EEVblog 1570 - Tesla DIESEL Electric Train FAIL at Belin Gigafactory

[EEVblog]

Tesla unveiled to much fanfare, a DIESEL electric train to carry workers to and from their Berlin Gigafactory. LOL!
Dave runs the numbers on whether or not they could have used a Battery Electric Train (BEMU) instead of diesel electric. And could they have powered it from the solar panels on the train station roof?



Links:
https://twitter.com/eevblog/status/1699034774701293812
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigafactory_Berlin-Brandenburg


MSN LINK REMOVED BY YOUTUBE AS A SCAM! LOL
https://insideevs.com/news/682009/tesla-gigafactory-berlin-v4-supercharger-solar-roof/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_Talent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_Talent_2
https://www.railway-technology.com/projects/bombardier-talent-3-battery-train/
https://www.railwaygazette.com/business/bombardier-and-leclanche-sign-battery-traction-mou/54744.article
https://www.railway-technology.com/features/train-engine-innovations/?cf-view
https://www.railvolution.net/news/talent-3-bemu-in-passenger-service
https://www.railexpress.com.au/bombardier-filling-the-gap/
https://www.vde.com/resource/blob/2068324/a35ebed9833dae59d8cb1451368203bd/vde-study-battery-systems-data.pdf
https://www.google.com.au/maps/@52.393417,13.7959197,892m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEB_VT_73
Byron Bay Solar train:
https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php

[golden_labels]

But, but, but… Elon told us self-driving electric cars are the future of high-capacity point-to-point transport! Are we being lied to?

Uses cars: ✗
Electric: ✗
Self-driving: ✗
Colorful LEDs along the entire track: ✗

BTW, you miss ‘0’ at the end of the NL Wikipedia link; should be https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEB_VT_730

[schmitt trigger]

Where is an Hyperloop train when we need one? /sarcasm filter on.

The train set in the last video appears to be a refurbished S-Bahn.

[EEVblog]

The train set in the last video appears to be a refurbished S-Bahn.

The "red rattlers" were made here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_Wales_Standard_suburban_carriage_stock

[wraper]

Where is an Hyperloop train when we need one?

The train set in the last video appears to be a refurbished S-Bahn.

Hyperloop is not suited for short distance travel. Also this is temporary solution which will be replaced after a few years and is not operated by Tesla. Just an extension of existing train network.

[EEVblog]

Hyperloop is not suited for short distance travel.

It's not suited for anything. It's just hype.

Also this is temporary solution which will be replaced after a few years and is not operated by Tesla. Just an extension of existing train network.

Tesla own the track. And do you have a reference that it's going to replaced after a few years? And by what?

[wraper]

It's not suited for anything. It's just hype.

Whether it's hype or not, as a concept it's for long distance travel. On short distances it wouldn't be able to accelerate to speeds where air drag reduction would matter.

Tesla own the track. And do you have a reference that it's going to replaced after a few years? And by what?

Tesla owns the track, most of which is previously existing track they bought. But they do not operate the trains.
https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/tesla-buys-german-railway-line-plans-passenger-trains-2/

Longer term a nearby Deutsche Bahn owned station at Fangschleuse on the mainline, served by regular commuter rail services to and from Berlin, is to be re-located near the new Tesla factory but not before 2025; whether the dedicated Tesla shuttle train will continue long term is not currently known.

[golden_labels]

Speaking of Hyperloop: did Musk explain, how are switches going to work in his vacuum tube? They are critical to sustainability of railway systems, allowing many lines to share a single track. Is Musk going to build a new, separate track for each connection?

Solutions found in capsule pipelines do not seem like the answer, given the fragility of the contents (humans) and speeds involved.

[wraper]

Even though I have some things to say, it's better to leave Hyperloop alone to not derail the topic, otherwise this threat may turn into yet another shitposting contest.

[EEVblog]

Tesla owns the track, most of which is previously existing track they bought. But they do not operate the trains.
https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/tesla-buys-german-railway-line-plans-passenger-trains-2/

Correct. I never said they operated the trains. But surely they would have had some say in what type of train operates on it. If they wanted a battery train they could have got one, or at least arranged for the order of one with the operator or however that works. If they had to run diesel for now because of avialability, so be it, that's fine.
But what you don't do it have a huge flashy public opening of a diesel train without any mention at all of any eventual transistion to a battery train. Huge PR failure.

