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Whoever wrote this headline has never encountered a passenger train before in their lives (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world
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[–] [S] 95 points 2 years ago* (10 children)

I did a little digging and it seems like there's a tiny kernel of fact at the core of this giant turd of a hype-piece, and that is the fact that they electrified this little spur line from Berlin to the new German Tesla factory by using a battery-electric trainset. Which is not a terrible solution for electrifying a very short branch line that presumably doesn't need frequent all-day service, even if it's a bit of a janky approach compared to overhead lines. But hand that off to the overworked, underpaid twenty-two-year old gig worker they've got doing "editing" at Yahoo for two bucks an article, and I guess it turns into "world-first electric wonder train amazes!"

For a second, though, I read the headline and wondered if Musk and co. had finally looped all the way around to reinventing commuter rail from first principles after all these years of trying to "disrupt" it with bullshit ideas like Hyperloop and Tunnels, But Dumber.

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  • [–] 28 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    I guess if by a kernel of truth you mean an existing train was used on an existing track, then you could almost make it make sense? But since all of this existed before, it's just a lie.

    I'll also point out that anybody introducing battery electric trains instead of just electrifying the remaining parts of rail is making an astoundingly bad choice, but that's almost certainly Germany and not Tesla.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I could see why they would do it specifically in this case.

    There's been huge protests against building the Gigafactory in Brandenburg, and the main instrument of the opponents was using Germany's strict environmental protection laws against it.
    If they needed to cut down more trees along the tracks to electrify the line, the opponents could possibly delay that by suing in court, demanding studies be done, maybe finding an endangered ant species somewhere in the area.

    Running the train on batteries avoids that.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I don't think you realise how expensive electrifying a line can be, it can be as expensive as building it in the first place. Whereas this technology can be used without modifying the track at all.

    If the line only runs a few times a day, it's an obvious choice.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    I do realize. I also realize things like weight of the train, cost of the battery packs, the fact those packs will wear and need to be replaced faster than anything else in the system, and much more.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Honestly, I’d be more than happy if they just invented regular trains (even if their version would probably worse in ways not even imaginable as of now), because that would mean more money in train infrastructure.

    So… yeah, you did it! You built something really cool and completely new! And don’t look over there, that’s just… copycats?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Yeah but it's also far from new technology. Germany is mostly electrified rail, and having BE sets to bridge areas is not uncommon (in southern Germany you also get diesel electric combo units).

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