BMW builds electric 18 wheeler | Alternative Energy | Forums

wonder how much it costs to charge

On Tuesday, an all-electric tractor-trailer hit the road in Munich, Germany — the first time such a large electric vehicle made by a European manufacturer has gone into regular service in Europe,according to BMW, the company behind the project.

The 40-ton truck has a range of about 62 miles per charge, which takes three or four hours. Its first deployment will entail transporting vehicle components — such as shock absorbers, springs and steering systems — over stretches of less than two miles across Munich seven times a day.

Developed by BMW Group and the SCHERM group, a German automotive service provider, the big rig is a model from the Dutch manufacturer Terberg. According to the companies, the truck is “CO2-free, quiet and generates almost no fine particle pollution.” They also state that compared to a standard diesel engine truck, the electric truck will save 11.8 tons of carbon dioxide per year — the equivalent of the emissions produced by driving one of BMW’s more efficient cars, which gets an average of 60 miles per gallon, around the world almost three times

Trucks are notoriously inefficient, with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) calculating that medium- and heavy-duty vehicles account for about one-fifth of greenhouse gas emissions and oil use in the U.S. transportation sector, but only make up about 5 percent of vehicles on the road. In June, the EPA and the Department of Transportation joined forces with a proposal to turn this trend around and reduce carbon dioxide emissions from heavy duty trucks by about one billion metric tons for vehicles made between 2021 and 2027.

http://thinkprogress.....n-germany/