[HN Gopher] Why are semi trucks in the US and Europe so differen...
___________________________________________________________________
Why are semi trucks in the US and Europe so different? (2018)
Author : ushakov
Score : 215 points
Date : 2022-02-03 15:15 UTC (7 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (nodum.org)
| unethical_ban wrote:
| >In Europe Semi-trucks are limited to 90 km/h
|
| Wow! That's slower than almost every freeway speed limit in the
| United States, barring some urban spots.
| seszett wrote:
| That's also slower than every freeway speed limit in Europe for
| cars. Trucks just have a lower speed limit. They are also
| limited to 80 km/h where cars are limited to 90 km/h.
| masklinn wrote:
| IIRC trucks also get special speed limits (usually to 80 or
| 70) on some difficult highway spots, they also often et
| additional semi-dedicated "slow vehicle" lanes on climbs.
| digisign wrote:
| One of my favorite shows as a kid was "B. J. and the Bear" about
| a trucker and his chimpanzee oddly (now that I think of it) named
| Bear:
|
| https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bj+mccay+bear&ia=web
|
| Yes, the truck is cab-on-top as well. :-D
|
| Seems like the engine forward design could be made safer with the
| ubiquitous vehicle cameras of today, but neither the article nor
| the Volvo video make mention of them.
| pier25 wrote:
| Do European trucks make less noise too?
|
| I'm from Spain but moved to Mexico 13 years ago. Here it's
| somewhat common to hear truck noises like when doing engine
| braking. I don't recall ever hearing that in Spain.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Most of the time engine braking is banned within US city
| limits, there are signs posted outside of towns "No engine
| braking".
| rootusrootus wrote:
| It varies by region, I'm sure, but every sign I've ever seen
| prohibiting engine braking has been specific that only
| _unmuffled_ engine braking is prohibited.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| No they aren't allowed whether they are muffled or not if
| it says "no engine breaking".
| ysangkok wrote:
| Seems like Mexicans are not punished for taking off the muffler
| or generally just using 'unsafe' vehicles.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Seems like Mexicans are not punished for taking off the
| muffler or generally just using 'unsafe' vehicles._
|
| When I visit Juarez, I'm always surprised to see all of the
| used school buses that are no longer considered road-worthy
| in America that area used for all kinds of things. Very often
| they leave the names of the American schools on the side.
| consp wrote:
| Maybe automatic vs manual gearboxes?
| bsedlm wrote:
| As far as I'm aware, in the mexican transport industry is a
| common practice to overload the trucks as much as possible.
|
| This is so widespread that any company which doesn't do it is
| likely less profitable than all the rest which do overload
| hence they have to overload to be competitive.
|
| I like to frame this in terms of an overruling pragmatism in
| mexican culture, as long as the truck still goes everything is
| just fine.
|
| I suppose overloaded trucks (under more stress) are louder.
| xenonite wrote:
| It would be interesting to factor in the higher maintenance
| costs, including road maintenance.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Europe has strict noise regulations that even regular trucks
| have a hard time meeting, much less a jake brake [1]. In the US
| these are no problem since such large swaths of the country are
| unpopulated, but here in Europe you got small villages next to
| highways all the time.
|
| Here, the more expensive hydraulic retarders are the most
| common brakes (additional to the standard brakes on the wheels,
| of course).
|
| [1]: https://www.verkehrsrundschau.de/nachrichten/nfz-
| fuhrpark/ne...
| crottypeter wrote:
| Another source on the "Jake brake" https://en.wikipedia.org/w
| iki/Compression_release_engine_bra...
| spookthesunset wrote:
| And to quote the important part:
|
| "Most diesel engines do not have a throttle body, so
| regardless of throttle setting a full charge of air is
| always drawn into the cylinders (excluding the valve fitted
| to certain diesels, such as fire appliances and generators
| on oil and gas platforms, to prevent diesel engine
| runaway). Compressed air generated during the compression
| stroke acts as an air spring to push the piston back down.
| As such, even with fuel supply cut off and no power strokes
| taking place, a portion of the energy absorbed by the
| compression stroke within each cylinder is returned to the
| crankshaft. This results in very little engine braking
| being applied to the vehicle.
|
| The typical compression brake consists of a hydraulic
| system using engine oil which transfers the motion of the
| fuel injector rocker arm to the engine's exhaust valve(s).
| When activated, the exhaust valve opens very briefly near
| the engine's top dead center, and releases the compressed
| air in the cylinder so that the energy is not returned to
| the crankshaft. If used properly, a compression release
| brake can assist a vehicle to maintain or even reduce speed
| with minimal use of the service brakes. The power of this
| type can be around the same as the engine power."
|
| Basically, jake brakes vent the compressed air in the
| cylinders at the top of the cycle.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Most (many?) US municipalities prohibit the use of engine
| braking within their boundaries.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| _Unmuffled_ jake brakes, as far as I have ever seen. You
| can still use one as long as it 's muffled.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| 1) https://www.google.com/search?q=no+engine+brake+sign+U
| SA&tbm...
|
| 2) https://www.quora.com/Do-no-engine-brakes-signs-apply-
| to-muf...
| nixass wrote:
| Do truck in Europe even use jake brake? I cannot remember
| I've ever heard one, while in few days in the USA/CA I've
| heard one every single day on highway
| mschuster91 wrote:
| It isn't even _allowed_ to put jake brakes on trucks here,
| the model would not be certified as the noise emission
| limits have to be adhered at all times during the operation
| of the vehicle.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Is that true, or just unmuffled jake brakes? It's pretty
| common in the US for unmuffled jake brakes to be
| prohibited in populated areas.
| tgtweak wrote:
| Ford used to make some cab-over semi trucks that were very
| popular in the US during the 80's and early 90's and resembled
| very closely the European designs of today.
|
| I think it's pretty obvious and comes down to a few things:
|
| * European trucks typically run shorter hauls, and do not require
| a bunk in the cab as often as multi-day cross-country runs.
|
| * European Semi's need to accommodate all countries' roads and
| parking lots. This means the much wider range of nonstandard
| roads, docks, fueling stations and parking lots extends much
| farther towards the "small" side. Tight streets and parking lots
| - making it necessary for the truck to be shorter for tighter
| turns and parking compatibility.
|
| * It has been proven that a cab-forward design is safer for
| avoiding accidents directly in front of the vehicles, something
| that is more focused on in the EU.
|
| * The least obvious but possibly the most relevant reason why it
| remains: Having and ingraining differing standards makes it
| harder for a single competitor to play into the both markets. EU
| is largely locked down by EU manufacturers since any US
| manufacturers would have to significantly change their design and
| production to sell there.
|
| The fuel economy point seems to be a distant consideration since
| the majority of drag economy comes from the trailer and not the
| tractor.
| ska wrote:
| The article brings all of this up, as well as the prevalence of
| "sleeper" cabs in US but not EU. This all seems pretty
| obviously likely to contribute.
|
| One non obvious thing in article; apparently up until 1986 both
| US and Europe had a strict limit on length of trailer + truck,
| which is a clear incentive to shorter cabs (gets you more
| trailer). In 86 US relaxed this, correlates pretty well with
| the fall off on cab-over designs.
| mantas wrote:
| Sleeper cabs are popular in Europe too. But sleeper part is
| rather tiny. Yet trucker still sleep in them for weeks.
| buildsjets wrote:
| And that is the difference between a hired employee and an
| owner-operator.
| futharkshill wrote:
| Most truckers in Denmark own their own trucks?
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| I mean, I'm sure European truckers would love a full
| kitchen, a shower and a double bed if they could get it.
| But the length limits would still be a problem and it
| would be hard enough to stay competitive without having
| to refuse the standard length trailers.
| AshleyGrant wrote:
| You're not going to see a full kitchen and shower in a
| standard sleeper cab. You'll get one or two beds, maybe a
| dinette, a microwave, and a fridge. To get the kitchen
| and shower, you're going to have to go custom. Going
| custom, you're only limited by money, space, and
| regulations.
| [deleted]
| brnt wrote:
| In NL plenty of truckers own their own truck.
| mantas wrote:
| I doubt euro trucks had different chassis designs if
| trucks were owned by truckers.
|
| But trucking in Europe is a mess with massive companies
| squeezing truckers and importing cheaper workers from
| wherever to keep salaries low and conditions shitty.
|
| At least one sector where Europe out-big-corps US?
| ska wrote:
| Fair enough, that was sloppy terminology of me!
| CountSessine wrote:
| _It has been proven that a cab-forward design is safer for
| avoiding accidents directly in front of the vehicles, something
| that is more focused on in the EU._
|
| Ironic, because back in the 70's when there were more CoE
| designs driving around in the US, it was generally known
| through crash tests that CoE cab trucks were a lot less safe
| than conventional cab trucks in front-end collisions because of
| the driver's distance to the collision.
|
| If CoE trucks have gotten safer in front-end collisions, it's
| because a lot of engineering work has been done to mitigate
| this old problem.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| There's safer as in "less likely for the driver of this
| vehicle to cause a crash" and there is safer as in "in the
| event of a collision, it is safer for the driver to be in
| this car than that one."
| teknopaul wrote:
| Neatly distinguishing the EU from the US.
| oblio wrote:
| The 70's were 50 years ago.
|
| Back then we barely had seat belts, let alone airbags,
| adaptive cruise control, automated braking in case of
| collision, blind spot detectors, etc.
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| OP said cab over engine is safer for avoiding accidents
| (probably because of increased visibility). Not necessarily
| safer when an accident occurs.
| tgtweak wrote:
| Correct, it has been proven many times that the lack of
| blindspot directly in front of the vehicle (to the driver)
| is the main factor. New "stubby" nose school bus designs
| greatly improved this over existing ones which were closer
| to a semi. Lately, front cameras and warning systems have
| made this less of a concern but it still remains the case.
| animal_spirits wrote:
| CoE are better at _preventing_ collisions because of a better
| field of view, but I'm not sure how good safe they are when
| there is a collision
| rmason wrote:
| Spoke with a trucker about this very issue. He started out
| driving CoE trucks and said when there's a crash the driver
| is ejected out through the window. Now this was before the
| days of airbags but that would be enough to discourage
| their use. He said it got so drivers refused to work at
| companies who used them. However it was the desire for
| increased fuel economy that finally ended their reign.
| pmontra wrote:
| No safety belts?
| teknopaul wrote:
| This. However... Might help if you drive your semi into a
| brick wall at speed. Just because you are more likely the
| truck goes through the wall before the cab does. Which
| happens, someone drove a semi into a data center of ours.
| Fortunately DR response included this type is disaster.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| I've no doubt that the old CoE trucks from the 60s were
| death traps. But I'd be interested in seeing what the
| difference is between a modern European Volvo (one of the
| few companies who build both types) and a US version. I
| would be very surprised if the difference wasn't
| negligible. Putting the engine out front is a brute force
| way of providing safety which isn't necessary with modern
| design.
| spollo wrote:
| Maybe dumb question- I've never been in a truck. Wouldn't
| the distance from seat to window be ~pretty much the same
| whether it's CoE or conventional?
|
| There's a hood in front of you for conventional, and I
| guess crumple zone deceleration comes in to play there?
| But as this article mentioned US trucks have a much
| higher average/top speed so you're probably just as
| likely to go through the window.
| marmakoide wrote:
| European trucks cross multiple countries during a trip with the
| same driver. In France, by looking at the vehicle plate, trucks
| come from Spain, Portugal, Lituania, Poland, Germany, etc Those
| are 2 to 3 days trips.
| suction wrote:
| This. In the EU, trucks drive from Finland to Portugal, same
| driver. Americans really don't get Europe.
| jsdwarf wrote:
| Another reason is that longer trucks are harder to overtake on
| motorways, the longer the truck the higher the risks for
| accidents. Europe has smaller highways and country roads.
|
| Furthermore truck logistics in the USA is mainly based on FTL
| (full truck load), which means the truck just drives from A to
| B. In Europe LTL (less than truck load) is more common, which
| means pickup and delivery on multiple stops. This requires a
| better maneuverability, hence shorter trucks.
| tgtweak wrote:
| LTL also makes more sense with shorter trailers, since you
| can unload and reload the trailer quickly without having to
| play Jenga at the dock. It also encourages depot-to-depot
| runs vs supplier-to-client, which leads to the average trip
| length being shorter.
|
| Another factor unmentioned is the amount of independent
| truckers in the US who own their trucks and who primarily do
| longhaul sorties spanning a week or more. Can't find any data
| on this but it is a very commonplace thing in the US for
| truckers to live in their trucks more than their homes and
| I'm not sure that is the case in the EU.
| brainwipe wrote:
| Although runs appear shorter in the EU, they're still multi-
| day. Lisbon to Edinburg is a 2000 mile drive. Most drivers kip
| in their cabs, not at home.
|
| IMO it's entirely down to the road networks. Driving across the
| US is like driving across one very broad road network. Driving
| across Europe is like driving on many fragmented, narrow road
| networks.
| teknopaul wrote:
| [citation needed] Europe has a network of motorways. Last
| mile is a different story, probably the whole story.
| Aloha wrote:
| I suspect all of this is wrong.
|
| The maximum length of an articulated vehicle in Germany (and
| most of europe) is 16.5m or 54 ft. [1]
|
| The maximum length of a vehicle in California is 65 ft.
| California is one of the more restrictive states when it comes
| to vehicle length simply because of the age of the road
| network.
|
| The longest vehicle you'll see in the states are turnpike
| doubles, which are around 130 ft long, the longest total
| permitted vehicle length in Europe is 65 ft.
|
| The US used cabovers before vehicle length rules were
| liberalized, and thats why we don't anymore, drivers prefer
| conventional trucks, the ride better, largely handle better,
| and are safer for the driver.
|
| [1] https://www.itf-
| oecd.org/sites/default/files/docs/dimensions...
| autoexec wrote:
| < California is one of the more restrictive states when it
| comes to vehicle length simply because of the age of the road
| network.
|
| What makes the road network in CA so old compared to eastern
| states that had roads built so much earlier?