[wraper]

If they wanted a battery train they could have got one, or at least arranged for the order of one with the operator or however that works.

There is no readily available battery train they can put into actual service here and now. But building overhead lines for what appears to be a stop-gap solution likely is not only not viable financially and environmentally but also likely involves a bunch of permits, environmental assessment, dodgy local "environmental" groups and other bureaucratic time wasting junk. They just recently had gone through hell with that when building the factory. Not to say it's up to question if overhead lines exist all over the length of public railway that train arrives from. If negative, there is nothing for Tesla to extend on their property.

If they had to run diesel for now because of avialability, so be it, that's fine.
But what you don't do it have a huge flashy public opening of a diesel train without any mention at all of any eventual transition to a battery train. Huge PR failure.

But it informed potential employees about possibility to work at factory without too much commute hassle. Also as far as I'm aware there was no huge event about that. This is literally the only thing I could find about Tesla actually promoting it https://twitter.com/teslaeurope/status/1698637458563387808 Nothing on their YouTube channel. I don't consider running the first train at 5AM an hiring a DJ a "huge flashy public opening ".
More like media making a big deal from anything insignificant they could find about Elon/Tesla.

[EEVblog]

If they wanted a battery train they could have got one, or at least arranged for the order of one with the operator or however that works.

There is no readily available battery train they can put into actual service here and now.

Not true. They were running on the network in Jan 2022, it's just a matter of availability.
https://www.alstom.com/press-releases-news/2022/1/alstom-and-deutsche-bahn-test-first-battery-train-passenger-operation
https://www.urban-transport-magazine.com/en/deutsche-bahn-and-alstom-with-positive-feedback-for-the-first-battery-train/

Also as far as I'm aware there was no huge event about that. This is literally the only thing I could find about Tesla actually promoting it https://twitter.com/teslaeurope/status/1698637458563387808 Nothing on their YouTube channel. I don't consider running the first train at 5AM an hiring a DJ a "huge flashy public opening ".
More like media making a big deal from anything insignificant they could find about Elon/Tesla.

An official tweet of a highly produced video from Tesla Europe about the grand opening doesn't warrant media coverage?  Of course it does.
 
https://www.msn.com/en-ie/money/technology/teslas-giga-berlin-train-shuttle-opens-runs-on-diesel/ar-AA1geV9s
https://insideevs.com/news/685080/tesla-giga-berlin-train-shuttle-opens-runs-on-diesel/
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/this-diesel-powered-giga-train-will-take-you-to-tesla-s-berlin-gigafactory-220569.html
https://www.autospies.com/news/index.aspx?submissionid=118017

[nctnico]

Not true. They were running on the network in Jan 2022, it's just a matter of availability.
https://www.alstom.com/press-releases-news/2022/1/alstom-and-deutsche-bahn-test-first-battery-train-passenger-operation

It is a test model so not ready for ordering. And very likely this train is prohibitively expensive let alone the bugs they need to iron out.

[wraper]

If they wanted a battery train they could have got one, or at least arranged for the order of one with the operator or however that works.

There is no readily available battery train they can put into actual service here and now.

Not true. They were running on the network in Jan 2022, it's just a matter of availability.
https://www.alstom.com/press-releases-news/2022/1/alstom-and-deutsche-bahn-test-first-battery-train-passenger-operation
https://www.urban-transport-magazine.com/en/deutsche-bahn-and-alstom-with-positive-feedback-for-the-first-battery-train/

Only test trains existing literally means they are not available right now. Should Tesla hinder their operations and wait for those trains to be actually released just to gain a bit of public optics? Not to say waiting for things to happen is contrary to what Elon/Tesla does. They would rather half-ass it now and do properly later.

An official tweet of a highly produced video from Tesla Europe about the grand opening doesn't warrant media coverage?  Of course it does.

