It seems like the big OEMS are investing alot in developing new battery electric machines... Just curious to see what ya'll think about it. Do you think it will be adopted over time? What are your biggest concerns? Is it even practical? I have a Tesla and love it, but my company's revenue doesn't depend on it functioning properly.. Thanks, Chris
there is a solid niche for small machines to use inside structures. JCB has a 19 that has been successful in the UK, but it was offered to me at 85K and we would not use it enough in that application. IHI has a 0.9 machine that gets narrow enough to walk through a doorway. With big machines there is far too much energy needed to get the work done, period. End of story. When we go out on the jobs there is no charging infrastructure in place. It does not make any sense to go that direction.
Hybrid seems to be the more realistic approach. Several manufacturers are offering Hybrid in some form or another. I'm hearing realized fuel savings of 70% or better. The maintenance costs offset the savings however.
no doubt. These machines do NOT need an added layer of complexity. The auto shutdown and lean idle features are the best we can do for the kind of work we ask of them.
JCB is working on hydrogen engines for larger machines.
Toyota is looking towards hydrogen as well. Again, infrastructure is going to be the challenge. Safely handling explosive gas sounds interesting.
Years ago I remember a garden tractor or something similar that ran on hydrogen separated from water. The fuel tank contained water. I couldn't find a reference to it.
Welcome to the Forums C402. Tell us a little more about your involvement in the heavy equipment industry. Personally I don't think full electric heavy equipment will not be practical in my lifetime. The smaller mini's like Sky is talking about that are used inside sure but a 60K hoe out on a normal suburban site - not happening anytime soon. The simple fact of charging the batteries on a construction site is a huge mountain to climb. What does the temporary electrical service look like on a job site that needs to charge a 325, D3, 533, 279, 305, all the lulls and lifts overnight in order to be in service the next morning at 6:30 AM? Now add 5-6 more sites in the close vicinity and how much power does that require in addition to the normal loads of the surrounding structures? I'm no electrician nor electrical engineer but that's just not practical with a current electrical grid that cannot service its current demand load.
that JCB 19 was really not an inside machine by design, either. The cage does not tilt or come off easily to get through low doors, etc. https://www.jcb.com/en-us/products/compact-excavators/19c-1e 85K for a 1.9 ton? Yeesh.
We'll charge 'em up with big diesel generators
My post was in Vietnam construction machinery forum. Unfortunately, our forum is written in Vietnamese. Máy đào mini chạy pin của Hitachi ZX55U-6EB Hãng Hitachi đã trình làng mẫu máy đào chạy hoàn toàn bằng điện: chạy bằng bộ pin sạc Lithium-Ion hoặc có thể đấu dây trực tiếp vào hệ thống điện lưới 400VAC/03 pha để hoạt động. người sử dụng có thể lựa chọn giữa hoạt động chạy bằng pin, sử dụng pin lithium-ion hoặc hoạt động có dây, cho phép... maycongtrinh-club.translate.goog
I believe electric-powered construction machines will not thrive in the future, but Hydrogen-powered construction machines will dominate. Currently, there is a company that has developed a very good idea to improve so that the internal combustion engine can use both types of fuel: traditional Diesel fuel and Hydrogen fuel.
and here is the idea of "blending" adding 90% Hydrogen into Diesel fuel New system retrofits diesel engines to run on 90 per cent hydrogen newsroom.unsw.edu.au
A famous company in the field of manufacturing internal combustion engines (perhaps everyone knows it is Cummins) has also entered the race to produce internal combustion engines using Hydrogen fuel.
This is good feedback thank you.
Thank you! My family has been in the heavy construction industry for a few generations. I’m an engineer in the mil/aero industry but I’m about to make career change and I recently received an offer from a startup to lead their battery system development effort for heavy construction equipment. I certainly have my reservations about wide spread adoption of battery electric equipment. I thought I would reach out to you fine people for some feedback because I think Silicon Valley lives in a bubble. My overall opinion is that whatever new technology is introduced to the heavy equipment industry needs to accomplish three things (at a minimum). 1) It has to be “better than” what already exists in just about every single way (more power, capacity, capabilities, less maintenance, no additional training, etc.) 2) It must be extremely reliable and robust. Equipment down time = lost revenue and you’re messing with people’s livelihood. 3) It must increase productivity. (Like you said, can’t be worrying about the charging infrastructure or how to charge etc. ) It’s technically feasible to completely replace the diesel engine with a battery system that operates for an 8 hour shift. And you can fast change in about an hour. But like you said, it’s the logistics of charging that is the biggest question imo, can’t just drive an excavator down the street to your local charger.
It's not logistics - it's the electrical infrastructure required to be in place in order to build a temporary power service big enough to charge the iron on site. OK great my 325 EX can now run an 8 hr shift on one charge. How long does it take to charge an electric motor to power a 55,000 excavator in addition to our 22,000 dozer, 10,000 lb skid steer and 12,000 lb mini-ex for starters in addition to all the other lifts, lulls and compact equipment on a typical small commercial site in the middle of the suburbs? Who is going to pay for the power? The GC or the subs? How does that affect general conditions? That is the kind of real time solutions that need to be found in order for this pipe dream of all electric equipment comes to fruition. Just my $.035 adjusted for massive inflation.
Yes, the scale of the power used by an excavator as described above is much more than an over the road semi truck. Sure they have the same amount of power for starting out but once a big truck is headed down the road on flat ground. It doesn't take very much horsepower at all. The excavator on the other hand is pulling hard all the time if it's digging. There's just no way to compare it. And there is no scale to describe the difference in how much current you're going to need to charge that battery pack. Put pencil to paper and figure out how many kilowatt hours of battery pack you're going to have to have to give us 150 horsepower for 8 hours or 1200 horsepower hours. Then you can say you've started to look at the problem. The average EV uses a fraction of the horsepower going down the road.