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| California has A LOT of roads given its size, and density
| is focused in the big cities, so you have a lot of country
| roads to maintain with limited revenue to maintain them.
|
| A lot of highways in California have warnings like "no
| services for 100 miles" and you won't encounter a lot of
| other vehicles (similar to Nevada and Oregon adjacent).
| JudasGoat wrote:
| " drivers prefer conventional trucks, the ride better,
| largely handle better, and are safer for the driver." I drove
| truck in the 90's and the joke back then was "cabover
| driver's were the first to arrive at the scene of an
| accident".
| oblio wrote:
| Are they better for pedestrians, cyclists, bikers and other
| drivers, though? I imagine it's much easier to see things
| in front of you with the cabover design.
|
| Personally I'd optimize a bit more for everyone else's
| safety, since you know, there's more of them. Plus a semi
| is a multi-ton missile going 90kmph.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| Can you share evidence they aren't better?
|
| School buses typically have a large nose in front of the
| driver. Are they unsafe?
| u320 wrote:
| Sweden and Finland allows up to 25.5 m.
| Aloha wrote:
| I did indeed say, _most_ of Europe.
| mcguire wrote:
| " _The maximum length of a vehicle in California is 65 ft.
| California is one of the more restrictive states when it
| comes to vehicle length simply because of the age of the road
| network._ "
|
| Sort of.
|
| https://dot.ca.gov/programs/traffic-operations/legal-
| truck-a...
|
| The STAA (Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982)
| trucks can have unlimited length cabs but are primarily
| limited to interstates and marked state routes.
| tgtweak wrote:
| Bit of a shitshow of authorities for any given piece of
| road but generally speaking it's the city streets and town-
| level jurisdictions that get restrictive moreso than
| interstates and major highways.
|
| There is also the weight factor - even if you could legally
| have 90ft trailers and 25ft cabs, it would probably put you
| over the weight limit for many roadways and negate the
| savings.
| Aloha wrote:
| As someone who drove trucks and was licensed in California
| - California has other rules that limit, including axle to
| tandem limits, and not allowing triples or turnpike doubles
| (both of which are allowed elsewhere, but not federally
| required). The unlimited length of tractor has practical
| considerations too, there are reasons why 95% of the long
| haul fleet is conventional condo sleepers (notwithstanding
| the folks who drive a RV style sleeper, with a little
| living area in it) - and 95% of the local fleet are
| conventional day cabs, mostly driver preference.
|
| So while yes, I used California's state limit as an easy
| from of comparison, because it is one of more restrictive
| western states - you're correct in that the STAA allows a
| longer tractor. In the end, the rules are lightly enforced
| - but the state limits guide the total length of
| combination. It's why (for example) you almost never see
| doubles being pulled by anything other than a day cab.
| froh wrote:
| European semis all have a bunk beds, for two. They don't
| feature a kitchen though, and in the evenings the truckers
| gather in truck stops which serve humongous servings. These
| truck stops are all along the freeways all over Europe.
|
| There is a maximum vehicle length though, and a maximum weight,
| the former ensures vehicle maneuverability, the latter serves
| road stability, bridge specifications, optimized no-waste
| parking provisions for pass-through parking spots in said truck
| stops edit: and ferry capacity. Ireland, Finland are connected
| by Ferry.
|
| Manufacturing is pretty much internationalized, reusing parts
| and designs globally. Freightliner and Daimler are one company,
| for example.
|
| Fuel economy is indeed a point, albeit the combo of trailer and
| truck define the overall fuel economy. As the trailer usually
| is equivalent to a standard 40ft container, the ideal truck has
| a boring standard form, too.
|
| The text is German, the pictures are self explanatory-ish
| though wrt optimal and sub optimal wind resistance:
| https://en.vda.de/dam/vda/publications/FAT-SCHRIFTENREIHE%20...
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| This is completely off topic, but does anyone know of a way
| to get a top-tier search engine to return the best results
| across all languages rather than the language matching that
| of the search query + English, as they are wont to do?
| AaronNewcomer wrote:
| I do a lot of research for historical things and often want
| results from other languages and have found on Google if
| you search for something and then click the settings icon
| and then click languages you can choose multiple results
| for "Currently showing search results in:" which will give
| you results in the languages you choose.
|
| I typically do this in incognito windows as I do not always
| want for instance English and Italian results.
| sdk16420 wrote:
| If there is a wikipedia entry on the topic, use the
| interlanguage links to find the most commonly used words
| for that term in a foreign language.
| mastazi wrote:
| Yes I agree this is what I do all the time and it works
| in most cases
| [deleted]
| algo_trader wrote:
| Have u seen any studies on how to add a detachable battery
| pack to an existing truck configuration?
|
| For example, a 2mx2mx0.5m pack can be slotted between the
| cabin and trailer.
|
| A 2mx6mx0.25cm can be laid on the roof ?
|
| Etc..
|
| (I have seen demos of an Australian truck where the fossil
| engine is removed, and the pack is inserted from the front.)
| croes wrote:
| Just because the distances are shorter doesn't mean they drive
| to the destination and back again.
|
| They could easily have multiple destinations they drive to one
| after the other, with different cargo each time
| mastazi wrote:
| European cabovers have beds[1]. Sometimes a double bunk[2]. But
| they don't have a living area with kitchen etc. like American
| conventional trucks often do.
|
| > makes it harder for a single competitor to play into the both
| markets
|
| I don't think this is the case, because many of the top
| European and American brands are owned by the same
| conglomerates. For example Paccar owns DAF in Europe and
| Kenworth and Peterbilt in America.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3O3ixew1kA
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flScrV0pQwU
| martyvis wrote:
| This Tesla was pushed for half a mile seemingly oblivious to
| the driver of this conventional cab semi.
|
| https://youtu.be/A5GePY23FxI
| jve wrote:
| > * European trucks typically run shorter hauls, and do not
| require a bunk in the cab as often as multi-day cross-country
| runs.
|
| I find it hard to believe. There are tons of trucks, having
| multi-day cross-country runs. I know a few truckers, they all
| have. They sleep in their cabs. Sometimes there are 2 truckers,
| so they can swap whenever limits reached.
|
| I see trucks from different countries any time I hit the road.
| If you ride on German autobahn, there is a never-ending stream
| of trucks from different countries.
| tgtweak wrote:
| EU has a LOT more truck volume (both in terms of per capita
| and percentage of freight shipped by truck). This has some
| complex and not so obvious implications on how long things
| get hauled. The smaller trucks also make it more economical
| to do trips between hubs vs hauling across 3000kms (which is
| reasonably common in the US). Smaller trailer capacity (due
| to EU length restrictions) and increased depot/truck
| distribution means a heavier distribution towards shorter
| hauling.
| zardo wrote:
| Are there any routes in Europe as long as the US coast-to-
| coast haul?
| teknopaul wrote:
| Quick look at a map will tell you yes. Might not be as
| common, but I am sure fruit gets delivered to Finland from
| Andalucia by road.
| zardo wrote:
| I'm sure trailers make the trip. But are they pulled by
| one tractor the whole way?
| matli wrote:
| Yes.
| throw0101a wrote:
| Also cargo rail is supposedly not a prevalent in the EU as it
| is in the US. (Vice versa for passenger rail.)
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| I was a little curious if there was a difference in honking
| power. Now that it became political to honk at the world.
| Hbruz0 wrote:
| Ugh, one of those articles that paraphrases its title 5 times
| before giving a very short answer...
| SamBam wrote:
| How can I make a 300 word article into an 800 word article?
|
| Actually, I think I just saw a GPT-3 application that allowed
| you to "lengthen" text.
| [deleted]
| Hokusai wrote:
| > Actually, I think I just saw a GPT-3 application that
| allowed you to "lengthen" text.
|
| And a browser extension that shrinks it. And the AI wars
| continue.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| US trucks have a more ornate design, while European ones are
| blockier
|
| I find this very similar to US vs EU fridges: US ones are
| metallic, rounded and bulky, European ones are, in new kitchens,
| integrated behind cabinet doors that look the same as the other
| cabinets, a more minimalist design.
|
| But then why does software/apps from the US look so minimalist
| like the European fridges?
| fleddr wrote:
| Johny Ive did it.
| dmitriid wrote:
| Finally! Someone who asked and explored this question!
|
| I had this same question for years :)
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| Agreed :)
|
| But I'm not quite sure I'm satisfied that this explains why
| they are so different. It is hard for me to believe that
| American semi-trucks are more fuel efficient than European ones
| (fuel is so much more expensive in Europe!), but this article
| seems to imply that they are.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Fuel is more expensive, but not more expensive than trimming
| 8 feet off of the trailer (and reducing hauling capacity).
| 1123581321 wrote:
| I don't believe the US trucks have more efficient engines
| (yet--this is changing due to new EPA standards.) They just
| haul more, which is a more efficient use of expensive drivers
| in addition to making the most of the engine's fuel
| consumption.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| I appreciate that explanation, thanks
| eMSF wrote:
| > They just haul more
|
| Not really, they are just longer. For example the US
| interstates have a rather strict total weight limit (even
| by European standards) of 36 tonnes. Where I live, the
| general legal limit is 76 tonnes, and there are specific
| (every-day) routes with vehicles weighing over 100 tonnes.
| Granted, such heavy trucks with special permits are longer
| than the 18.75 metres mentioned in the article, but even
| then you wouldn't want to make them any longer by wasting
| space for an overlong cab.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Interesting; thank you. It looks like the federal limit
| in the US is 40 tons; some states are higher and others
| are lower. EU appears to mostly limit to 44 tons.
| Extensive freight rail in the US precludes much of the
| need for special high-tonnage routes, though you'll see
| unusual items transported on trailers with extra axles
| from time to time.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Weight, the longer wheelbase US trucks haul less total
| tonnage than the shorter wheelbase EU trucks purely due
| to regulations? Or are you talking about rare cases that
| hit the limit? Because I would never have suspected that.
| goodcanadian wrote:
| Aerodynamic efficiency matters much more in North America as
| average speeds are much higher over much longer distances.
| Wind resistance increases with the square of speed, so it is
| entirely possible that American trucks are burning more fuel
| per mile in spite of being more aerodynamic.
| dharmab wrote:
| Cab over is a less aerodynamic shape (it's essentially a
| box). Conventional designs allow more aero features.
| kergonath wrote:
| > Conventional designs allow more aero features.
|
| "Conventional" is such a poor label. Convention depends on
| the context. The conventional form factor here is cab over.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Like when Americans talk about a 'full size' car they
| mean an over-size one in our perspective.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Conventional in terms of trucks overall, cabover did not
| come first for trucks, nor is it a conventional design.
|
| It's not uncommon for non-cabover to be referred to as
| conventional. GP is using the correct terminology.
|
| https://www.innomotivesolutions.com/about/blog/item/cab-
| over...
|
| https://www.smart-trucking.com/cabovers-make-a-comeback/
|
| https://powertorque.com.au/cabover-vs-conventional-and-
| euro-...
| kergonath wrote:
| I am not saying they were wrong, just that the
| terminology is stupid. Convention has nothing to do with
| what came first.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Aerodynamics.
| kipchak wrote:
| Anecdotally from playing Euro Truck Simulator, shorter trucks are
| also helpful in German zipper merge lanes, which are quite a bit
| smaller than typical US merge lanes. This article has a pretty
| good photo.
|
| https://www.ozy.com/the-new-and-the-next/german-roads-are-sm...
| exabrial wrote:
| The better question is why are Russian trucks and their drivers
| so different: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_OcK0P9WOs
| drpgq wrote:
| So Optimus Prime was more the European style
| causi wrote:
| Cab-over trucks were more common in the US in the past.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Cab-over trucks were more common in the US in the past._
|
| I remember this, too. I had toy trucks when I was a kid and
| they were all the snub-nose design.
|
| Interestingly, school buses seem to have gone the opposite
| way. When I was a kid, they had the long nose, but now most
| that I see are snub-nosed.
|
| Does anyone know the term for those little "hopper" trucks
| that are used at ports and large post offices and such? The
| ones where the cab of the tractor trailer only exists on
| the left or right side of the tractor? I've heard that
| since they don't travel on public roads that they aren't
| subjected to environmental or safety rules.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Yard tractors or terminal tractors. Sometimes called
| "yard dogs"
| smhg wrote:
| If others are wondering what a road train looks like:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_train
| Robotbeat wrote:
| I think the efficiency impact is important over the highway.
| There's a pretty big drag difference. Drag being about half of
| the force needed for the engine to overcome at highways speeds in
| the US. Especially if you're already making efforts to reduce
| rolling resistance, drag can make a significant impact on the
| range of electric Semis (plus of course the operating costs and
| time to recharge and cost and lifetime of the battery).
|
| These things are easy to overlook if you're just using diesel,
| but they matter a lot for electric. A cab-over semi might have a
| combined drag coefficient of over 0.7, whereas the Tesla Semi is
| around 0.35. So the 500 mile range of the Tesla Semi may be just
| 375 miles if using a conventional European cab-over design. That
| reduces the life of the battery as well, increases the proportion
| of the time spent charging, the cost per mile to charge, etc. And
| it can't just be compensated with a bigger battery, either,
| because the vehicle is already near or at the weight limit.
|
| Drag actually matters.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| This is what the article should have been:
|
| > Maximum length of a truck with a semi-trailer in Europe is
| 18.75 meters. Some countries have some exceptions, but generally
| that is the rule. In order to use the maximum of this length for
| the cargo the tractor unit has to be as short as possible. The
| best way to achieve that is to mount the cabin over the engine.
|
| That's it. Headline with a question and that one paragraph. This
| article to me is an example of why articles on the modern web are
| bad. All the rest is there to keep you on the page longer and get
| better SEO.
| berkut wrote:
| Whilst there is some SEO repetition in the article, there's
| also a lot more information in there than your "summary",
| including some of the pros and cons of each and actual
| descriptions of the different designs.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Pros/Cons don't directly answer the question though. That's
| just pontificating on the subject to add fluff.
| sgt wrote:
| Agree. Reading the whole article was painful. Especially the US
| trucks that reach "137km/h". Clearly a direct conversion from
| mph, but it doesn't read great.
| [deleted]
| rPlayer6554 wrote:
| So why is that rule there? The article describes the cultural
| and geographic reasons why the eruopean design is feasible and
| preferred in the EU, but makes less sense in the US.
| efficax wrote:
| It's not likely that Europe would move to traditional cab
| trucks if they relaxed the length rules since they still have
| to deal with the tighter road and parking conditions of
| European infrastructure
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Depends on what drives the requirements. The cabin over
| engine design is probably a bigger PITA to service. If that
| adds $, people would move away from it.
|
| The other thing to consider is driving distance and how it
| drives design. I would imagine the count of trucks that need
| sleeper compartments is much higher in the United States, and
| adopting a design that keeps parts more consistent for
| sleeper cabin and non-sleeper models probably has
| manufacturing benefits.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| >The cabin over engine design is probably a bigger PITA to
| service
|
| not really, the whole cabin lifts up:
| https://i.imgur.com/pqXW1YH.jpg
| buildsjets wrote:
| Where's the engine? That level of access looks absolutely
| abysmal and a huge pain for the maintenance technician,
| compared to this:
|
| https://www.dreamstime.com/brown-big-rig-semi-truck-open-
| hoo...
| was_a_dev wrote:
| European cabs are traditional.
|
| At least in Europe
| ajmurmann wrote:
| Given the regulation prevents this counterfactual from being
| tested at all, this is really just speculation.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| I guess you didn't read the rest. The fact that European
| drivers also don't care about living quarters was another big
| reason. Additionally, regardless of whether there's a legal
| length requirement in the EU I would assume drivers would still
| choose the cab over engine design due to maneuverability in
| tight urban settings (also mentioned in the article).
|
| I quite liked the other information provided. You suggesting
| that an article should contain less information seems quite
| silly. You know what you could do? Don't read the rest and you
| won't have an issue....
| ajmurmann wrote:
| They could have put the answer to the question in the title
| at the top and follow with sections on pros / cons, history,
| etc. But that would lower reader numbers.
|
| Anything about if the difference would remain if the
| regulation wasn't in place is just speculation. It's like
| saying, if C wasn't a hard limit for travel speed, would we
| have space ships that travel faster than light?
