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Comment by Joeri | Hacker News Reader

Europe has mandatory rest stops of at least 45 minutes, so any software with the ability to plan around those should have the ability to convert them easily to recharge stops.

That doesn’t mean the recharge infrastructure exists overnight, but those same stops are being converted to support the rollouts of electric car fleets (e.g. belgium is going to mandate corporate car fleets convert to electric from 2026).

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Furthermore, there are now multiple cities that banned diesel vehicles entering cities. This would actually give electric trucks an edge over diesel ones, this could be a great solution for resupplying supermarkets. Could be good for increasing the margin.

I heard about this, but have they banned them today or in 2035?

It looks like Paris will ban them from 2024, which is soon enough that HGV owners must be planning for it.

You might find a city with current regulations on this site.

https://urbanaccessregulations.eu/countries-mainmenu-147/fra...

What's HGV?

Heavy Goods Vehicle (Large / LGV in some places)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_goods_vehicle

> Europe has mandatory rest stops of at least 45 minutes

I'm not a trucker, but if your source is https://transport.ec.europa.eu/transport-modes/road/social-p... I don't read it as mandatory, more like a recommendation.

It is, and there are devices that make sure you do it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachograph

It's encoded in the CE rule 561/2006 article 7:

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

  Article 7
  
  After a driving period of four and a half hours a driver shall take an uninterrupted break of not less than 45 minutes, unless he takes a rest period.
  
  This break may be replaced by a break of at least 15 minutes followed by a break of at least 30 minutes each distributed over the period in such a way as to comply with the provisions of the first paragraph.

Does the software actually need to plan the rest stops precisely? Planning to drive X hours over Y hours of real time doesn’t require choosing where the rest stops are in advance, which allows a driver to stop where convenient depending on traffic and other conditions. But if charging is required, then the stop needs to be at a charger, which is a much stronger constraint.

I thought truckers commonly work in teams specifically so the truck can keep moving during mandatory breaks. The driver on break goes to sleep, and their partner takes over.

I think this is a very specific niche of trucking. At least here in Western Europe this is not at all common.

You'd have to pay 2 drivers even though only one works at a time for a small gain in time.

Here in Europe, that is rather an exception. Also, sleeping while the other driver drives isn't considered as legal resting time. Only time outside the truck is considered legal resting time.

No. Because then you're paying someone to sit on their arse for 4 and a half hours doing nothing to get 45 mins back.

It’s not “common” but it’s definitely frequent for critical pieces of hardware where the cost of 2 days of labor for a second trucker is irrelevant. (e.g. Getting a replacement industrial component blocking a business from resuming operations.)

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