on natural gas Gam, things may have …probably have changed since then … but when I was a kid I was hitchhiking and a gas service guy picked me up (he wasn’t suppose to .. but back then where I live if you came upon someone you picked them up because there might not be another person for a long time coming along) … and anyway his vehicle .. a van .. worked on a natural gas/ gasoline engine.
It took the gasoline engine to get it going and then he’d switch to natural gas but it was sluggish and I’m confident could not have pulled much weight.
so thinking 18 wheelers … from that experience I”d say no way. not up no big hills anyway. but I hope I’m wrong and man it’s been forever since that time so maybe they’ve figured something out.
then again … my son and I were talking about that very subject the other day and he reminded me how much trouble his little car had pulling him up the mountains in Col … and he’s right.
Has anybody tried the electric scooters you can get on ebay for like $100 (that was 5 yrs ago) they really do cook right along and will pull my fat ass up a very steep hill we have so I think as transportation for people the electric stuff should be ample, even up steep mountains (don’t ask me about in the snow however cause I don’t know)
but I don’t see them pulling 18 wheelers either.
It would cost a lot but what we’ need and may end up doing is having our 18 wheelers running on fossil fuel and people would travel kinda like the jetsons … everybody in their own little bubble zooming along to whereever.
problem with that is if you put a kitten in a corral full of elephants … sooner or later kitty gets squashed so we’d need to keep them separated much as possible. and that’s what would cost a lot. have a fossil fuel lane and electric car lane and my favorite. the donkey with carrot and a stick lane 