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| Let me tell you about how my great grandmother traveled from
| Germany in the 1930s in a mail carrier to bring this cookie
| recipe to the new world.
| wffurr wrote:
| >> Similar requirements in US have been revoked back in 1986
| and trucks now can be much longer.
|
| Why did they do that? Ugh. I'd much rather have the shorter and
| safer trucks around than the current US designs.
|
| >> In Europe Semi-trucks are limited to 90 km/h
|
| 55 saves lives.
|
| >> Cities in US have wide streets and interstate highways are
| very straight and wide.
|
| #notallcities Too bad Boston doesn't have the authority to
| regulate truck designs allowed in the city. Or maybe they do
| and just aren't doing it because of the economic impact of
| requiring transshipping from highway semis to local delivery
| trucks outside the city. I wish they would anyway.
| IncRnd wrote:
| > 55 saves lives.
|
| Actually that's not true. [1] In 1995 the
| Republican Congress repealed the 55-mile-per-hour federal
| speed limit law. At the time, the highway safety lobby
| and consumer advocacy groups made apocalyptic
| predictions about 6,400 increased deaths and a million
| additional injuries if posted speed limits were raised. Ralph
| Nader even said that "history will never forgive
| Congress for this assault on the sanctity of human
| life." But almost all measures of highway safety
| show improvement, not more deaths and injuries since
| 1995. Despite the fact that 33 states raised their speed
| limits immediately after the repeal of the mandatory federal
| speed limit, the National Highway Traffic Safety
| Administration reported last October that "the traffic
| death rate dropped to a record low level in 1997." Moreover,
| the average fatality rate even fell in the states that
| raised their speed limits. Higher speed limits
| have not caused one million more auto injuries. In fact,
| in 1997 there were 66,000 fewer road injuries than in 1995,
| the year before the speed limits were raised. The
| injury rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled fell
| to its lowest level ever recorded in 1997. If the injury rate
| on the roads had been as high in 1997 as it had been in 1995,
| approximately 17,000 more Americans would have been
| injured on the roads.
|
| [1] https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/speed-doesnt-kill-
| repea...
| dubbel wrote:
| I skimmed through the analysis.
|
| Figure 1 is pretty funny, given it's x-axis of 1.5 to 1.7
| it on first glance seems to show a 50% drop in the deaths
| per 100M vehicle miles traveled in between 1996 and 1997
| (1.7 to 1.6). That is even though they do show the exact
| numbers (1.69 and 1.64). But let's blame that on the word
| processors of the time (1999).
|
| The difference in deaths per 100M miles of vehicle travel
| between 1995 and 1997 of all States that Raised Speed
| Limits is -5.6%, while it's -6.3% for the states which kept
| the old one.
| m463 wrote:
| It's been long known (yet unpopular to report) that speed
| variance is what is dangerous, not speed.
|
| Basically the difference between the "common sense speed"
| for a road and the posted speed limit correlates to
| accident rate.
| davidjade wrote:
| But how much of that is due to safer automobiles?
|
| How has the accident rate been affected?
| mikestew wrote:
| There's a two year difference between measurements, as
| described in the quoted part of the above comment. Cars
| didn't change _that_ much in those two years*, nor did
| everyone go out and buy new cars.
|
| * Airbags were already mandated in the U. S. at that
| point, and though I oddly can't find a reference, I
| believe anti-lock brakes were mandatory at that point,
| too.
| saila wrote:
| Reading through this, it doesn't sound like ABS was
| required in 2009: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Pu
| blic/ViewPublication/....
|
| Another source says it's been required (federally) as of
| 2013: https://knowhow.napaonline.com/what-does-abs-mean-
| on-a-car/.
| mikestew wrote:
| Man, I could have sworn ABS became mandated standard
| sometime in the 90s. Thanks for going to the trouble to
| find references.
| voakbasda wrote:
| The effects were measured right before and after the
| speed limits were change, and cars did not magically get
| a lot safer at that exact same time. Thus, automobile
| safety seems to be an irrelevant variable in the quoted
| study.
| Someone wrote:
| If cars, on average, last 20 years, 10% of cars get
| replaced in two years time. That can be significant.
|
| I also would think cars that get replaced are driven a
| lot more kilometers per year, so chances are a lot over
| 10% of all kilometers driven were in newer cars.
|
| = I'm not convinced increasing the speed limit didn't
| make roads less safe.
|
| Reading https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pd
| f/pa346.pdf, fatality rate dropped from about 1.7 to
| about 1.6. That's about 6%.
|
| Eyeballing figure 1 in https://www.euro.who.int/__data/as
| sets/pdf_file/0015/43314/E..., I see a drop that could be
| of similar size in the EU, too.
|
| = I'm not convinced increasing the speed limits made the
| roads less safe, either.
|
| In general, highways are about the safest roads, anyways,
| so you probably would have to look at safety only on
| those roads with higher speeds to be able to answer the
| question whether safety went up/down/nowhere.
| yardie wrote:
| How many are attributable to widespread airbag installment.
| Introduced in the 80s, common by the 90s, mandatory by 98.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| jimmaswell wrote:
| They might be safer for someone who sneaks into a blind spot
| while the truck is stopped, but there's no reason that can't
| be solved with sensors and cameras. The longer style is
| probably safer for the driver in any case though.
| Osiris wrote:
| The 55 mph speed limit was enacted as a way to improve fuel
| economy and reduce the reliance on foreign oil in the 70s. It
| had nothing to do with safety.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > Too bad Boston doesn't have the authority
|
| Boston most definitely bans trucks on certain roads. That's
| their authority shining through.
| mattkrause wrote:
| Enforcement is practically automatic on Starrow Drive.
|
| https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2021/08/19/boston-
| sto...
| Johnny555 wrote:
| _55 saves lives._
|
| I'm not sure that it it does based on accident statistics,
| and probably the best thing they could do to increase road
| safety is to remove the truck speed limit in my state, either
| let everyone go 70mph or everyone go 60mph, but don't
| intentionally increase interactions between cars and trucks
| by giving them different speed limits.
|
| One thing 55mph _does_ do is help with gas mileage. I drive a
| hybrid and get around 48 mpg at 55mph and 41 mpg at 70mph.
| This is a relatively aerodynamic sedan, I 'd imagine that the
| difference is even greater for trucks and big SUV's.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| As far as big SUVs go, I drive an '04 Ford Expedition
| (parents gave it to me years ago when they no longer needed
| the child transporter and it's stupid easy to keep
| running).
|
| If I drive 55 mph, I get 20 mpg on the highway. If I "drive
| with the traffic" in CA, I can get as low as 14-15 mpg.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| In my limited experience with LA traffic, "drive with the
| traffic" means stop-and-go traffic :-) In stop-and-go, I
| usually get around 52 mpg. Which is why I got the hybrid
| in the first place, to commute in rush hour traffic, but
| I bought it just before the pandemic and work-from-home,
| so never really used it to commute.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| Oh, stop and go traffic is real, real bad for me (10-12
| mpg). I was talking about matching speed with the person
| in front of you on the highway. That number doesn't
| necessarily correspond with the speed limit.
|
| I might have gone to a hybrid or an electric car already
| if it wasn't for the fact that I lived next to my office
| and walked to work. Then the pandemic happened and I
| rarely go anywhere :(
|
| Felt real weird having an apartment right next to your
| office but working from home because it was closed. Ended
| up just getting rid of it and moving in with my parents
| because living alone while not being able to see anyone
| was not doing kind things to my mental state.
| [deleted]
| mjmahone17 wrote:
| NYC bans truck+trailer lengths over 55' long, which bans all
| 53' trailers.
|
| Unfortunately the city doesn't do a good job enforcing this
| requirement, so we have a few dozen people die each year due
| to trucks that don't fit on the street hitting a pedestrian
| or bicyclist.
| hermitdev wrote:
| > 55 saves lives.
|
| No, it doesn't. It was a pointless law that was seldom
| enforced and blatantly ignored. It really only served as yet
| another reason for authorities to pull someone over due to
| profiling. Traffic is much safer if you have everyone
| traveling at or near the same speed, rather than having a
| wide differential on the road. It's also why US interstates
| have minimum speeds. US highways would be safer if the speed
| limits were set to something that actually makes sense for
| the road. I gather from your comment you're east coast
| centric. There are humongous parts of the US after you get
| west of the Appalachians where 75-85 MPH speed limits are
| reasonable and would be safe on interstates.
|
| Safety is much more than a catchy slogan.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > seldom enforced
|
| I think that depends on where you lived and drove. In New
| Jersey it was heavily enforced for a couple of decades.
| drivers99 wrote:
| The US is lagging behind other countries in lowering
| deaths. https://data.oecd.org/transport/road-accidents.htm
| otherme123 wrote:
| I think you are both right. In Europe 55 (90 km/h) saves
| lifes, with some exceptions. Highways are rarely wide and
| straight, and they are packed with traffic. I cannot
| imagine a truck happily cruising at 120 km/h here.
|
| Also we pay higher gas prices, no way a truck is profitable
| cruising at 120 km/h.
| wffurr wrote:
| I sure made folks mad with the "55 saves lives" throwaway
| line.
|
| I'm hoping the need to extend EV range brings US highway
| speeds down to something reasonable, but I'm not optimistic.
| e40 wrote:
| > I'd much rather have the shorter and safer trucks around
| than the current US designs.
|
| My grandmother's best friend, when I was a child, was killed
| by a truck running over her while she was in a crosswalk
| (legally crossing the street). The light turned green while
| she was in front of the truck and he ran her over. They are
| so tall and set back so far, many of them can't see a person
| walking right in front of it.
| Animats wrote:
| In the US, there's a trailer length limit and a limit for the
| entire consist.[1] Those are separate limits, and the
| difference between the two allows for a rather large tractor.
| That's something truck drivers lobbied for. If the limit for
| the entire length is the main constraint, there's economic
| pressure to have as much trailer length and as little cab space
| as possible.
|
| [1] https://dot.ca.gov/programs/traffic-operations/legal-
| truck-a...
| kristo wrote:
| [deleted]
| njharman wrote:
| https://www.roadprobrands.com/blog-posts/what-happened-to-ca...
| simonh wrote:
| I'm surprised the article doesn't mention ferries. Many routes in
| Europe can involve sea transport, particularly UK-Europe, UK-
| Ireland, Denmark-Norway/Sweden, to islands like Scisily, Corsica
| and Sardinia. This gives the compactness of the cab-over design a
| big advantage here.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Often the cabs don't go on the ferries. They drop the trailer
| at the dock, a separate crew driving yard tractors loads the
| trailers onto the ferry, and they get unloaded on the other
| side, where another cab picks them up to continue. This can be
| more efficient as you don't need space on the ferries for the
| cabs, and you don't have dozens of drivers waiting around for
| the ferry to arrive. The yard drivers at the dock are very
| skilled at quickly getting the trailers on and off the boat,
| while road drivers would take a lot more time with these
| manouvers.
| mcguire wrote:
| Geeze. You have to go all the way to the bottom to find the
| answer.
|
| " _Maximum length of a truck with a semi-trailer in Europe is
| 18.75 meters. Some countries have some exceptions, but generally
| that is the rule. In order to use the maximum of this length for
| the cargo the tractor unit has to be as short as possible. The
| best way to achieve that is to mount the cabin over the engine._
| "
|
| Cab-overs have _no_ other advantages, and everything else the
| article talks about is a side-effect of the length limit.
| 762236 wrote:
| The funny part is when you go to the 4th photo down and look
| into the passenger-side window. Got to wonder whether the
| author did that on purpose, or didn't notice.
| zardo wrote:
| > Cab-overs have no other advantages
|
| That's not true. Lower overall length is an advantage for
| maneuvering in city streets and parking lots, which is why you
| see medium duty COE vehicles (mostly trucks but semi-tractors
| as well) in some parts of the US making local deliveries. It
| also provides a visibility advantage that reduces the accident
| rate.
| Closi wrote:
| > Cab-overs have no other advantages, and everything else the
| article talks about is a side-effect of the length limit.
|
| There are definitely other advantages, such as that cabovers
| can generally navigate into tighter spots because of it's
| tighter turning radius. Yard space is usually very limited and
| roads more narrow and windy than America, so this is definitely
| a benefit.
|
| I've seen some crazy tight turns on some unreasonably tiny
| country roads here in the UK that I can't imagine could be done
| with a vehicle 2 meters longer.
