Truck of the Future?

Posted by $ blarman 12 years, 4 months ago to Technology
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Wal-Mart is prototyping a brand new vehicle for its fleet. Check it out and leave your comments below.

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  • Posted by Robbie53024 12 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The last few years I've done quite a bit of work on shipping goods. You almost always run into either load weight or volume limits. For load weight limitation you can get by with smaller trailer (read that lower to reduce wind resistance). In those situations, you'd want as little frontal area as you could possibly get - lower tractor cab and low sidewalls on the trailer.
    For the volume limited, you can reduce the superstructure as the weight isn't as great.
    The problem is that we compromise on a tractor/trailer system that is not optimized for either situation.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 12 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    1. No disputes here (I'm in the Rocky Mountains). Tinted glass?
    2. Very true. They aren't trying to make it low-profile which would require cutting cargo space, just more aerodynamic.
    3. I agree on the engineering aspects. The question would then be to do a comparison of the "aircraft"-grade aluminum commonly used and the carbon fiber for cost and weight. If the goal is to eliminate weight, I'm thinking carbon fiber wins - even over aluminum - but at a substantial cost. I guess what they are anticipating is the fixed cost of build vs the variable cost of gas, and when gas prices just keep going up, I can see the variable costs quickly eclipsing the fixed costs...
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