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World's largest EV never has to be recharged
(www.greencarreports.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Does it discharge extra energy into anything else? Does it burn off extra energy as heat to maintain regenerative braking?
Great question.
That is definitely one of the big caveats of BEVs over diesels. A battery on an EV can only take in so much energy. Once you hit that ceiling, the battery won't take in any more current. Fun fact, having a super charged battery in a BEV causes all sorts of headache and can cost you performance.
You either have to switch back to service brakes or, as you mentioned, burn off energy as heat. Not sure how they're doing it with this truck, but on other BEV loaders which I've worked on, we add a hydraulic valve whose only purpose is to create flow, pressure, and subsequently heat. It basically just adds a dummy load. I suspect they tapped into the dump hydraulics and added such a valve for this truck.
It seems like an opportunity for vehicle-to-vehicle charging, putting the power gained from gravity into another vehicle.
It would need to happen quickly and at the same time as unloading and it would have to keep enough energy to climb the hill plus a safety margin.