| tobylane wrote:
| Almost every other episode of Grand Designs has some smart
| lorry driver reversing down a tiny access road.
| rahoulb wrote:
| I'd never heard of a "semi-truck". I've always known of them as
| "artics" - short for articulated.
|
| Source: my childhood best friend's dad was a truck driver (not
| artic though) and a day out in the lorry was one of the best
| things to do in the school holidays.
|
| EDIT: I notice the linked article "why are they called semis"
| actually calls them articulated.
| TylerE wrote:
| Basically, they're semi trucks because they pull semi
| trailers... which are trailers with rear axles only
| JPKab wrote:
| When I worked construction in my early 20s, I frequently had to
| drive various large trucks. I FUCKING LOVE the "cab over engine"
| design. The heightened visibility is everything.
|
| My favorite truck was an Isuzu model (don't remember which) that
| was as elegant as it could possibly be for driving on narrow
| mountain roads in southern Appalachia (I covered an area
| surrounding the Smokey Mountains in TN/NC).
| mig39 wrote:
| Those Isuzu trucks are still being made, and are popular in
| Australia, South Africa, etc. Hit Google Images with "Isuzu
| Truck" for examples.
| jenkstom wrote:
| I work for John Christner Trucking. We made it (almost, sorta) to
| the front page of Hacker News!
| blunte wrote:
| What I find surprising is how the majority of semis in
| Netherlands appear to be very new and presumably in good
| condition. In Texas, by contrast, few appear to be new and well
| maintained, while many look quite heavily used. The trailers are
| even worse.
|
| Considering how expensive those things are, who is affording the
| new trucks in NL? Is it because they are company owned instead of
| individual (owner-operator)?
|
| Where do the worn out NL semis go?
| Element_ wrote:
| Some jurisdictions have limits on how old trucks can be, or
| increased inspection frequency based on the age of the vehicle.
| Some businesses/terminals have restrictions on the age of
| equipment too, for instance the port of Vancouver is about to
| ban trucks older than 10 years. I believe regulations in TX are
| very lax compared to other parts of the world.
| Closi wrote:
| As well as the other responses, it is very common to lease your
| fleet in Europe, particularly for 3PL's who will lease the
| fleet over the duration of their contracts.
|
| Most transport is done by 3PL's who will lease the trucks and
| hire the drivers.
| yourusername wrote:
| >Where do the worn out NL semis go?
|
| Eastern Europe. You need to have a Euro 5 or Euro 6 diesel
| engine to be allowed in many Western European cities as a
| commercial truck. So old trucks aren't viable.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| You will find that wildly varies in the US too. For example
| Walmart has very nice trucks. But some random LTL probably has
| used equipment that is decades old. It comes down to the fact
| that most of this has a very thin margin. Large private company
| fleets tend to be newer. Small general delivery tend to be
| older.
| intpx wrote:
| and all of the owner/operators who specifically want pre year
| 2000 rigs so they don't have to have an ELD.
| orangepurple wrote:
| > Where do the worn out NL semis go?
|
| African countries
| leto_ii wrote:
| > Where do the worn out NL semis go?
|
| Eastern Europe, if I had to guess. I can't say specifically
| about semis, but in my home country of Romania I've seen quite
| a lot of Dutch clunker vans/small trucks roaming the streets
| (you can tell they're Dutch because they still have some of the
| original branding decals of the companies that used to own
| them).
| nicbou wrote:
| Same with German vehicles. When they fail inspection (usually
| because of emissions), they are sold to other countries.
| Central Asia is full of trucks with German lettering. It's
| always interesting to see.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The US has a similar dynamic:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_inspection_in_the_Uni
| t...
| imadethis wrote:
| I work for a private ambulance company in the US that
| shifts ambulances between states based off of emissions
| requirements. Crews working in California for example
| will always get the shiny new ambulances, while those in
| Kentucky get ambos with 200k miles (slight exaggeration)
| to replace the ones that have been driven into the
| ground.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| If they are just sold on and continue to be used when they
| fail emissions testing, what is the point of emissions
| testing at all? The vehicles will just end up in countries
| that don't care, and emissions will rapidly get worse as
| they will get minimal maintenance and probably lower
| quality fuel.
| vkou wrote:
| If there was no emissions testing to begin with, these
| trucks would be designed to pollute for their entire
| service life, instead of just the last 20-40% of it.
|
| Also, I don't want pollution in _my_ town. The tradeoff
| of 'tiny reduction in cost of transportation for way
| more air pollution' is not worth it for _me_.
|
| If some other town on the other side of the planet thinks
| that trade-off is worth it, that's _their_ decision to
| make. The effect of this kind of pollution, unlike GHG
| emissions, is largely localized.
| cowl wrote:
| Mainly because we are talking about NOx and other Health
| related emmissions that have local effects not CO2 that
| have global effects. Yes it sucks about the countries
| where they end up but it's the responability of the local
| governments to care what level is acceptable and what
| not. And often governments have to balance the need to
| stimulate local economy (by affording to buy cheaper used
| machines) vs the public health concerns.
| nicbou wrote:
| It sells new cars, and helps countries look like they
| care about the environment. The problems get dumped onto
| other countries.
|
| Perhaps someone can provide a more charitable view, but
| that's my understanding.
| leto_ii wrote:
| Something similar happens to "recycling" as well, take
| for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFjsL61qi3g
| vanderZwan wrote:
| When I was travelling through Ghana I saw tons of cargo vans
| with Dutch and German decals, advertising plumbers, bakeries,
| delivery services, etc. It was a bit odd to see them in the
| middle of West-Africa.
|
| I'm actually kind of curious if anyone ever made a
| documentary or something about the trip those vans and trucks
| make, feels like a hidden economy.
| duxup wrote:
| It depends on the carrier in the US.
|
| Lots of carries take good care of their equipment.
|
| You can also be a carrier and just be one guy and a truck ...
| so there is a lot of variety.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| > In Texas, by contrast, few appear to be new and well
| maintained, while many look quite heavily used.
|
| That is pretty interesting. A few weeks ago, there was a thread
| here on HN talking about the Port of Long Beach backlog and a
| comment mentioning the scarcity of trucks with the clean idle
| certification.
|
| At about the same time, I took a road trip along the Interstate
| - Illinois, Indiana, Ohio - and paid attention to the trucks.
| Somewhere around 90% of them had the "California Clean Idle"
| sticker on them - and none of them had California plates. Even
| on trucks with Ontario plates (you see a lot of Canadian trucks
| in the upper midwest).
|
| My best explanation is that the long-haul routes crisscrossing
| North America have all the newest, cleanest, most modern
| vehicles and once they reach a certain age they are sold into
| the places where they don't drive long distances anymore.
| post_break wrote:
| Older trucks dont have the same emissions requirements and are
| sought after big time in the US.
| abfan1127 wrote:
| why do European trailers have 3 axles instead of 2?
| throwawayboise wrote:
| I have wondered the same thing. My guess is that they use three
| axles with 6 tires, whereas the common North American trailer
| has two axles with 8 tires. The axles are mounted on a sled so
| they can be moved forward or backwards depending on the trailer
| weight to achieve the required weight distribution.
|
| Euro trailers appear to be shorter and probably carry lighter
| loads, so they need fewer tires and maybe do not need to be
| adjustable. But not really sure.
| masklinn wrote:
| > and probably carry lighter loads
|
| The EU standard is 40 tonnes (88000 lbs), usually in 2/3 or
| 3/2 axle combinations (2/3 usually includes a lifting axle).
|
| Some countries have higher limits e.g. Finland allows up to
| 76t with special permits
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Answer to the question in the title, hidden deep inside the
| article: Length limits.
|
| "Maximum length of a truck with a semi-trailer in Europe is 18.75
| meters." so length is at a premium that cannot be outweighed by
| the other benefits of the "classic" US style design.
|
| Higher speeds and bigger roads are other reasons to have the US
| truck in the US but not Europe (among many other advantages of
| the design) but the stated fact that "European style" trucks were
| much more common in the US when the US still had length limits
| indicates that the length limit is the deciding factor.
| bluedino wrote:
| Cab-over designs are used for things like garbage trucks.
|
| When I worked in transportation, people said they faded away
| because of crash-protection.
|
| My favorite cab-over semi is from the minibike chase scene in
| Terminator 2
| slackfan wrote:
| both designs are equally good a blocking road.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| TL;DR overall length restrictions.
|
| The US had cab-overs too back when we had length restrictions but
| the marginally more expensive operating cost and greatly reduced
| operator comfort resulted in conventional trucks taking over once
| those restrictions were lifted. Applications where length matters
| a lot still use cabovers.
| smm11 wrote:
| Where I live, the only requirement in a semi truck is an area to
| store large volumes of meth.
| mastazi wrote:
| > Finally, roads in US and Europe are very different as well.
| Cities in US have wide streets and interstate highways are very
| straight and wide. In Europe trucks have to deal with narrow
| streets, winding country roads and cramped parking spaces.
|
| Most comments in this thread are underestimating this point. I
| grew up in Italy (where virtually all trucks are cabover), and I
| now live in Australia (where conventional cabs are common). The
| road conditions are completely different. Can you imagine a
| conventional driving through Florence? Obviously it wouldn't be
| ideal.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| There are also lots of European trucks that can't drive
| everywhere in Florence. There were roads in Borgia, Spain my
| navigation system sent me down in a rented passenger car where
| I literally want able to turn because it was too narrow.
|
| Till the regulation is gone, everything else is just
| speculation about what would happen without it.
| jbkiv wrote:
| I remember when Mercedes Benz bought Freightliner, the major US
| truck manufacturer,in the 80s. The Mercedes Benz engineeers were
| astonished to see how UN-sophisticated the engineering of
| Freightliner trucks was. Example: no assisted steering!!! That
| choice was justified as more macho. I was told that assisted
| steering was not manly enough...
| brudgers wrote:
| Historically, Freightliner's reputation was for driving
| fast...and you would be prudent to get out of the way when one
| was coming into the mirrors.
|
| Speed perhaps explains the lack of power steering. In multiple
| ways.
| anarazel wrote:
| The noise level of some US trucks still surprises me. Jet
| engine like.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| If it's when they are slowing down it's likely the jake-
| brakes _j-brakes_ you are hearing especially if they have
| straight pipes. Diesel engines don 't have engine braking by
| design so a mechanism was added to the heads to create
| artificial engine braking that can be toggled on per head.
|
| [ Edit for clarification: ] I have created some confusion
| with this statement. For clarification diesel engines never
| had engine braking due to the lack of a throttle plate but
| this has been worked around with add-ons using different
| techniques. On a big-rig this is jake-brakes. On smaller
| modern vehicles this is usually a small turbo or an exhaust
| baffle. The operator of a modern diesel vehicle will
| effectively experience engine braking when they let off the
| throttle. On older diesel pickups and cars there was no
| engine braking.
| jacquesm wrote:
| A Jake brake is for long descents, it essentially uses the
| engine to slow down instead of the brakes to avoid
| overheating them.
|
| Normal diesels do engine braking just fine, but not
| aggressive enough to shed speed on a long descent without
| over-revving, and you _really_ don 't want to do that with
| a diesel engine.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>Diesel engines don't have engine braking by design
|
| First time I hear about this. I've driven and owned plenty
| of diesel vehicles in my life and diesel engines definitely
| do have engine braking(unless it's different in semis? but
| I don't see why it would be - just leave it in gear and let
| it slow down?)
| LinuxBender wrote:
| The engine itself has no braking due to the lack of the
| variable air-intake that gasoline engines have that would
| otherwise starve the engine for air especially when
| downshifting and closing the throttle.
|
| _Specifically on non-big-rigs_ , modern diesel cars and
| pickups create engine braking using a small turbo and
| tighten the spline or in some cases have an exhaust
| feedback baffle or flap, varies with year/model. Big rigs
| still use jake-brakes.
| jbkiv wrote:
| Thanks! I learned something new today.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| It doesn't have "no" braking. But it has a hell of a lot
| less than it would if there were some restriction on it,
| e.g. a throttle.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| I've done what feels like engine braking in "consumer"
| diesel trucks. Since I never had to flip switches or
| anything, how does the engine know how to enter into this
| "engine braking" mode?
|
| Never even crossed my mind that diesels don't natively
| engine brake. Then again how diesels work is a bit of a
| mystery to me... mostly because I never bothered to look
| into it much.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| Newer diesel engines use a turbo or baffle. Most commonly
| a turbo to create effective braking. This is
| operationally superior to jake-brakes in that the
| mechanism is tied into the ECM and transmission allowing
| for things like cruise control to function as expected.
| Jake-brakes on the other hand require a bit of technique
| by the driver to use correctly and avoid jack-knifing the
| vehicle with its trailer, especially on ice. Some modern
| pickups can even be put into "towing mode" to make better
| use of the add-on braking mechanism and allow cruise
| control to work downhill.
|
| I suppose this the right time for an important PSA. If
| anyone tows something heavy in an older diesel pickup be
| aware the only braking you have is what your brake pedal
| provides. Glaze those brakes and you are going on an
| exciting adventure.
| robocat wrote:
| For anyone wishing to experiment:
|
| You can test the petrol-car-vacuum braking theory if you
| have an older manual petrol car with a cable from the
| accelerator to the butterfly valve of the throttle. While
| driving at 50kph, put into neutral, turn off the
| ignition, engage a lower gear, release clutch. Test
| pressing and releasing the accelerator pedal while using
| engine braking and feel for a difference.
|
| SAFETY: 1. Don't turn off the ignition all the way and
| lock the steering (although I admit that is very exciting
| to have steering locked into one direction, I don't
| recommend trying it). 2. Be mentally prepared to lose
| power steering and power brakes. 3. Only on wide straight
| roads with no other traffic and safe ways to stop. 4.
| Probably other warnings specific to your vehicle, and
| situation. 5. I recommend against trying it on an
| automatic trans.
|
| If your diesel has turbo vanes controlling the braking,
| you could probably test it out the same way (presuming
| electronics are disabled when ignition is off).
|
| Another way to test things is to remove relevant fuses.
|
| Disclaimer: there are lots of ways to screw up even being
| careful - I do not recommend learning by failure in
| deadly situations.
| garaetjjte wrote:
| Diesels might have anti-shudder valve which closes air
| intake when shutting off ignition.
