This is why big rigs have so many gears. It lets them maintain maximum power in a wider range of situations. That way they can actually reach the level of power that gets them up to speed (and more efficient RPMs) in situations like that.
I've driven big rigs. I've driven up mountains fully loaded (80,000lbs total). MOST trucks will struggle to drive up a moderate incline at that weight.
I've been in the Smokey Mountains and crawling up a hill at under 20mph.
As a long haul driver, what is your opinion on replaceable battery packs?
Assume we had these stops every 500-400km (or miles..), and you could do 4-5 hours driving per pack, and the on-site replacement process takes like 2 minutes (excluding the detour and approach time, of course..)
Look at any ad for OTR jobs. Notice the emphasis on miles, the more the merrier. It's rare for an ad to specify less than 3k miles per week. High miles aren't only an incentive, but a requirement.
Now consider several things. Drivers are paid mostly by the mile. Federal regulations dictate 11 hours of driving time daily, with a mandatory 30 minute break after 8 hours ( or 6 not long ago). On duty hours are limited to 14. As things are now, pulling into a truckstop often takes about 30 minutes after waiting in the fuel line, fueling, etc. Weighing/scaling new loads also takes time and this is necessary often. Toward the end of a shift even with the assistance of apps, parking can take significant time to find too, especially on the east coast. If a driver follows regulations, a mid-trip stop will be made for a cursory vehicle inspection, especially of tires. Many companies govern speed between 62-65mph - and this causes myriad clusterfucks of ungoverned drivers trying to pass the governed drivers. Remember, miles are dollars, and many factors stand in the way. Driving through Atlanta, or any similar monstrosity is a regular one. Detention is another, and this is a really big one that has inspired me to quit on the spot.
I could bloviate about the all that sucks in the world of trucks, but I'm quite certain that the primary element that impells the 18 wheeled slave is money. Any thing that gets in the way of those miles is discouraging. The whole experience is discouraging for me.
Much improvement could come to the industry, but mostly in theory rather than practice. I suspect anything that makes it all even slightly worse won't be too warmly welcomed. Personally, I'd probably keep doing it if I could make a bit less and ruin myself a bit less in the process. I don't want to run 3700 miles every week, 4 weeks out and 3 days home. But when I start my day, I only stop for weigh stations, at 8 hours, and to hold my piss bottle still.
Time is money while driving. If I stop on the side of the highway to jump out and pee, I lose a GUARANTEED minimum of 15 minutes. (even if the piss-stop was under a minute) It is a bizarre phenomenon that I could never rectify, or articulate precisely HOW it happens.
When you are driving, you constantly are doing math.
Miles (or Kilometers) converted into minutes until the next turn, and also final destination. Then you try to fit that into how much time you have left in your day.
A 2 minute battery change will always take longer then 2 minutes off of your driving time. Filling up with diesel takes ~10-15 minutes. Pulling into the truck stop, grabbing more coffee or tea for your thermos, going to the bathroom, all combine make you lose 30-45 minutes. It's not the individual item times. It's the accumulation. Accelerating, decelerating, traffic, etc.
The job of Driving a truck is almost impossible to make a living at in Canada if you do it legally. Now with all trucks having an onboard electronic log-book, I'd never even try.
No, this is why big rigs make the same amount of maximum power at all points along the hill.
The reason hybrids have less power mid way up a hill is that they use the combined output of two power sources: the engine and motor(s). When hybrids deplete their battery, the only power remaining is the output from the engine. This mode of operation is unique to hybrids. The state-of-charge management software in hybrids attempt to mitigate this, but their batteries are only so big.
To be fair, most vehicle types have similar problems but they're a result of heat rather than battery exhaustion. In a pure battery EV you can run into thermal limits: drawing too much power for too long overheats the motor and batteries. Same thing happens in ICE vehicles, though I think the difference between max continuous power and max instantaneous power tends to be greater in EVs.
It always surprised me that gasoline engine manufacturers didn't cut down on the size of the radiator and cooling stuff to save money, and then say "you can only be full throttle for 1 minute at a time, and after that it will reduce to 60%". In a typical car use case, it's very very rare to be at full throttle for over a minute.
They have to have some wiggle room for high ambient air temps that happen in some places, and it’s cheaper to build one car than build a different one for each climate zone. If you go to a high performance driving event at a racetrack on a hot day, you’ll occasionally see cars that overheat.
It can happen if you're going up a long hill or towing something. Probably no car company wants their car to be known as "the car that can't make it up a hill without the radiator boiling over" even if it doesn't actually happen all that often.
