Tesla has announced their long awaited Tesla Semi, along with a surprise: a new version of the Roadster.
The Semi is a class 8 truck. Class 8 are the biggest trucks in regular use on the roads. They're used for long haul trucking, dump trucks, cement trucks and so forth. The prototypes they've showed have a slick aerodynamic cab and a close-coupled trailer. My suspicion is the trailer will revert to the more conventional ones in most cases. It has a center driving position in the cab, two large touch screens, and software that controls the independently powered wheels to prevent jackknifing. He says it'll have 400 mile range, and a new, bigger than supercharger that they call a megacharger, which supposedly can charge the battery in half an hour.
400 mile range implies something between 600 and 1000 KWH of battery. The biggest batteries sold with Teslas now are 100KWH. Mine has an 85KWH battery, which others have discovered actually puts out more like 81KWH.
Charging a 1000KWH battery with J1772 protocol at 80 amps (e.g. HPWC) will take approximately 50 hours.This is obviously not suitable for a commercial truck. A conventional 125 KW supercharger brings this down to 8 or 9 hours, but Tesla is not presently selling these for commercial installation. They showed the truck side of the receptacle for charging the truck with a "megacharger", which appears to have 8 holes in it, each a little smaller than the present charge orifice. The present supercharger cable is pretty close to the limit of what a relatively frail adult can handle. 8 of them all at once is likely beyond what even Hafþór Björnsson could handle. (He's the actor/strongman that plays "The Mountain that Rides" on Game of Thrones). The strands might be connected individually, but more likely this connection is handled by a machine, such as the one Tesla demonstrated a few years ago.--the truck drives close enough to the charger and the cables are moved into place by a large robot arm.
Anything less than about 400KW is unsuitable for long haul trucking. Long haul truckers may drive 11 hours in a 14 hour day. 400 miles is only about half of that. So they need to charge twice a day, and in the case of drivers who share their truck, they may need to charge more than that. This may be adequate for a lot of Class 8 truck applications though: Cement trucks and dirt trucks spend a big part of their day loading and their routes are often start and stop and stay close to home. Trucks being used to move containers around within container terminals tend to spend well over half their day waiting in line. A 100KW charger may well be adequate for these. Tesla may choose to sell something resembling an existing supercharger for these applications, where the trucks spend their off duty time hooked to the charger. And they may not need much more than an 20KW HPWC for trucks that serve local chains, like grocery stores, where the truck spends a half hour or more loading or unloading for every 20 minutes actually on the move. But long haulers need more
I'm estimating about 1000 truck stops around the US. Tesla would need to install megachargers at a large number of these. A megacharger installation would resemble existing diesel refueling stations in that the chargers will need to be drive-through, like gas stations. There will need to be enough of them at each location that nobody has to wait too long--remember that 14 hour limit. The interesting part though is that the transformer for each megacharger plug needs to be about as big as a 12 bollard supercharger. They can do the same charger sharing, so a 12 megacharger station needs transformers the size of that needed fo 72 individual supercharger bollards. Enough to power hundreds of houses
Interestingly though, on the scale of our national demand, it's not that big a deal. 250*12*400,000 is only 100MW. 25-50 of those big windmills.
adenda 18Nov17:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/17/1716536/-Further-thoughts-on-Tesla-s-EV-Truck-announcement-from-a-former-fleet-owner
17 November 2017
05 November 2017
Compromise and the Election of 1860
The election of 1860 was one of the most consequential in our history. The issue of slavery had come to a head and the previous two presidents had tried to find compromises and had only succeeded in exacerbating tensions. Both of the two parties had split up into two, irreconcilable factions:
The Democrats had split into Southern, pro slavery Democrats, with John Breckinridge as their candidate, and Northern, moderate, pro appeasement Democrats, with Stephen Douglas. The Whigs had split into anti-slavery Republicans, with Abraham Lincoln, and pro compromise, pro union Constitutional Union, with John Bell.
Lincoln got the most votes and won the election, with more votes and electors than any two of the other candidates, but his policies were viewed as too extreme by all the southern states, and they seceded long before Lincoln took office. But New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania had different ballots, that included a Fusion party. The two compromisers plus the Fusion got more votes than Lincoln, and together, Lincoln and the Fusions got 6 times as many votes as Breckenridge.