| tomxor wrote:
| Interesting. I was only taught engine breaking from the
| practical perspective of down-shifting, but not the
| details of why it works. I understood the implicit
| effects of shifting down - maintaining the same high RPM
| with the same high resistance as a vehicle slows... but
| never gave much thought to what exactly those resistances
| were, I just assumed it was a combination of friction,
| compression, driving an alternator, other arbitrary
| mechanical losses etc.
|
| Would there really be no significant braking effect
| without that "high manifold vacuum"? I suppose the engine
| does have a lot of mass so I could believe the effect
| could be too slow to be useful.
| mcguire wrote:
| Gasoline engines have a throttle plate that, when you let
| off the throttle, prevents intake air from reaching the
| cylinders. The pistons try to draw air into the cylinders
| and create a pretty decent vacuum. (Respect to the
| throttle plate. :-))
|
| Diesel engines don't; the throttle controls fuel flow
| into the cylinders. Let off the throttle and air flows
| through the intake, cylinders, and exhaust just without
| producing any power.
|
| The effects of friction are roughly the same on both
| engines, and they are what engine designers and builders
| want to minimize to maximize fuel efficiency and power.
| garaetjjte wrote:
| Technically diesel engines do not strictly "engine brake"
| because of lack of throttle plate, and thus lack of
| pumping losses. However that doesn't mean that it won't
| slow down: friction losses, heat loss to cylinder walls,
| etc. still occur. Surely diesel passenger car will
| decelerate stronger when left in gear than in neutral.
| Given how many pages and pages of discussions you can
| find people arguing whether petrol or diesel engines
| brake stronger, it seems pumping loss doesn't make that
| much difference.
| skywal_l wrote:
| Diesel engines do not have engine breaking? Are you sure?
| For me, engine breaking is just the fact that the engine,
| without power, have moving pieces which, by inertia, is
| going to slow down the vehicle. Diesel engine being heavier
| than "regular" engine, the engine brake effect is more
| important.
|
| At least that's my experience with the cars I used to own.
|
| Edit: For the record, my experience is for 4-strokes diesel
| engines. Apparently, 2-strokes are still in use in the US.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| Diesel engines themselves have no engine braking. Each
| personal vehicle implementation of diesel engines have
| worked around this using different techniques. The most
| common _outside of big-rigs_ is a turbo that tightens a
| spline or closes a feedback baffle.
|
| To the operator of the vehicle it will appear there is
| engine braking on modern diesel engines. Older pickups
| and cars have no engine braking.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > Older pickups and cars have no engine braking.
|
| So what did they do on long downhill mountain passes?
| Just ride the brakes? Were the brakes designed to
| accommodate being ridden for so long?
|
| Asking 'cause I downshift all cars I drive when going
| down mountain passes...
| LinuxBender wrote:
| They would drive slowly and carefully and take alternate
| routes when possible.
|
| _Just ride the brakes?_
|
| No that will overheat and glaze the brakes. That is why
| long steep hills initially had run-away ramps created.
| The run-away ramps are still used but not nearly as much
| as they used to be. In many places alternate routes were
| created for people towing heavy things. A good example of
| this is the grapevine on I-5 in southern California.
| There is a truck route and the main route. That also has
| many run-away ramps.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > In many places alternate routes were created for people
| towing heavy things.
|
| That, uh, sounds pretty inconvenient!
|
| So without engine brakes if you downshift in an older
| diesel does the engine just rev right up and the car
| doesn't even bother to act like it is slowing down? That
| has to be pretty weird....
| mcguire wrote:
| Eastbound on Interstate-40 on the eastern slope of the
| Appalachians the truck speed limit at the top of the pass
| is 35mph and there are very, very many warning signs
| including radar-activated lights. There are also three or
| four runaway-truck ramps (filled with loose gravel) that
| are somewhat frequently used, and often trucks pulled
| over to the side to let their brakes cool.
|
| (The Rockies have even more of this sort of thing, but I
| haven't been out there in quite a while. :-( )
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| It very much slows down. Just not quite as much as a gas
| engine. You still have friction losses (especially as you
| get higher rpm), losses from alternator, water pump,
| engine fans, oil pump, etc.
|
| One of my vehicles is a VW Jetta TDI (diesel, ALH
| engine).
| pwg wrote:
| Diesel engines have no throttle plate that controls the
| airflow into the engine.
|
| The closed throttle plate in a gasoline engine is what
| creates a gasoline engine's brake effect, by pulling a
| vacuum in the intake below the closed throttle plate,
| which produces the brake effect.
|
| With no throttle plate, the remaining mechanical
| components in a diesel engine provide minimal friction,
| certainly not enough to produce any brake effect.
|
| The jake brake (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_brake)
| converts the diesel engine into a huge air compressor
| when activated, which provides an engine brake effect.
| Unfortunately it also often creates a very distinctive,
| and often loud, sound from the exhaust as well.
| roelschroeven wrote:
| > With no throttle plate, the remaining mechanical
| components in a diesel engine provide minimal friction,
| certainly not enough to produce any brake effect.
|
| I don't understand. I've driven multiple diesel engine
| cars throughout the years, and they most definitely have
| a brake effect. I'm not even sure they brake less than
| the gasoline cars I've driven. Easily enough to slow down
| for taking an exit from the freeway, for example, when
| shifting down appropriately. To the point that there
| regularly are situations when I lightly press the brake
| pedal not to brake but to simply light the brake lights,
| if there are cars behind me.
|
| It does sound plausible that the lack of a throttle leads
| to less or no brake effect, but it simply doesn't fit my
| observations.
|
| I'm talking about regular cars here, both recent and less
| recent (the oldest one was built in 1989).
|
| Maybe there are different diesel engine types with
| different brake capabilities? Or do some gasoline engines
| brake much more than what I'm used to, and my reference
| for what is and isn't significant braking is all wrong?
| pwg wrote:
| See @ska's comment at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30195348
| mcguire wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8Cta2cC2Co
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_braking#Diesel_engin
| es
| seszett wrote:
| > _With no throttle plate, the remaining mechanical
| components in a diesel engine provide minimal friction,
| certainly not enough to produce any brake effect._
|
| I'm not sure if maybe we have different definitions of
| "braking", but a diesel engine definitely slows down a
| car when one throttles down. The vehicle slows down
| faster than when on neutral, and the braking power
| depends on which gear is engaged, which seems to indicate
| very much that there is engine braking going on.
| ska wrote:
| Posters point wasn't that the vehicles you drive didn't
| effectively have engine breaking, but that in diesel
| designs this is something that had to be added
| intentionally - with [edit gas engines] you get it
| whether you want it or not.
|
| Fun fact - the effect can be strong enough on a high
| compression motorcycle engine to break your rear tire
| free (obviously lots of other parameters there).
| skywal_l wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| But what do you mean by 4 cycles. The diesel engines I
| know all have 4 cycles. I though 2 cycles engines were
| found on old tractors from the 50s no?
|
| Edit: Looking at [0], assuming this is true, I understand
| the confusion now. It seems, in the US, heavy duty diesel
| engines are 2 strokes which, apparently, do not have
| engine braking.
| ska wrote:
| Me being sloppy, of course you can have 2-stroke or
| 4-stroke diesels. Edited to improve.
|
| The main thing going on here isn't the cycles, it's the
| lack of a throttle plate. With these designs the amount
| of air entering cylinder doesn't relate to your throttle
| position.
|
| If you come off the throttle every compression cycle a
| "full" cylinder of new air gets compressed, then
| decompresses and pushes against the piston. In normal
| operation the energy is re-transferred to the crank (with
| some loss). It sort of "bounces". But with a compression
| brake, you force the engine to do the work of compressing
| that air, but then full open the exhaust valve to let the
| pressure escape... much more energy lost each cycle,
| which transfers through drive train and slows you down.
|
| In comparison to typical ICE: in that case when you come
| off the throttle, the intake is sealed off, so the
| cylinder on intake stroke is "sucking" against a closed
| path, which loses energy. Similar effect, different
| cause.
| skywal_l wrote:
| In a 4-stroke engine, throttle or not, intake valves are
| shut down when in compression so cylinders are sealed
| off, compression happens anyway, diesel or gas. Indeed,
| in 2-cycles engines there are not intake valve so
| LinuxBender's point is valid.
| ska wrote:
| I think you misread; I should have been clearer. This is
| how I understand/remember it although to be fair it's
| been a while since I've worked on either so might mess it
| up a bit.
|
| Anyway it has nothing to do with compression or the
| intake valve in either case. Compression happens in both
| cases, and doesn't affect anything.
|
| In diesel, Jake type breaks steal energy by _opening the
| exhaust valve_ right after TDC, e.g. what would be the
| power stroke. The energy stored in compressed air escapes
| out the exhaust valve rather than being (mostly)
| reclaimed by the crank on expansion - this slows down the
| crank and hence (if not in neutral) the vehicle slows. NB
| this is _not_ when the exhaust valve would normally open,
| but rather a cycle earlier.
|
| In gas, on the _intake_ stroke the intake is blocked (not
| by the valve, further up by throttle) so the intake
| motion creates vaccuum - this takes energy, which slows
| down the crank, and hence etc. etc. The exhaust valve
| doesn 't change timing.
|
| The latter approach only works if you have something
| blocking the intake "above" the intake valve. In a diesel
| engine the airflow is kept the same and the fuel adjusted
| (unlike gas) so there is no natural mechanism to do this
| with the throttle.
| skywal_l wrote:
| Diesel engines might not have throttle plate but they use
| injection which certainly do not inject air when
| acceleration is released, so the cylinders will act
| exactly the same way. Reading the web I see conflicting
| account on this subject. Strange...
|
| Also, I though that modern petrol engines did not have
| throttle plates anymore and use the same injection system
| than diesel engines (no more carburetors).
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| The fuel system doesn't provide restriction on the air
| going through the engine.
|
| A diesel engine that's not dumping in fuel (because your
| foot isn't on the pedal) has about as much engine braking
| as a gas engine that's run out of fuel but the operator
| has floored the pedal.
|
| A gas engine has a throttle that can restrict airflow. A
| diesel can either be equipped with an exhaust brake or
| compression brake. The latter is tons more effective but
| louder.
| ska wrote:
| > use injection which certainly do not inject air when
| acceleration is released,
|
| FWIW injectors don't inject air; the airflow is separate,
| get's compressed (and hence heated) then the fuel is
| injected, then bang (in diesel)
| garaetjjte wrote:
| >work the same way as 4cyl
|
| I'm not sure what you mean, both Otto and Diesel cycles
| are four-stroke.
|
| In petrol engines power is usually controlled by throttle
| plate which limits volume of air going into cylinder, and
| enough fuel is added during the intake stroke (either by
| injection or carburetor) to have combustion close to
| stoichiometric.
|
| In diesel engines there's no throttle plate and engine
| always runs on lean mixture, and power is controlled only
| by amount of injected fuel, which is done after air is
| already compressed and hot.
| ska wrote:
| Point was injectors inject fuel not air...
|
| I think we cross-edited, remaining confusion I think was
| about 2 vs 4 stroke but it's not really relevant so I had
| adjusted with a nod to when diesel injection occurs in 4.
| schwap wrote:
| There's nowhere near enough inertia in the rotating
| assembly of an engine to significantly slow down a
| vehicle.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's not the inertia that does the job (that keeps things
| going, actually) but the compression and shedding the
| compressed air that will slow things down. But for a big
| rig doing that idling it won't be enough, especially not
| on a descent with 25 tons pushing you downhill.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| It's also the friction of everything turning. And you've
| still got your alternator, oil pump, water pump, fan etc
| that are removing energy.
| EricE wrote:
| Extra crap = extra weight. Extra crap = extra complexity =
| extra maintenance costs. "Sophistication" does not always equal
| better!
|
| More macho - what a laugh! Keep it stupid simple.
| gambiting wrote:
| But also extra effort from the driver = more tired driver,
| higher chance of accident, more mistakes and issues with
| every delivery.
|
| I have not driven a truck like that personally, but I know
| what sort of difference all the modern assistance systems
| have done on my cross-continental drives. Previously a 12
| hour drive would leave me absolutely exhausted, like I'd need
| a full day to recover after that - in a modern car with lane
| assist and adaptive cruise and comfortable seats and what not
| - I arrive relaxed every time. Long dull stretches of road
| don't take such a mental toll anymore.
|
| I imagine the exact same principle applies to trucks.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| In my 30s and 40's I could drive 14-16hrs a day without a
| problem, in a stick-shift car, in the USA. In my 50s, 10hrs
| is still reasonably OK.
|
| However, a 4 or 5 hour drive on roads in the UK in an
| automatic modern car and I am completely exhausted.
|
| At least for some of us, the road conditions are a far
| larger impact than the features of the vehicle.
| davidw wrote:
| Absolutely! We visited family in Italy last summer, and
| had an all-day drive. Just _constant_ attention and
| input, compared to cruising along some 2 lane road in the
| US. Cars coming up behind you, whizzing by you. A slow
| old car up ahead. Big truck to pass. Tight curve. Road
| narrows. Road widens. Some dude in a BMW riding your
| bumper. For like 8 hours... I was so glad to get out of
| the car. If it hadn 't been for the pandemic, I would
| have much rather taken a train and relaxed.
| gambiting wrote:
| Yeah....that 12 hour drive I mentioned includes driving
| across the entire width of Germany and jesus it is
| stressful. Yes, the unlimited sections are "fun" and it's
| really cool to be able to drive at 150mph+ for a while
| when the conditions allow, but it also means you need to
| be on like 10x the alertness level as normal. Like really
| really really pay attention a lot at all times. It can be
| super harsh. But the last few times I'd just set the
| cruise control to something more sensible and just relax,
| with the modern systems the car basically drives itself.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| It's really easy to spin a naive fanboy (of a particular brand,
| technology or otherwise) narrative like this and when you aim
| your tropes ("ze backwards yankees") right at audience's bias
| you're sure to get a bunch of virtue points in response.