Highly produced? It's as cheap as it gets. 30 seconds of video with some pretty basic real life shooting and relatively minor editing. One camera put behind front glass in the train, one stationary camera and one gimbal camera on the station and a bit of Drone shooting. It's like a less than half days work of some mediocre youtuber who shoots videos in a field and could be done alone. It's highly edited only compared with your talking head in front of a camera, nothing wrong with either approach.
As of those news articles... media manages to spew out 1000 word articles from some stupid 5 word tweet Elon casually shitposts. The fact is Tesla just introduced a train for their workers, put a minor announcement on their local EU twitter account and media blew it out of proportion all over the world. Does not mean Tesla shall fear announcing anything without extreme vetting in fear of bad PR as many companies do these days.

[EEVblog]

Only test trains existing literally means they are not available right now. Should Tesla hinder their operations and wait for those trains to be actually released just to gain a bit of public optics? Not to say waiting for things to happen is contrary to what Elon/Tesla does. They would rather half-ass it now and do properly later.

Of course not, and I said that.

Highly produced? It's as cheap as it gets. 30 seconds of with some pretty basic real life shooting and relatively minor editing. One camera put bihind front glass in train, two gimbal cameras on the station and some Drone shooting. It's a less than half days work of some mediocre youtuber and their friend. It's highly edited only compared with your talking head in front of a camera, nothing wrong with either approach.
As of those news articles... media manages to spew out 1000 word articles from some stupid 5 word tweet Elon casually shitposts. The fact is Tesla just introduced a train for their workers, put a minor announcement on their local EU twitter account and media blew it out of proportion all over the world. Does not mean Tesla shall fear announcing anything without extreme vetting in fear of bad PR as many companies do these days.

They "blew it out of proportion" because as I said, it's hillariously ironic. Of course the media were going to run with it.
A smart PR department at Tesla should have easily seen this coming and prepped a statement along the lines of "We had to go with a diesel train because we need the capability now, and battery trains are a long lead time, and we are working toward a battery solution" blah blah.

Look, I get your point about Elon derangement syndrome, I've pointed it out many times myself (almost weekly on Twitter it seems), but this was begging for it.
Just yesterday and today on Twitter I was taking Thunderf00t and Barnaclues to task on petty stuff about Elon.

As for me doing my video, like I said in the video, I like trains, and I was curious to know if my gut tweet that day about the solar capacity was correct or not. And I've done a video on a battery train and countless solar video, so it's right up my interest alley. It's fine if you don't like that, give a thumbs down and move on.

[.RC.]

If I was the one choosing the diesel electric train I would have got a class 37.   It puts hairs on your chest just listening to it and that is just the women.

[Haenk]

Only test trains existing literally means they are not available right now.

Erm - no.
They are available and already running on regular service now.

My "local" railroad line (i.e. the one I could see from my house in about 50m distance) is being partly electrified for a couple of months now, still not quite finished though. Obviously, the muddy underground (the reason the rails have been built on dams 150 years ago) is not that great to have electrical posts erected. So all this will take another 1-2 months.
*However* the trains are on order, but not yet delieverd. So as soon as the rails are going into service again, the former Diesel-electric trains will be running again, to be replaced as soon as possible by fully electric (battery) trains.

https://akkuzug.nah.sh/

(target: 55 trains on 11 regional tracks until mid next year)

[wraper]

Only test trains existing literally means they are not available right now.

Erm - no.
They are available and already running on regular service now.

A few test trains running regular service have nothing to do with actual availability for purchase and delivery right now for currently operating service. Is this some word interpretation game or what?

[Poe]

There is an electric train loop (I think I was in France) with kinetic energy storage systems at each stop that provide the breaking/acceleration.  Sounds like jet spooling up/down. 

[coppice]

There is an electric train loop (I think I was in France) with kinetic energy storage systems at each stop that provide the breaking/acceleration.  Sounds like jet spooling up/down.

I've read about one of those in Switzerland. If you use electric trains you can brake by generating and pumping the energy to the other trains in the network, without storage. It doesn't gain a lot, because commuter lines usually rise into stations, and fall leaving them, to convert quite a bit of the kinetic energy to potential energy, and vice versa.