What would have happened had the two appeasement parties been able to get together and put forth a single "Fusion"candidate? Politics is often more about individual candidates than policy so it's hard to really know, but here are the numbers for Lincoln, Breckinridge and an imaginary Fusion candidate who I'll call Douglas Bell:
Lincoln Breckinridge Douglas+Bell
AL: 0 48669 41453 No Change 9 D Electors
AR: 0 28732 25420 No Change 4 D Electors
CA: 38733 33969 24542 No Change 4 R Electors
CT: 43488 14372 16959 No Change 6 R Electors
DE: 3822 7339 4954 No Change 3 D Electors
FL: 0 8277 5024 No Change 3 D Electors
GA: 0 52176 54541 D+B wins 10 F Electors
IL: 172171 2331 165129 No Change 11 R Electors
IN: 139033 12295 120815 No Change 13 R Electors
IA: 70302 1035 57402 No Change 4 R Electors
KY: 1364 53143 91709 D+B Wins 12 F Electors
LA: 0 22681 27829 D+B Wins 6 F Electors
ME: 62811 6386 31739 No Change 8 R Electors
MD: 2294 42482 47726 D+B Wins, 8 F Electors
MA: 106684 6163 56701 No Change 13 R Electors
MI: 88481 805 65472 No Change 6 R Electors
MN: 22069 748 11970 No Change 4 R Electors
MS: 0 40768 28407 No Change 7 D Electors
MO: 17028 31362 117173 D+B Wins 9 F Electors
NH: 37519 2125 26299 No Change 5 R Electors
NJ: 58346 0 62869 D+B Wins 7 F Electors
NY: 362646 0 312510 No Change 35 R Electors
NC: 0 48846 47866 No Change 10 D Electors
OH: 231709 11406 199615 No Change 23 R Electors
OR: 5329 5075 4354 No Change 3 R Electors
PA: 268030 0 195636 No Change 27 R Electors
RI: 12244 0 7707 No Change 4 R Electors
SC: No popular vote No Change 8 D Electors
TN: 0 65097 81009 D+B Wins 12 F Electors
TX: 0 74454 15401 No Change 4 D Electors
VT: 33808 1866 8866 No Change 5 R Electors
VA: 1887 74325 90679 D+B Wins 15 F Electors
WI: 86110 887 65182 No Change 5 R Electors
Final Tally:
Lincoln 176 Electors
Douglas+Bell 79 Electors
Breckinridge: 48 Electors
Reality:
Lincoln: 180 Electors
Douglas: 12 Electors
Breckinridge 72 Electors
Bell: 39 Electors
The bottom line is that had the two compromise candidates been on the same ticket, there would have been no difference in the outcome, but there would have been one more election where the popular vote didn't match the electoral college outcome. Where there was a big change is that in the border states: Missouri, Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, even Georgia, the compromisers were much more popular than the pro-slavery faction.
Is General Kelly right that a compromise could have avoided the Civil War? No. There is no such thing as half a slave (at least if he is to remain alive), so there is no compromise possible. The compromises that had been made were what lead to the tensions. There were more people that hoped for the impossible compromise than either of the more extreme factions, but that simply wasn't going to happen.
One of the interesting things I learned from doing this exercise is how many states had 0 votes for the opposing candidate. I doubt that these states actually had zero voters for those positions, but that voter manipulation or intimidation kept such voters away from the polls or their ballots from being counted.
The Democrats had split into Southern, pro slavery Democrats, with John Breckinridge as their candidate, and Northern, moderate, pro appeasement Democrats, with Stephen Douglas. The Whigs had split into anti-slavery Republicans, with Abraham Lincoln, and pro compromise, pro union Constitutional Union, with John Bell.
Lincoln got the most votes and won the election, with more votes and electors than any two of the other candidates, but his policies were viewed as too extreme by all the southern states, and they seceded long before Lincoln took office. But New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania had different ballots, that included a Fusion party. The two compromisers plus the Fusion got more votes than Lincoln, and together, Lincoln and the Fusions got 6 times as many votes as Breckenridge.