|
| The fact of the matter is that there's very, very, few secrets
| in the automotive and heavy equipment industries. If someone is
| or isn't doing something it's because they've run the numbers
| and they don't think it pencils out for what they build and who
| they sell to.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _It 's really easy to spin a naive fanboy narrative like this
| and when you aim your tropes right at audience's bias you're
| sure to get a bunch of virtue points in response._
|
| That's one of the big problems with internet blogs. They do a
| bunch of Googling and speculation and that's it. Laughably,
| they sometimes they even call themselves "journalists."
|
| How hard would it have been to go to a truck stop and sit at
| the counter and ask some truckers? They know all about
| trucks. And after being along all day, truckers love to talk.
|
| If you're afraid of people, get a $10 CB radio from Goodwill
| and talk to them on the radio.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Yeah, but those people are perhaps the worst to get insight
| on the industry from. For instance, most truck drivers in
| the US haven't driven a Scania truck (and flipped for the
| EU). They can't give you comparative information, so
| everyone's natural tendency to defend their choice will
| give you a bunch of rationalizations that you can falsely
| assume to be reasons.
|
| It's the same as how you could ask people why SF doesn't
| have gigabit fiber Internet for $60 when Bucharest does for
| $30, and people on the Internet will make up all sorts of
| reasons. However, SF does have gigabit fiber Internet.
| Explaining is easy. Truth-seeking is hard.
| kfarr wrote:
| There can be value in simplicity - fewer things to break and
| easier to repair.
| CountSessine wrote:
| Exactly. The irony of Mercedes-Benz engineers marveling at
| how unsophisticated a simply-engineered vehicle is brought a
| smile to my face. Most owner-operator truck drivers want to
| be able to fix and maintain their trucks on their own, not
| bring the truck into the dealer every 3 months like some
| temperamental S-class.
|
| Although I guess Mercedes was still pretty reliable back in
| the 80's.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| There days Mercedes doesn't really export non-luxury
| vehicles to the US except for maybe sprinter vans.
| cycomanic wrote:
| You really think that owner operators repair their own
| trucks? That doesn't make any economic sense. This is not a
| hobby, they need to drive to make money not to play truck
| repairman.
|
| I'm always astonished how US Americans try to justify poor
| engineering with "advantage of simplicity". It's like
| arguing that you want to program using punch cards because
| that makes you feel closer to the machine and you have a
| "physical" copy of your programs.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| Yep, owner operators repair their own trucks. Sometimes
| even fairly major engine work.
|
| However, you can have well-engineered simplicity, too,
| and that seems to be rare. (As opposed to poorly
| engineered simplicity or highly engineered complexity.)
| nemo44x wrote:
| You don't know what you're talking about. 99% of the ride
| is on interstates. Much of that remote for that type of
| rig.
|
| It's the same reason Jeep's use very simple mechanics.
| You can repair them yourself and carry appropriate spare
| parts.
| harpersealtako wrote:
| >US Americans
|
| This is a side note, does this bother anybody else? I'm
| at least a teensy bit bothered by it. I know the point is
| to reduce ambiguity between the U.S.A and
| Latin/North/Central/South America, but it still feels a
| bit condescending, like we're not even allowed to have a
| unique name anymore or even have a say in we should call
| ourselves/be called in our native language (and it
| doesn't help that the only time I hear "US Americans" is
| when someone is talking shit about us). There's only one
| country on the continent with the word America in its
| name. I'm curious if I'm the only one who feels this way
| or if I'm overthinking it.
| dylan604 wrote:
| ReleaseCandidat wrote:
| > reduce ambiguity between the U.S.A and
| Latin/North/Central/South America,
|
| And the continent 'America'.
|
| Just for comparison: what do you think 'South Africa'
| (the country, not the region ;) should be called?
| harpersealtako wrote:
| South Africa? I would call it South Africa if that's what
| they want to be called. I definitely wouldn't call
| citizens of South Africa "RS Africans" or something
| unless they preferred that for some reason.
| kompatible wrote:
| In Romance languages, the continent is known as the
| supercontinent "America", but in Germanic languages (like
| English) and other languages that borrow from it call
| them the "Americas" as two continents "North" and "South"
| America. So, for people to bring it over as 'America' can
| sometimes be seen as pedantry instead of insightfulness.
| ReleaseCandidat wrote:
| > but in Germanic languages (like English)
|
| Well, yes, in theory you could use 'Amerikas' in German,
| but nowadays that's mostly because of a bad translation.
| It actually is correct German to speak of 'both America'
| - 'beide Amerika' (in singular).
|
| https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Amerika
|
| > So, for people to bring it over as 'America' can
| sometimes be seen as pedantry instead of insightfulness.
|
| Of course it is pedantry.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| Hah, when I hear "beide Amerikas" I think of political
| divide within the US.
| stevehawk wrote:
| Do they want to spend their time doing it? No. Do they
| have a choice in most of the country? No. Trucks don't
| conveniently break down at the mechanic's shop.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| Simplicity also means less time in the shop when needed
| too, they usually charge by the hour. Also in the 80s I
| could totally see that. On the side of the road, hood up
| fix it right there. Remember they probably had CB radio
| which is limited range, no phone and the closest town is
| 50 miles behind you.
|
| Also depending on the job it can make very good economic
| sense to DIY. My brother in law just had to fix something
| on his car. They quoted him 2500. He fixed it himself for
| about the cost of some used parts (80 bucks) and a half
| day of his time. Trucks are no different.
| iypx wrote:
| > You really think that owner operators repair their own
| trucks? That doesn't make any economic sense. This is not
| a hobby, they need to drive to make money not to play
| truck repairman.
|
| Oh yes! I have seen this unfold once in front of my own
| eyes, a real spectacle. Driver working for a driver
| company servicing a distribution company, tries to start
| the truck, something wrong with brakes, truck is
| driveable though, gets off, calls boss (company policy).
| One hour late boss finally arrives, gets in, unhooks
| trailer, parks the truck three meters to the side, gives
| the driver a different truck to take. 1 hour more
| paperwork to process, the trailer finally leaves the
| distribution warehouse 2.5 hours late. The driver company
| is apparently paying both late fees and parking fees to
| logistics company while this ordeal unfolds..
|
| ~4AM (5 hours later) a truck fixing mini-buss from a 3rd
| party truck fixing company arrives with two technicians.
| They plug into the truck, their diagnostics software
| shows nothing wrong, they leave.
|
| Next day a different truck fixing company shows up and
| finally tows the truck after dancing around it for almost
| two hours with diagnostics software.
|
| Quite a few thousands of pounds burned in just two days
| of people following rules and policies...
|
| This is apparently "normal", this makes much "economic
| sense".
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| serial_dev wrote:
| I don't think your argument and analogy makes sense.
| Simplicity is not only valuable when an owner himself
| needs to repair the truck.
|
| It's valuable when your truck breaks down in a middle of
| nowhere, and the closest official repair shop is hundreds
| of miles away, whereas there might be an "okay" level
| independent mechanic every 20 miles or less (the actual
| distance is not the point, the point is that an "okay"
| mechanic will be probably 10-50x more common).
|
| Simplicity is also valuable with missing parts. Sure, the
| sophisticated solution is better in terms of performance,
| electronics, and whatnot, but it might take weeks to
| receive a part (even before COVID), because the shop
| doesn't have it and have to be ordered from China.
| Compare this with simple parts that you can again find in
| many old trucks and even smaller towns, making it much
| easier to replace.
|
| Just to put it in coding analogy: if my business needs a
| website, or a landing page, I'm not going to hire a team
| of former Googlers and ask them to write a performant
| backend framework in Rust and invent a new frontend
| framework. I'm going to ask my uncle who is a hobby
| designer and can set me up a static site/WordPress in a
| day. I'm not trying to "justify poor engineering", I just
| prefer simplicity and the "poor engineering" approach
| gets my problem solved in one tenth of the time. Who is
| doing poor engineering now?
|
| Also, coming back to the trucks. There don't need to be
| poor engineering from either side. Maybe the different
| requirements just caused trucks evolve in different
| directions?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| There are many areas of the US where a truck driver might
| find themself hours away from a mechanic or tow truck. I
| assume there is some value in fixability, assuming the
| reliability is not too much less than a less fixable
| truck.
| CountSessine wrote:
| _You really think that owner operators repair their own
| trucks? That doesn 't make any economic sense. This is
| not a hobby, they need to drive to make money not to play
| truck repairman._
|
| I've known several owner-operators, friends of family
| mostly, and yes, they routinely strip and repair their
| own kit. It's a lot cheaper and very often faster than
| taking it into a shop.
|
| _I 'm always astonished how US Americans try to justify
| poor engineering with_...
|
| O_o
| jacquesm wrote:
| MB trucks are an entirely different kettle of fish than the
| consumer and light transport stuff. It all changes above
| the 3500 kg mark.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| In the US their Sprinters compare to the competition
| about the same way an S-class compares to a Camry. In
| both cases it's generally considered ill-advised to own
| it into old age.
|
| I wouldn't call that "entirely different"
| jacquesm wrote:
| Sprinters routinely clock half a million K. You need to
| maintain them but that goes for all vehicles.
|
| And they are still below that 3500 kg limit. It really
| starts at Atego:
|
| https://www.mercedes-benz-trucks.com/nl_NL/models/atego-
| cons...
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| If the Sprinter took a comparable amount of maintenance
| to deliver the same service it would not have the
| reputation it does. It's not like people are jumping to
| conclusions based on brand either. It was initially
| branded as a Dodge or Freighter/Sterling. The only
| operators who like it are high end passenger fleets that
| depreciate them and then get new ones. Now, in its
| defense, people do generally hate the FWD Fiat van
| more...
| jacquesm wrote:
| I've seen some of this. People were bitching about their
| MBs not lasting long enough: turns out they were skimping
| on the oil, using regular oil rather than the synthetic
| oil those engines need. Synthetic oil is a lot more
| expensive but it lasts much longer. But America likes its
| oil changes, every ridiculously low number of miles
| because they believe that is what will make their cars
| last, rather than to use quality oil to begin with.
|
| MB engines are indestructible if treated properly, they
| routinely outlast the body of the vehicles, they have
| oversized oil pumps, use chains rather than timing belts
| (a common failure point) and in general are designed to
| last.
|
| There is plenty wrong with MB, their electronics
| absolutely suck and don't get me started on their
| software or their over priced parts. But their engines
| are solid.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Actually, I think the irony is the other way around. I've
| read that worldwide, MB vehicles dominate many markets
| (e.g. African taxi and trucking) precisely because they are
| so easy to do local non-dealer maintainance on. Most of the
| world thinks of many MB vehicles as workhorses, not luxury
| or sophisticated vehicles.
| CountSessine wrote:
| I've often wondered about this. Here in North America we
| only get the Mercedes models that need their disc rotors
| replaced every 30k, and we see nothing of the
| indestructible and serviceable models that seem to wind
| up in places without posh MB dealerships.
|
| I've always thought that this was because NA has air
| pollution laws that are strictly and honestly enforced
| and that that would make diesel cars difficult to offer.
| xxpor wrote:
| >I've always thought that this was because NA has air
| pollution laws that are strictly and honestly enforced
| and that that would make diesel cars difficult to offer.
|
| Yes, the US regulates NOx emissions much more than
| Europe. This makes it very hard to offer passenger diesel
| engines in the US. On the other hand, the EU
| regulates/taxes CO2 emissions, which the US does only
| indirectly through CAFE (fuel efficiency) regulations.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Yes, MB deliberately cultivated a "luxury" brand image in
| the US and did not import very many of the "workhorse"
| models (the ones with smaller engines, manual
| transmissions, and few options) that the rest world
| knows.
| iSnow wrote:
| That's not something a German engineer will easily
| understand, though :)
| twic wrote:
| It's perhaps notable that Optimus Prime's vehicle mode is
| traditionally a cab-over tractor, but in the films, he's
| conventional-cab. I assume that reflects Japanese and American
| understanding of what lorries look like. I wonder if American
| kids who had the toys were baffled by his strange appearance.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| When Optimus Prime came out 38 years ago, cab over tractor was
| much more common. BJ and the Bear, a popular (well, as I
| remember) early 80s TV show, had the protagonist in such a
| truck: https://www.gobytrucknews.com/b-j-and-the-bear-truck-
| still-a...
| sschueller wrote:
| It's definitely primarily because of the space on the streets. I
| would not want to try to maneuver a American Semi through Europe.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| The article states that it's because of length restrictions.
| European leangth restrictions include the truck, American
| restrictions don't.
| flyingfences wrote:
| Presumably, though, the length restrictions are due, at least
| in large part, to [lack of] available space on the streets.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| The European length restrictions don't exist because someone
| hates long trucks but because city and road planers don't
| need to account for longer trucks than that. This is
| especially important because of parking. In the EU there are
| maximum driving hours for truckers which means they often
| need to take rests and the infrastructure needs to support
| that.
| dahfizz wrote:
| > In the EU there are maximum driving hours for truckers
| which means they often need to take rests and the
| infrastructure needs to support that.
|
| The same is true in the USA.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Specifically: - 14 hour days, maximum
| - high tolerance of pulled over "resting" trucks
| - conventional truck designs with builtin bedrooms
| - state-run and private truck stops along most highways
| jaclaz wrote:
| In EU (for comparison):
|
| https://www.gov.uk/drivers-hours/eu-rules
|
| The tachograph [0] is - I believe - not used (not
| mandated by Law) in the US, though it is being introduced
| recently.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachograph
| harpersealtako wrote:
| The US equivalent is the ELD [0], which basically does
| the same thing with minor technical differences. They've
| been mandated for years. I'm not a truck expert though.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_logging_device
| irrational wrote:
| That and the fact that European truck drivers don't live in
| their trucks on a semi permanent basis.
| thex10 wrote:
| > One of the differences between European and American
| trucking is that owners-operators are very common in US and
| not so much in Europe. These people own their own trucks and
| pretty much live in them for months at a time. Semi-trucks
| with conventional cabs feature longer wheel base, which makes
| them a little more comfortable. Also, they tend to have a lot
| of room inside. Owners modify their trucks to include huge
| living compartments - something not common in Europe.
|
| I wonder why owner-operator truck drivers are more common in
| USA than Europe? Is it an externality of our lack of worker
| protections and safety net?
| frenchy wrote:
| My kneejerk reaction would be the higher rural/urban ratio,
| but I don't think that's right, becaues Russia has even
| more rural space.
