Electric 18-wheelers are even stupider than electric cars

Yet another sequence of ruinously expensive technical miracles required

It still boggles my mind,” says Jeffrey Short, Vice President of the American Transport Research Institute.

Mr. Short was talking about the findings of a study conducted by ATRI recently, which quantifies how much additional power generation capacity would have to be added to America’s existing electric grid to convert the nation’s entire heavy truck fleet to battery electric vehicles.

“What we found were three very large challenges,” Short told the Capital Press, and ‘very large’ is quite an understatement of the magnitude of the real problem here. The numbers seem overwhelming. 

First, ATRI finds that US nationwide power generation would need to increase 40 per cent over the coming years just to accommodate the additional load placed on the various regional grids to recharge all the new heavy truck batteries. Taken in a vacuum that may sound achievable to the layperson. But no such vacuum exists: The added load must be found in addition to massive new loads being demanded for low-emissions heating, passenger vehicle charging, population growth and economic expansion, server farms, and even AI, which OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said will itself require a doubling of power generation.