What would have happened had the two appeasement parties been able to get together and put forth a single "Fusion"candidate? Politics is often more about individual candidates than policy so it's hard to really know, but here are the numbers for Lincoln, Breckinridge and an imaginary Fusion candidate who I'll call Douglas Bell:
Lincoln Breckinridge Douglas+Bell
AL: 0 48669 41453 No Change 9 D Electors
AR: 0 28732 25420 No Change 4 D Electors
CA: 38733 33969 24542 No Change 4 R Electors
CT: 43488 14372 16959 No Change 6 R Electors
DE: 3822 7339 4954 No Change 3 D Electors
FL: 0 8277 5024 No Change 3 D Electors
GA: 0 52176 54541 D+B wins 10 F Electors
IL: 172171 2331 165129 No Change 11 R Electors
IN: 139033 12295 120815 No Change 13 R Electors
IA: 70302 1035 57402 No Change 4 R Electors
KY: 1364 53143 91709 D+B Wins 12 F Electors
LA: 0 22681 27829 D+B Wins 6 F Electors
ME: 62811 6386 31739 No Change 8 R Electors
MD: 2294 42482 47726 D+B Wins, 8 F Electors
MA: 106684 6163 56701 No Change 13 R Electors
MI: 88481 805 65472 No Change 6 R Electors
MN: 22069 748 11970 No Change 4 R Electors
MS: 0 40768 28407 No Change 7 D Electors
MO: 17028 31362 117173 D+B Wins 9 F Electors
NH: 37519 2125 26299 No Change 5 R Electors
NJ: 58346 0 62869 D+B Wins 7 F Electors
NY: 362646 0 312510 No Change 35 R Electors
NC: 0 48846 47866 No Change 10 D Electors
OH: 231709 11406 199615 No Change 23 R Electors
OR: 5329 5075 4354 No Change 3 R Electors
PA: 268030 0 195636 No Change 27 R Electors
RI: 12244 0 7707 No Change 4 R Electors
SC: No popular vote No Change 8 D Electors
TN: 0 65097 81009 D+B Wins 12 F Electors
TX: 0 74454 15401 No Change 4 D Electors
VT: 33808 1866 8866 No Change 5 R Electors
VA: 1887 74325 90679 D+B Wins 15 F Electors
WI: 86110 887 65182 No Change 5 R Electors
Final Tally:
Lincoln 176 Electors
Douglas+Bell 79 Electors
Breckinridge: 48 Electors
Reality:
Lincoln: 180 Electors
Douglas: 12 Electors
Breckinridge 72 Electors
Bell: 39 Electors
The bottom line is that had the two compromise candidates been on the same ticket, there would have been no difference in the outcome, but there would have been one more election where the popular vote didn't match the electoral college outcome. Where there was a big change is that in the border states: Missouri, Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, even Georgia, the compromisers were much more popular than the pro-slavery faction.
Is General Kelly right that a compromise could have avoided the Civil War? No. There is no such thing as half a slave (at least if he is to remain alive), so there is no compromise possible. The compromises that had been made were what lead to the tensions. There were more people that hoped for the impossible compromise than either of the more extreme factions, but that simply wasn't going to happen.
One of the interesting things I learned from doing this exercise is how many states had 0 votes for the opposing candidate. I doubt that these states actually had zero voters for those positions, but that voter manipulation or intimidation kept such voters away from the polls or their ballots from being counted.
01 November 2017
Without the Asteroid
About 65 Million years ago, an asteroid or comet 10-15 miles in diameter struck the earth in what is today the Yucatan Peninsula, forming what is called the Chicxulub crater, causing climate change and killing most plants and animals, large and small, and making extinct all large creatures, including the giant lizards we call dinosaurs. Small creatures: small birds, small mammals, small lizards, insects, etc., managed to survive and all animal life larger than about the size of a human fist descends from the few survivors, including us humans.
If the asteroid had missed the earth, the big dinosaurs would probably still be among us. Without them, mammals were able to evolve to fill the top predator niches, but had the asteroid not killed them, they'd still be eating everything that's not good at hiding or running away. The things that evolved into monkeys and apes would have had a much harder time competing until they grew the intelligence to turn the tables on the dinosaurs.