|
| It's probably more due to the fact that many of the roads
| in the USA were built a lot more recently, and were built
| to make it convenient to use larger tractor-trailers (and
| not so much for other road users). In Europe, truck
| operators had to fit into the existing road system.
| irrational wrote:
| America has large cities scattered across the entire
| country. When I look at a map of the cities in Russia,
| the majority are in the far west and south with huge
| amounts of the country without any large cities.
| ptudan wrote:
| I'd guess that in Europe there are a lot less long-haul
| drives than in the USA. Those are the ones that can pay big
| bucks and make O/O efficient. If you're going on a 6 hour
| round trip there's no reason you can't drop off the truck
| at HQ and head home to your family.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| Europe also kept maintaining their rail lines whereas the
| US has neglected ours because trucks were seen as a way
| to stick it to the rail companies. Our loss considering
| that freight trains are 4 times as efficient in terms of
| cargo ton-miles per gallon of diesel.
| maxerickson wrote:
| The US makes extensive use of freight rail. Like look at
| the per Capita number at the end of https://en.m.wikipedi
| a.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_us...
|
| The modal share for rail is also relatively high.
|
| A lot of it is bulk commodities of course.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| It just seems like for the quantity of stuff we move
| around, we should have more rail. We have massive wide
| open flat spaces to build rail lines, yet, we don't.
|
| Transport by car or truck accounts for 20% of US carbon
| emissions, while freight rail is just 0.5%, and the
| freight rail is moving 28% of all cargo "ton-miles".
| Armisael16 wrote:
| I'm guessing you've never looked at US rail in any aspect
| other than passenger rail? The US runs ~8x the rail
| freight that the EU does.
| irrational wrote:
| Truck drivers often drive many thousands of kilometers on a
| haul, and I don't mean in a loop. They might have a job to
| drive from LA to Memphis (almost 3000 kilometers), then
| they will pick up a load in Memphis and drive it to Miami.
| It might be many months before they are back in the LA
| area. Cheaper to sleep in the truck than in a hotel. Plus,
| time is money. Pull off the road, sleep for 8 hours, wake
| up and hop back on the road immediately.
| roelschroeven wrote:
| It's not all that different in Europe. I think most
| drivers get home around once a month or so, so more
| frequently than in the US. But while on the road, they
| also sleep in their trucks.
| YPPH wrote:
| In Australia I've found the European style far more common,
| contrary what is suggested in the article.
|
| While we're on the topic of trucks, I've always had this
| pointless desire to get a non-synchronous transmission truck
| driver's licence. I just think it'd be fun learning to drive an
| 18 speed crash box with double clutching and clutch brakes -
| something I imagine will soon be a thing of the past.
| Regrettably, there's no real reason for me to get it.
|
| For now, the rational part of my brain is keeping this in check.
| cycomanic wrote:
| A friend of mine did just that when he moved to Australia and
| changed job. He has a masters degree, but started working as a
| untrained manual labor hand. Got the company to pay for his
| truck licence, (because they needed drivers) and fulfilled is
| childhood dream. Was driving trucks and helping out on the
| factory floor for a couple of years, then became the
| transportation manager and is now the general manager at a
| different company. Quite an interesting career path.
| zeku wrote:
| You can get a Truck Simulator game, and purchase gaming
| equipment for it. You can have a real life steering wheel,
| shifter, and pedals.
|
| Image of such a setup: https://imgur.com/xUdS3wD taken from the
| trucksim subreddit.
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| How is that rational? A truck driver's license can't be too
| expensive, even if you hardly use it. It's probably one of the
| easier things to have on your bucket list.
| vetinari wrote:
| Depending on where you live, there might be on-going fees
| (regular medical, psychological exams, etc, paid by the
| license holder). This kind of license is assumed to be used
| for revenue generation, so the fees are not supposed to be a
| problem.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| If they just want to get it once ongoing cost is not a
| concern.
| jbothma wrote:
| The whole article seems full of conjecture and generalisation.
|
| A big example:
|
| > Another advantage of a conventional cab design is that the
| truck can be more economical. Surely they usually pull heavier
| loads, but if there were two trucks, one a cab-over and another
| one a conventional cab design, and they had the same powertrain
| and the same cargo, the conventional cab truck would most
| likely use less fuel. Of course, that is just in theory - in
| reality there are too many factors to consider.
|
| I don't know... power, load and fuel economy is the kind of
| data that's extremely available about motor vehicles... this is
| something we can't figure out? Or were they just writing
| hearsay to push content and get clicks? ("Subscribe to our
| facebook. Loads of content coming soon!")
| enragedcacti wrote:
| > Or were they just writing hearsay to push content and get
| clicks?
|
| I think this is a very uncharitable interpretation. It has
| been decades in the US and Canada since cab overs fell out of
| style and thus you can't buy ones that take the same trade-
| offs as your average conventional truck. Comparing trucks
| designed for completely different regulatory, geographical,
| and practical constraints isn't going to net something useful
| so we have to make estimated guesses. It seems like it would
| be similar to comparing the fuel economy of an an unladen
| F-150 with an unladen F-350; They might do similar things but
| in practice there are so many capability trade-offs that it
| isn't a particularly interesting thing to do. As they said:
|
| > that is just in theory - in reality there are too many
| factors to consider.
| tgtweak wrote:
| Lots of conjecture. The reality is most of the drag is
| encountered on the trailer, tires and underside. This is the
| reason you now see "skirts" on almost all trailers, and the
| general reduction in distance between tractor and trailer and
| not long airplane-like tractors.
|
| More important to fuel economy is maximizing cargo per trip,
| as having 20% more cargo in the trailer has no impact on
| aerodynamics and minimal contribution to rolling resistance
| and acceleration losses. This is the main argument against
| the length restrictions in the EU. Longer trailers + more
| aerodynamic tractors would lead to a significant increase in
| fuel economy - albeit at the cost of road safety: EU records
| nearly identical deaths per year for trucking related
| accidents as the US - around 5000 - but has 300% as many
| trucks on the road and 50% more population than the US.
| zardo wrote:
| The most aerodynamic COE have higher drag coefficients than
| the most aerodynamic conventionals, the big flat front
| produces a large high pressure area.
| bargle0 wrote:
| In college, I drove an ancient car with a failing manual
| transmission that required double clutching to work. It was not
| fun.
| infogulch wrote:
| Are you aware of the Truck Simulator series of games?
| djbusby wrote:
| Big Mutha Truckers?
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mutha_Truckers
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing. At one point it was the
| lowest rated game ever on metacritic.
|
| The opponents don't move, there is no clipping of
| obstacles, and once you cross the finish line you are
| greeted with a screen proudly saying "You're Winner!"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rigs:_Over_the_Road_Racin
| g
| spacechild1 wrote:
| Let's not forget the missing speed cap for the reverse
| gear. You can accelerate to over 1000 mph and fly off the
| map.
|
| Obviously, the game developers were unexperienced and
| couldn't deliver a functioning product. What's amazing is
| that the company had the audacity to sell it in stores
| nevertheless.
| YPPH wrote:
| I have heard of it but haven't really looked into it.
|
| There's something appealing in the physical labour of feeling
| and manipulating the clutch and gearbox, that a simulator
| might not capture, but I will it check it out.
| phillc73 wrote:
| In Australia, I think the default style has changed over time.
| Back in the 1980s, Mack and Kenworth were the dominant brands.
| Now there's more of a mix, with the likes of Volvo and Scania
| doing well, but Mack and Kenworth are still in the top 10.[1]
|
| [1]
| https://www.trucksales.com.au/editorial/details/2020-truck-s...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Volvos are popular in the US and have a conventional cab
| design.
| YPPH wrote:
| I see. It could be a metropolitan/regional divide too. Most
| the trucks I see are metropolitan traversing from the port to
| inner city destinations.
|
| I imagine the composition is different on, say, the Nullarbor
| plain.
| phillc73 wrote:
| That's an interesting point about the metro/regional
| divide. It could be that livestock haulage is more invested
| in the "conventional" style. I was quite familiar with one
| local haulage company growing up, and checking their
| website it seems like their entire fleet is still
| "conventional"![1]
|
| [1] https://www.martinshaulage.com.au/
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Sometimes you can take a CDL course for cheap. I did years ago
| and it was fun.
|
| I wouldn't get the license though as even minor traffic
| violations can become a pain in the butt.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Those Australian "road trains" that run the outback definitely
| use more American style cabs, but I guess for obvious reasons.
| robbiep wrote:
| It sort of depends where you are - I think most of the ones
| people in cities would see are cab over but the moment you head
| rurally it's almost exclusively conventional - Kenworth and
| Western Star are by far and away the biggest brands. Try
| driving up or down the Newell Highway - conventional would
| outnumber cab over 10-20:1
|
| Driving a road ranger gearbox is a lot of fun. And a jake brake
| makes an awesome sound! I agree with the comment below me - you
| almost never use the clutch, just match revs to gear. It's a
| nice skill, you can do it in any manual vehicle but you're more
| likely to torch the transmission in the average car - Toyota
| landcruisers are good practice though
| protomyth wrote:
| _I 've always had this pointless desire to get a non-
| synchronous transmission truck driver's licence. I just think
| it'd be fun learning to drive an 18 speed crash box with double
| clutching and clutch brakes_
|
| I once had a commercial license paid for by a grant program as
| part of that job. I had to give it up when I moved states and
| no reason to redo it. I regret it a lot because it was useful
| in many ways. Probably different in Australia, but having a odd
| set of skills never hurt my life.
| jalk wrote:
| Tried driving an old double-clutch truck - the clutch pedal was
| extremely hard with an absurdly long travel length. No power
| steering either. Very sore left leg and arms after navigating
| through a small town.
| screenbreakout wrote:
| Hey I was driving those in the Swiss Army, 2dm's they were
| called and a lot of fun once you got the coordination right,
| it's over 30 years ago... here in egypt I've seen preteens
| driving such trucks which brings a thought and suggestion, why
| not come to less "developed" countries to do such things on
| your bucket list... though I'm sure even your government
| doesn't have ubiquitous oversight in your "outback" so probably
| no need to leave your "island" :-)
| 4O4 wrote:
| > I just think it'd be fun learning to drive an 18 speed crash
| box with double clutching and clutch brakes. However, there's
| absolutely no reason for me to get it.
|
| I guarantee you would quickly abandon this double clutching
| "fun" at real trucking job because it is very tiring when you
| need to change gears a lot for example when there are a lot of
| intersections and turns. AFAIK most/all drivers in USA don't
| use clutch at all (for anything other than starting and
| stopping the vehicle) in non-synchronized transmission trucks
| for that very reason. Switching gears without clutch is easier
| and faster when you learn how to do it smoothly.
|
| That being said... I strongly suggest you to try either
| American or Euro Truck simulator games. If you have a steering
| wheel and gearbox controllers for your computer, you can indeed
| have a lot of fun and gain some gear shifting and big truck
| driving skills at much lower cost than in real life while still
| having kind of real feeling.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I used to do that in my old beetle that had a clutch that was
| quite weak. I only used the clutch in 1st gear, the rest of
| the upshifts by ear. There was enough slop in the gears that
| you could do that all day long and never miss.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Were they timed to make it reasonable to go directly from n
| to n+1 or did you have to shift to neutral, wait, then
| upshift?
|
| I have a not-so-old Audi with a known-bad gearbox w/ faulty
| synchros and because it is a turbo you really can't upshift
| in that band when/where the gears are lined up without
| losing too much power so I have learned to time how long I
| should wait in neutral (for the RPMs to drop) before
| completing the upshift. Non-sequential downshifting after
| slowing down from a higher gear is much harder though - you
| really have to play it by ear based off the sound/RPMs and
| the current speed both. And it's a six speed with
| considerably less slop than the old Beetles used to have.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The trick is to match the rpms as the engine drops
| naturally you just slot it in gear at the right moment.
| If you do it often enough at some point you don't even
| notice anymore until you try to drive another vehicle, at
| which point hilarity will ensue.
|
| Those old beetles were just four speeds, pretty beefy
| gears. I never managed a good downshift though, I would
| cheat and very briefly depress the clutch so it wouldn't
| slip. Do it too long and you'd get that horribly
| expensive smell. I was dirt poor and got the car for free
| so I really couldn't complain. Baby blue. And it taught
| me to be very careful on wet surfaces with a rear mounted
| engine (took out a bicycle stand with it in front of one
| of the busiest coffee places in Amsterdam West, "Tramlijn
| Begeerte" (dutch translation of a 'streetcar called
| desire'). Funny little car.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I looked into this. It's very doable and easy. It's funny but
| the actual thing that annoys me is that if you want to get an A
| when you already have a C and M1, you then need to do the C and
| M1 tests again. And to be honest, the M1 written test is pretty
| hard (like at least 10x harder than the C). I obviously passed
| it on my first attempt but I definitely know people who decided
| to just keep their out of state motorcycle license instead.
|
| EDIT in response to reply: I actually don't think it's obvious
| that if you get C, M1, and A separated by a month that you
| should do 1+2+3 tests but that if you get C+C separated by
| years you do 1+0 tests.
| [deleted]
| dylan604 wrote:
| Obviously?
| CSMastermind wrote:
| > I've always had this pointless desire to get a non-
| synchronous transmission truck driver's licence. I just think
| it'd be fun learning to drive an 18 speed crash box with double
| clutching and clutch brakes. However, there's absolutely no
| reason for me to get it.
|
| > For now, the rational part of my brain is keeping this in
| check.
|
| You're not alone! I have the exact same desire.
|
| I have a lot of friends that are recreationally pilots or boat
| captains so I don't think it's that strange.
| lrem wrote:
| > I've always had this pointless desire to get a non-
| synchronous transmission truck driver's licence. I just think
| it'd be fun learning to drive an 18 speed crash box with double
| clutching and clutch brakes - something I imagine will soon be
| a thing of the past. Regrettably, there's no real reason for me
| to get it.
|
| Look out. I know a guy who caved in and learned. Then decided
| he doesn't like computers all that much and he doesn't _really_
| need that software engineer salary, especially if he can cut on
| rent by sleeping in his truck.
| davidw wrote:
| I've always been curious what the live-in cabs are like in those
| big US rigs. Anyone got a good article?