Electrification of some mini-ex’s and such? Absolutely for indoor and tight residential areas. Bigger stuff? Not feasible. What is being built is really being built for research dollars and a very niche market driven by politics. The most enthusiastic champions of electrification everything have no clue about the real world especially heavy equipment. Also even in a magic world where you could go battery everything you’d still be faced with some stiff charging issues, both physics limited and limited by the grid itself.
Now head to the already remote areas of Canada, then head an additional 70 kilometers off the pavement and up into the mountains. Where's the plug in for the loader, delimber, skidder and buncher?
A rule of thumb you can use for converting gallons of diesel to KWh for a battery is… 1KWh = 0.30 gallons of diesel. So an 86 gallon tank of diesel is equivalent to a 287 kWh battery to get the same run time. In other words, if you use half of an 86 gallon tank per day, then you would use half of the 287kwh battery per day. A 287kwh battery pack would give you about 500KW of power or ~670 HP. A tesla charger (250kW charger) can charge 287kwh battery in about 90 min.
ideally, there would need to be a charging truck (similar to a fuel tanker, except has a giant battery on it) that would be dropped off at your job site and recharged every few days. You can fit a 3 megawatt battery pack on a small flatbed truck. Would be enough power for a week. It would cost $450 worth of electricity. Equivalent diesel would be about ~$3,500.
Talking about costs; There has been serious research to compare costs. Unfortunately, it's about the cost of irrigation in agriculture. https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/665660/comparing-running-costs-of-diesel-lpg-and-electrical-pumpsets.pdf
That's way off of what I found in a quick search. roughly by a factor of 10! " Diesel is the most efficient combustion engine fuel source, carrying 38 kilowatt hours of energy in every gallon — 27 times that of lithium ion batteries ." https://ckpower.com/battery-vs-dies...logy today,is efficient, clean and affordable . another source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_gallon_equivalent Multiply all your battery requirements by 10 to get closer to reality.
Well, I found a website that compares the cost of using a diesel construction machine with an electric one. ROI = Return on investment Electric Equipment ROI: How much can you save? - HEVI Replacing a piece of heavy equipment is a true balancing act. With our article on Electric Equipment ROI, you can see how HEVI helps you save! gethevi.com
That is from the maker of the electric loader. You can be sure it's skewed in their favor. Didn't read it all but does it talk about down time for charging or charging on remote sites? A 906 size is a small loader too.
How much will this truck outfitted with battery cost? Who pays for it? Will the GC need one for the lifts and lulls as well? What about the steel erectors with their electric crane, lulls and lifts? How long does it take to charge the 3 megawatt battery? Who pays for the security guard to sit in the battery truck to keep thieves from stealing it?
IMO- Most people today are confusing electric powered equipment/machinery with – battery powered - equipment/machinery. Battery production for battery powered machinery is using up Rare Earth Minerals at a rapid rate and cannot be sustained for very long. As far as I know there is no method of recycling the used batteries. As such it is an ecological problem yet to be acknowledged in the headlong rush by everyone to get onboard. Electric power is a proven method of use for propulsion or work and if generated by methods -other than battery- will be around for a while. Fuel cells such as used on space craft, hydrogen fuel or some yet to be invented method for producing electricity will likely be around for the future but battery operated electric machinery will soon ‘run down’ and fade away. The only thing left will be the costly environment ‘clean up’ of all the batteries that were created.
No confusion here. My questions are specifically for battery powered construction equipment that needs to be charged by an electrical source to operate.
The battery materials are changing rapidly, and will be much less dependent on rare materials. The battery tech will outrun the rest of the systems needed. LOL I too wondered about the price of that truck, @CM1995 , and the value of it on the stolen goods market. I hope to see some competition in the door walker sized minis for Tenant Improvement (TI) jobs and live office jobs. As it is, I have to go work at night with massive fans going in live buildings. Being quiet and stink free is a huge benefit. The tech is very mature, there are millions of scissor lifts doing this every day and getting plugged in with a 15 amp cord at night. If you needed more juice you could make a charger that used two different 15 amp circuits. All the commercial jobs have plenty of power for that. No need for an electrician to put in a dedicated circuit, and if you really needed that a spider box is a 50 amp 240 volt cable right there. That's a beefy charger!! My guess is that would equal a 50+ sized machine for all day of work.
Some people have no idea how much it takes to feed a 300hp motor working under a sustained load . . .
When Airforce One goes battery it will be time to buy an excavator. Right now AF1 flies with 2 - F16s and a KC135 tanker following.
Until they lead by example I ain't buying what they're selling.
Agreed. Would never ask one of my guys to do something I wouldn't do.
So I shouldn't take the job? haha
Hey if the checks don't bounce........
Shoot, take the job. Real world experience exploring a situation where the answers are really not known yet but have to be worked out....and getting paid to do that exploration... that's wonderful. It sounds like cutting edge stuff that's got to be figured out by somebody. You already know how to ask good questions and aren't afraid to look around unusual places (here) to get some input on answers. Just keep us posted on how it's working out.
Converting diesel (or other) power (with the -energy loss- to do so) to charge a battery (with the -energy loss- to do so) which will convert battery energy (with the -energy loss- to do so) into electric energy seems counter efficient. Every time one form of power/ energy is converted to a different form there is a loss of energy. Of course the -cost - of the original energy resource is a point to consider. If higher prices for the resource are forced higher by regulations or restrictions . . . . . . . It's all about money and who controls the energy resource required. Todays -cheap- could be tomorrows -expensive-.
When the sun gets bigger and hotter and the humans die the machines will run supreme.