Were there intelligent dinosaurs? Clearly yes. Those surviving dinosaurs: crows and ravens, are nearly as smart as dogs and in some ways smarter. They are more social than most other types of birds, and it seems like that ability to work together provokes the development of communication, and that feeds back into speakers ability to come up with increasingly cunning plans. Other dinosaurs also worked together--The movie portrayal of Velociraptors is hyperbole to make a good story, but they did work in teams probably planned traps. It's not that big a step to sitting around after dinner telling stories and making plans for the next day. Our hands evolved from claws that are effective at climbing and catching prey to things that are better at using tools and weapons, which gave us a huge opportunity to generalize: select the right tool for the task, rather than being stuck with the one at the end of your arm. Things like spears are essentially impossible for non tool using creatures.
Without the asteroid, a dinosaur would have evolved to fill this niche. Perhaps it would have developed the sort of awareness that we call intelligence. It probably wouldn't have been one of the giants: a top predator has fewer evolutionary pressures than the middle sized ones. It's easy to imagine them being bipedal (so they can specialize their hands and not need them for walking), neither too big nor too small; probably 3 to 7 feet tall, living in groups of a few families. It's unlikely they could fly--wings use the same limbs that hands are on, which would preclude them from handling and making tools. But they might have feathers and tails. There's nothing particularly magic about 5 fingers, but the opposable thumb is crucial, although it might be implemented in a variety of ways. Could have 3 fingers and two thumbs, or 6 fingers and one thumb. But being a vertebrate, they'd have the head on top and 4 limbs, which constrains the possibilities quite a bit.
In addition the smarter birds, there are several other critters that have developed pretty high levels of intelligence. Dolphins are pretty smart. Groups of them will make sophisticated hunting plans. They clearly have a relatively sophisticated language. Their lack of hands limits them. Of course they developed well after the K-T asteroid--their evolution would have been different had the big dinosaurs survived. Octopuses are also pretty smart and they don't use it for teamwork. They are capable of pretty significant manipulation with their tentacles. And they do predate the K-T asteroid.
If the asteroid had missed the earth, the big dinosaurs would probably still be among us. Without them, mammals were able to evolve to fill the top predator niches, but had the asteroid not killed them, they'd still be eating everything that's not good at hiding or running away. The things that evolved into monkeys and apes would have had a much harder time competing until they grew the intelligence to turn the tables on the dinosaurs.
Were there intelligent dinosaurs? Clearly yes. Those surviving dinosaurs: crows and ravens, are nearly as smart as dogs and in some ways smarter. They are more social than most other types of birds, and it seems like that ability to work together provokes the development of communication, and that feeds back into speakers ability to come up with increasingly cunning plans. Other dinosaurs also worked together--The movie portrayal of Velociraptors is hyperbole to make a good story, but they did work in teams probably planned traps. It's not that big a step to sitting around after dinner telling stories and making plans for the next day. Our hands evolved from claws that are effective at climbing and catching prey to things that are better at using tools and weapons, which gave us a huge opportunity to generalize: select the right tool for the task, rather than being stuck with the one at the end of your arm. Things like spears are essentially impossible for non tool using creatures.
Without the asteroid, a dinosaur would have evolved to fill this niche. Perhaps it would have developed the sort of awareness that we call intelligence. It probably wouldn't have been one of the giants: a top predator has fewer evolutionary pressures than the middle sized ones. It's easy to imagine them being bipedal (so they can specialize their hands and not need them for walking), neither too big nor too small; probably 3 to 7 feet tall, living in groups of a few families. It's unlikely they could fly--wings use the same limbs that hands are on, which would preclude them from handling and making tools. But they might have feathers and tails. There's nothing particularly magic about 5 fingers, but the opposable thumb is crucial, although it might be implemented in a variety of ways. Could have 3 fingers and two thumbs, or 6 fingers and one thumb. But being a vertebrate, they'd have the head on top and 4 limbs, which constrains the possibilities quite a bit.
In addition the smarter birds, there are several other critters that have developed pretty high levels of intelligence. Dolphins are pretty smart. Groups of them will make sophisticated hunting plans. They clearly have a relatively sophisticated language. Their lack of hands limits them. Of course they developed well after the K-T asteroid--their evolution would have been different had the big dinosaurs survived. Octopuses are also pretty smart and they don't use it for teamwork. They are capable of pretty significant manipulation with their tentacles. And they do predate the K-T asteroid.
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