| drewrv wrote:
| I don't know a good article, but for some reason I was curious
| at one point and discovered the marketing pages for various big
| rigs. Marketing materials presumably showcase more flashy
| features and higher trim levels.
|
| Also the /r/Truckers/ subreddit has users post their setup
| sometimes. But usually those are either "look what I was able
| to cook" or "check out my gaming setup".
|
| https://www.peterbilt.com/trucks/highway/model-579
|
| https://www.volvotrucks.us/trucks/vnl/interior/
|
| https://www.macktrucks.com/trucks/anthem/features/
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I see cabover trucks (or at least trucks with snubby little
| noses) all the time in the US, in the city. I only occasionally
| see a traditional tractor trailer anywhere other than major roads
| and highways, because they're a great big PITA to maneuver. I
| assume that they have some significant advantages on the freeway,
| or they wouldn't remain popular for that.
| jack_riminton wrote:
| I've often wondered why European trucks don't have some sort of
| mechanism to make them more aerodynamic when they're on the
| highways i.e. an inflatable nose.
|
| The boxy design must cost a fortune in fuel
| noja wrote:
| You have often wondered why trucks do not come with inflatable
| noses?
| jack_riminton wrote:
| yes
| froh wrote:
| Actually having a smooth undercarriage and a smooth transition
| from truck to trailer and some wind breaking fins reduce drag a
| lot.
|
| https://en.vda.de/dam/vda/publications/FAT-SCHRIFTENREIHE%20...
|
| And the front aerodynamics depend more on the details than it's
| length. Some aerodynamic designs have shockingly steep fronts.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schl%C3%B6rwagen
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| From my understanding, the drag caused by the flat back of the
| trailer causing a vacuum is much more impactful than the front
| shape. I believe a "pillow" of air kind of builds up in the
| front.
|
| It also looks like truck in EU are limited to 55mph. When I tow
| our trailer (just with a normal vehicle), there's minimal
| difference between fuel economy between 45 and 60. Significant
| drops come into play at higher speeds.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _From my understanding, the drag caused by the flat back of
| the trailer causing a vacuum is much more impactful than the
| front shape. I believe a "pillow" of air kind of builds up in
| the front._
|
| A lot of long-distance American tractor trailers deploy fold-
| out cones on their back doors to improve their aerodynamics
| while driving. They fold up for low speed driving and
| loading.
|
| Also, fold-out flaps under the trailer for the same reason.
| mindslight wrote:
| I've always wondered the reasons behind the regional
| difference in popularity of these. Trucks in the middle of
| the country seem to have them, trucks on the coasts seem to
| not. And you'd think longer haul trucks would be the most
| likely to have them, and so you'd end up seeing some on the
| coasts regardless.
|
| Is it something with state by state safety regulations,
| like prohibitions on protruding structures that aren't part
| of the main body? Or differently-defined overall length
| restrictions? Does a given long haul truck have them
| deployed in the middle of the country, but then they're
| removed before getting to the coastal states?
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| > I've always wondered the reasons behind the regional
| difference in popularity of these.
|
| There's an interesting mis-alignment of incentives. It
| comes down to who owns the truck vs the trailer.
|
| * Truck owner pays for fuel.
|
| * Trailer owner pays for the flaps.
|
| So, unless you own both the truck and trailer, there's
| little incentive for trailer owners to install them.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Drag is proportional to the square of speed
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Ah. Yes! I forget about this!
|
| In vehicles, there's a lot of additional, interesting
| factors at play - like engine efficiency.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Yes there will be many nonlinear factors which combine to
| a maximum efficiency speed, which can, to an extent, be
| chosen by design.
| seszett wrote:
| European trucks seem to generally have better fuel economy, but
| this might simply be because fuel economy isn't a focus of US
| manufacturers.
| HPsquared wrote:
| In terms of aerodynamics, a blunt nose isn't actually that bad
| - the real drag is caused by flow separation at the rear of the
| vehicle. It's far more important to have a gently tapered tail,
| to avoid a stagnant low pressure zone forming.
|
| Think a typical "teardrop" airfoil shape, they are blunt at the
| front and gently taper off at the rear.
|
| In fact most cars are more aerodynamic in reverse than they are
| going forwards for exactly this reason - on most cars the front
| end comes in more gradually (the hood portion comes in first,
| then enlarges to the passenger section) whereas the rear end is
| usually much blunter (to maximize storage space).
| Zababa wrote:
| I've heard multiple times that people will put themselves
| behind trucks while driving on the highway and consume only
| half of the gas they would have used if they weren't behind
| them. It's probably related to that.
| jyriand wrote:
| I remember seeing either Mythbusters or TopGear episode
| where they tested this.
| TheSocialAndrew wrote:
| It was a Mythbusters episode, and they concluded that you
| needed to be following the truck extremely closely (I
| believe within a couple of feet) to see a gain in fuel
| efficiency. The driver was unable to keep that small
| distance consistent for a continuous period of time
| causing more speed variations, resulting in a loss of
| fuel efficiency.
| toxik wrote:
| It could also be because trucks drive efficiently with
| little speed variations, at speeds of high fuel efficiency,
| 80-90 km/h. Drag is actually much more complicated than
| that, the air being is turbulent.
| renewiltord wrote:
| May be a little, but classic hypermiling technique is to
| do that anyway. So the slipstream gains are real since
| absent the truck a hypermiler is going to do the same
| thing anyway. I never hit the heady heights of good
| hypermilers, but I had a car I could reliably do 23 km/l,
| 55 mpg in.
|
| Funny, my current car does 24 mpg on the highway at the
| speeds I like. Half the efficiency and probably mostly
| due to me.
| Zababa wrote:
| Semi under 12 tons can go up to 110km/h in France, and I
| think most of them drive around that speed.
| skywal_l wrote:
| It's called slipstream I believe.
| tempnow987 wrote:
| Hypermilers do this - pretty fun / a bit dangerous.
|
| Bikers do this too BTW if you follow the sport, makes for
| interesting team type tactics.
|
| There is some thought that automated road convoys of trucks
| following closely might generate fuel savings this way as
| well.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Cyclists ("bikers" is an ambiguous term) enjoy a 30%
| reduction in required power output to move at typical
| race speeds when within a reasonable size peloton
| compared to riding out on their own.
| jack_riminton wrote:
| That's mostly untrue
|
| Here's a study which pretty much confirms my idea of slightly
| rounding off the nose would be the best thing
| https://www.transportenvironment.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2021...
|
| Image here: https://ibb.co/FgZvz6p
| alecst wrote:
| Ok wow, that last point really fascinated me:
|
| > most cars are more aerodynamic in reverse than they are
| going forwards
|
| I tried to find more about it, but I could only find two
| sources. The first was a Mythbusters episode about a
| particular Porsche, and the second was a Top Gear episode
| about a different car. Can you point me to an article that
| substantiates this?
| dboreham wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kammback
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_coefficient
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| He's BSing or just ill informed.
|
| If you taper properly before the flat cutoff a squared off
| back (Honda insight is the quintessential example) is fine
| because the real turbulence happens a few feet behind the
| vehicle. At speed a blunt (even if it's rounded) nose just
| isn't great no matter how you cut it but with careful
| attention to corners, shape transitions and whatnot you can
| mitigate that quite a lot (modern crossovers with their
| bulbous front bodywork make heavy use of this).
|
| This is a subject with a million gotcha's that add up to a
| lot. Be weary of anyone peddling rule of thumb solutions.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Okay, perhaps I over-generalized somewhat. If one was to
| exclude the little details and edges, intended to
| optimize the airflow in the forwards direction, I contend
| that most cars would be more aerodynamic in reverse due
| to their general shape.
|
| Here's one data point, merely removing the rear spoiler
| an SUV has the same drag in reverse as it does going
| forwards: https://airshaper.com/blog/mercedes-eqc-drag-
| coefficient
|
| If the same car had the fine details massaged for the
| reverse direction in a similar way to how they had
| already been done for going forwards (i.e. instead of the
| rear spoiler, putting a similar spoiler facing the
| opposite direction at the front of the car), the Cd would
| be significantly less in reverse.
| h2odragon wrote:
| I drove an early Honda Insight with and without the rear
| wheel baffles; it was really interesting how you could
| feel the difference in the drag. Little car had hands on
| its hips holding it back, without the skirts.
|
| I'd love to get it running again but cant find decent
| instructions for swapping the battery system out for a
| normal alternator and battery.
| Snoozus wrote:
| It does, but the key heare is the length limitation. Spending
| 1m on a more aerodynamic shape means 1m less cargo space. So
| the fuel efficiency per cargo volume actually goes down.
| dtech wrote:
| Trucks are allowed to be a bit longer now (0.5m iirc), but only
| for aerodynamic measures. The first few trucks taking advantage
| of the new rules are on the road now, but it'll take a while
| before fleets have been replaced.
|
| The most effective aerodynamic changes are on the back though.
| Melkman wrote:
| A blunt front isn't that bad for aerodynamics as long as it's
| rounded enough for the air stream not to separate. A lot more
| can be gained at the back of a truck. Like this:
| http://learntoflyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/4-5.png
| blipvert wrote:
| "I've got a semi" means something very different to right-
| pondians.
| chayesfss wrote:
| Last point is a big one, geography of roads traveled is vastly
| different
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| In general, true.
|
| However, try driving the spectacularly scenic US550 road
| through the San Juans in southern Colorado, and note the
| completely regular semi-trucks negotiating this insane mountain
| road. I am sure this is not the only example.
| giorgioz wrote:
| I was interested in knowing the price of trucks and did some
| research:
|
| The Volvo VNL 2021 costs around 174.000$
|
| That's the new model shown in the youtube video in the article:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nY7Xfu47vw&feature=emb_logo
|
| Given semi-trucks are so expensive and heavely used I wonder why
| more companies don't focus autonomous vehicles for semi-trucks
| rather than robotaxis.
| Heliosmaster wrote:
| Or rail, which is vastly more efficient than trucks (which then
| could be used only for last-mile)
| rozab wrote:
| The cost of the vehicle is irrelevant for autonomy, what's
| important is the cost of the driver. And for a freight train
| a mile long, that is pretty negligable. For a taxi carrying
| one passenger, not so much.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| The US has more rail than any other country in the world. [1]
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail
| _tr...
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| miles of track per square mile, or alternatively, miles of
| track per square mile of population above N-per-unit-area
| would be a much more meaningful statistic.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| I'm not sure population is too important here, that stat
| would just make dense countries look 'better'. In reality
| if you want to ship something from California to DC by
| Rail, it really doesn't matter that 95% of those 3000
| miles have almost no one living nearby.
|
| We're talking about Semi Trucks here, so clearly this
| conversation is in regards to cargo.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Hence my second proposed statistic.
|
| "3000 miles of track to service land holding 60 million
| people" vs. "100,000 miles of track to service land
| holding 50 million people".
|
| (the numbers are invented, not real)
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| Hence my first proposed comment, "that stat would just
| make dense countries look 'better'".
|
| The U.S has a lot of empty land, so this would just be a
| manufactured stat with arguable meaning.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| No, it wouldn't because the only land that would "count"
| would have more than N people per square mile. So in the
| US, North Dakota would barely count for anything.
| f6v wrote:
| Europe has rail. Does anyone know if they use fewer trucks
| than in the US?
| nraynaud wrote:
| I'm not sure we do (whatever we normalize by to compare the
| 2 big areas), freight trains are not big in Europe, because
| of size. Our most populous and wealthy countries are next
| to each other. For trains, you need to amortize the cost of
| loading/unloading.
|
| basically if it's worth it to put it on slow transportation
| "coast to coast" we have a single continuous boat path
| between the North Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, whereas
| the US does have to think twice when sending a ton of
| things from LA to Texas, it's either train or Panama Canal.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Rail is rarely used for freight in smaller countries,
| because you have to move it to trucks anyway to get it
| moved the last 0 - 200km anyway. So if the country is only
| 400km wide, you're wasting to much time load and unloading.
| pmontra wrote:
| This but also the _first_ 0-200 km. Many manufacturers
| (especially small and medium size) are located far away
| from major rail networks.
| rjtavares wrote:
| US uses more rail than Europe for cargo (and the opposite
| is true for passengers).
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Yeah, I don't think people really grok that. They think
| "US hates rail, Europe loves it," but this only applies
| to passenger travel and for freight, it's flipped.
|
| Maybe part of the reason the US has less passenger rail
| is because freight rail is prioritized and we use
| airplanes and automobiles instead due to the vast
| distances between many of the population centers and the
| lower overall population density (a given random two
| geographic locations will have fewer people moving
| between them and therefore will be tougher to justify
| passenger rail). Also, sea transport between different
| coasts of Europe is a little easier than between East and
| West Coast in the US because you don't need to go through
| the Panama Canal. Then again, the US does have a very
| good inter coastal waterway and good navigable rivers
| both via the Mississippi and through the Great Lakes
| (thanks, Canada!).
| IHLayman wrote:
| "That is also why Australian highways feature well-known road
| trains - extremely long distances and straight roads allow semi-
| trucks to pull up to four trailers."
|
| Driving around double-trailers in Indiana always made me anxious,
| so I had to see this unnerving statement in its reality, and I
| found this article [0] that talks about Australian road trains.
| Evidently they are used on single lane roads in the Outback,
| which makes sense. But, I am still wondering, as there must be
| some warehouse to transition to single-trailer loads or else they
| wouldn't be able to safely do last-mile delivery?
|
| [0]: https://www.smart-trucking.com/australian-road-trains/
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Driving around double-trailers in Indiana always made me
| anxious_
|
| A bunch of American states permit triple trailers. Each
| individual trailer is a little shorter, but seeing all three
| going around a corner is a bit unnerving. Especially if they're
| heavy-load trailers that haul stuff like gravel or ore, because
| those are much longer to spread the weight out.
| bombcar wrote:
| You just park the truck and disconnect the extra trailers,
| usually there's a lot on the outskirts of town where the local
| short-haul trucks will take the trailers to their final
| destination.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| A few months ago I filmed the long lines of trucks in Georgia
| (the country) waiting to cross the Russian border. Here's lots of
| Euro-style trucks if you're interested.
|
| https://www.instagram.com/p/CUIvO1fIfFV/
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