As a continuation of my series, I decided to call this particular article Part 3, as opposed to Part 1 Revisited Again.  This is another look at other industries that, until the COVID-19 Fauxdemic of recent months, we do not actively think about unless they are occupying are immediate attention.  Those are the industries of transportation (trucking and locomotive), processing plants for daily necessities and farming, be it family owned or corporate farming. I do not feel the need to focus on the energy providers, such as oil, natural gas and coal mining companies because the impact there is fairly obvious.

We are all seeing commercials and hearing radio ads about the importance of the trucking industry during the Fa

Fauxdemic of 2020.  They are transporting the majority of food and other daily necessities that we have come to rely on in our day-to-day lives.  The majority of what we purchase is shipped to us via trucks. With the implantation of Green Energy, how much battery power is needed to move that much cargo?

In a 2017 article in Wired, they researched the idea of lithium-ion battery powered semis after Elon Musk announced his intention to develop shipping trucks in 2016:

Say the Tesla truck runs a lithium-ion battery system that generates 243 watt-hours per kilogram at the cell-level—a good bet based on the tech in Tesla’s current cars. To cover 600 miles without stopping to charge, the truck would need a 14 ton battery. A 900-mile battery would weigh about 22 tons. Based on current prices, those packs would cost between $290,000 and $450,000. A comparable diesel rig costs about $120,000, all-in.

The article goes on to say the “600-mile-ready Tesla truck could carry just nine tons of cargo. That’s two-thirds the current average payload of 16 tons” due to the weight of the battery pack with all the other parts of the truck. This doesn’t include the charge time needed for these trucks. This will hamper the efficiency of the trucking industry which logistically has their costs factored down to the minute. Add into that equation the cost of building and operating battery-powered farming equipment that will be used to fill semis.

Lithium is mined.  It requires large-scale construction equipment which need massive engines to provide the torque to move the quantities of earth and lithium from the mines.  Will the vehicle battery technology ever catch up to the needs of these machines?  The countries that provide most of the world’s supplies of lithium are Australia, Chile, China and Argentina, among others.  Lithium mining in the United States has only recently started in the last decade or so with the largest mine located in Nevada, and a recent deposit discovered in Wyoming.

As one can see, the electric vehicle impact in the transportation industry is astronomical.  The cost of the lithium-ion powered semi-truck could be two to three times as high as a current diesel fuel powered semi.  The travel time will be increased.  Currently, due to federal guidelines, truck drivers can only log sixty hours of drive times per seven days.  As a result, some long-haul trucking companies will send two drivers per truck to maximize costs.  With a battery etruck, it won’t matter because 600 miles per charge is one day of travel.

One may ask, who is going to pay for those increased transportation costs? Those costs are going to passed on to the consumer and the majority of consumers are Middle Class.