From the article, "China’s low price electric trucks do not arrive as finished products for Europe or North America. They need work." and the article goes on to describe what the author considered and an estimate of the cost.
“The gap between a domestic Chinese tractor and a European or North American long haul tractor is roughly €80,000 to €120,000 once all mechanical, safety and comfort systems are brought to the required levels per my estimate.”
In heavy trucks? Probably all of them, and I'd say all of them are worth it if we considered the damage each truck can do and the total number of trucks on the road.
I see safety procedures in New Zealand that appear to be expensive safety theatre to me where contractors are clearly incentivised to increase regulations because they get paid to enact the safety protocols.
Whenever I get a warrant-of-fitness (safety certification) for my car, it is clear that many of the rules are about safety, however it is also clear that there is no balance against the cost of those rules. I notice many cars in other countries that would not pass our safety standards, so you have to wonder exactly how unsafe other countries are (like Louisiana)?
Right. So the highest truck safety standards in the world are in Scandinavia, specifically Norway and Sweden, and many of them are adopted across the whole EU/EEA. These countries also seem to have some of the lowest truck fatality rates globally.
But these standards include things like AEBS and other automatic systems, speed limiters, tachographs etc., there is not much to get paid for for a contractor once the system is in the car and working properly, in fact every decision to enact new safety standards is fought hard at the EU level, so every additional system has to prove it's worth it.
One point of view is that, at least in Europe, over regulation results in: compliance maze due to overlapping regulations, urban policies driven by cyclists and politics rather than logistics, fragmented harmonization across member states.
> urban policies driven by cyclists and politics rather than logistics
Yes, urban policies should be also driven by the people whose very existence is threatened by unsafe trucks. You should try biking on the same road as trucks and see if your opinion changes.
And the result of the 'overregulation' is that in some European cities, there are zero pedestrian/cyclist traffic deaths yearly. How many deaths are you willing to sacrifice on the altar of capitalism?
Oslo each year since 2019 I think? Helsinki in some years too. Maybe others.
> Zero. But I also don’t understand why you conflate “logistics” with capitalism.
I don't conflate anything with anything. Logistics is perfectly capable to operate safely, but it is more expensive than unsafe operation, because it needs higher investment into technical equipment, more money for people that operate it and also lower speeds which means less 'effective' use of capital. Which means safety stands in the way of driving costs lower, which is a conflict with capitalism.
