sample from the US but I've seen some all-electric Penske trucks making deliveries to nearby warehouses. Day-cab semis with full 52' trailers
https://www.pensketruckleasing.com/truck-leasing/leasing-services/electric-vehicles/
Penske doesn't make trucks.
Peterbuilt has several EV models. So does MAC. The industry started R&D in electrics years ago.
I'm not sure what make/model they are. I saw them for brief moments. Here's the Penske lineup:
Battery Electric Commercial Truck Test Fleet:
Penske doesn't make trucks but they have trucks and I know it's been in r&d for years but it's cool to actually see them on the road
There are 50 ton e-trucks available and rolling in Europe? Please, tell me more. That is very interesting.
Electric Trucks are limited to 42 tons in the EU and there are good reasons for that. That really doesn't change much in this argument - we also do no have those australian road trains and that is also fine
Regardless, which manufacturers are putting these machines on the market?
Just recently I was talking with a professional trucker, who owns a small fleet, and when mentioned reading on projects to develop such vehicles, he denied even the notion itself. And this is a man being hard pressed to keep his business afloat.
Well, then this guy is not good at his job. You can buy the eActros from Mercedes Benz for example. And most manufacturers have an electric truck on the market. You can see this on the map above: If 18% of new trucks in the netherlands or 7% in Germany are electric, somebody has to produce those vehicles and put them onto the market. If a professional trucker can't see that, he is really incompetent at buying trucks.
I'll put that towards local market fighting to keep the status quo and people resisting change; most small truckers buy second hand trucks and are extremely wary of change. I'm in Portugal.
Mercedes-Benz eActros, Iveco S-eWay, MAN eTGX, Volvo FH electric, ...
Watch the Elektrotrucker on Youtube if you want to know more about it. Channel is in German, he is at the moment on a round-the-world trip with an eActros. https://www.youtube.com/@elektrotrucker
He does English dubs for the more popular videos though.
In the Nordics, the weight limit of trucks is significantly higher than in the rest: 74-80 t on Sweden, 76 t in Finland and still 50 t in Norway.
True but the batteries in them still are from china.