Cybertruck?

I'd imagine he can pack more battery power into a truck than sedan. I believe you can do some extrapolation between the two but we can only wait and see how real world results will be.

 

Yes, he can and will. Which is why even with 3 motors and ~1000lbft of tq, that is expected to have 500 miles of range. But, this is Elon musk. As good as his current products are, he's a salesman and has been caught a few times embellishing things and has had to back track a bit.

This is a concept/pre production vehicle. Only time will tell what really is made.

 

There has to be a point of diminishing returns...adding batteries adds weight, more weight = less range I'd think. Ultimately I think battery tech needs to change/improve before electric vehicles really take off.

I have no doubt electric vehicles are the future, as much as we all love our gas trucks I believe in 10-15 years time they'll be 50%+ electric on the road. I personally do NOT think Tesla is going to be the company to bring them into the mainstream though, Ive read so many stories of terrible quality control and customer service. As the more mainstream manufacturers step into this realm it will become more and more popular.

A co-worker told me Ford is planning to release an all electric F-150? If it actually looks/performs like an F-150 but has an electric drivetrain that can get say 400+ miles per charge and its reasonably priced, I would be into that for sure!

2 of my coworkers have Teslas and are such diehard fanboys its really pathetic. I think when you spend that much $ on a car you need to justify that to yourself everyday. I believe one of them spent about $70,000 (for a used one!) and the other around $50,000 (not sure what models exactly).

I also don't like how all the electric cars nowadays have to be so "high tech"....tons of gimmicky gadgets and touch screens etc. When someone makes a basic car with basic options but has an electric drivetrain I'd be much more interested.

Every computer in my life has gotten crappy and slow with age, these Teslas are just computers with tons of things to go wrong in them IMO. Think of how annoying it is tracing down an electrical issue in a normal truck...imagine one of these gizmos!

 

This really speaks to me- and I kind of want to weigh in on something- just my opinion, not gospel, just what's on my mind.
I'm youngish.... 35 now, but I bought my home when I was 30, put in a wood stove that winter and then installed solar panels the next year to get my foot in the door on all that. I knew in the future I'd be in a different position and wanted to position myself for it. My first stove was a smoke dragon but I got positioned for a more efficient stove. Likewise- I had my solar array sized for 178% of my yearly needs. That was obviously their estimate based off a an industry termed "shade reading"- so its weather dependent of course.
As time went on and I was able to I bought a better wood stove, and likewise when I got the panels installed I had an energy audit on the house and replaced a bunch of lights, looked for some more efficient appliances as time went on- so on and so forth.
Currently I drive a plug in hybrid. It has a range of about 30 miles all electric, then it switches over to a gas/electric hybrid mode of transport. I actually really like it. I'm not a huge tech guy. I don't go nuts over cars or trucks, but I'm pretty wild about efficiency.

That thing that I keep going over in my mind is that there are trade offs for everything, and we generally accept them. It's plainly obvious to me at least that the cybertruck and any electric truck out there will probably not be replacing the F250's or Ram 3500's and the commercial grade GMC trucks. And if you're towing multi thousand pound campers and all that, it probably just isn't built for you. But.... it could be for a lot of us. It's possible. It think its a neat technology, and a step in the right direction.
For me, an all electric vehicle won't make much sense for a long while. I regularly take 800 mile (one way) trips to my family's farm. Some of it is through the North East super city corridor, but then I'm going up Maine, and across New Brunswick. As the infrastructure increases and improves as the battery size / weight and power also improves things will change. It will be interesting to see what keeps becoming possible.

 

While I find the "cybertruck" hideous, I would like to be able to afford an EV for daily work commute.

I travel 7 miles to work, well within the range of the most inefficient of EV's.

But the cost is prohibitively high for our budget.

Hopefully the costs will come down further in the relatively near future.

 

This is the key, these cars are so much more expensive than a comparable gas vehicle that even if you assume free lifetime charging its not even close in overall cost of ownership.

I do think the prices will come down as battery technology improves and eventually be right on par with gas vehicles...just a matter of time.

 

RGrant Ford's all electric F-150 will be out and available for purchase before the Tesla truck hits the market. They've been driving test mule EV F-150 trucks for months. Ford also teamed up with Rivian ( bought into them I believe) on their electric SUV and truck, and it was just announced that Lincoln well make an all ev SUV off of the Rivian chassis.

 

At least the Looks Improved


Doug

 

Welcome aboard Husky Man (Doug)


Hope you're having a fine Thanksgiving

 

I'm not looking forward to trying to replace my gas mileage excuse for why I like to ride my motorcycle so much to my wife.

 

Thank You Chaz, my Wonderful Wife whipped up a Delicious Dinner for a House Full of the Kids and Grand Kids, it was a Very Enjoyable Evening

I Hope that You and the rest of the FHC crowd had as Fine a Night as we did


Doug

 

It's an electric Honda Ridgeline for the soccer moms and dads. Not quite a truck, for people who don't quite need a truck.
The bed will be handy at the garden center a few times a year. Mostly it will shuttle the kids to school, practice and play dates.
I work in an area where every third car is a Tesla. This will appeal to a certain subset of these people, I doubt it will ever make much of a showing in the blue collar city I live in.

 

Thinking about it more, I doubt this truck will hit the market as is. This really seems like a publicity stunt.

To be real here, I have no doubt in about 15 years, most, if not all new cars and trucks will be electric. The batteries will likely go 1,000 miles on a charge, and likely recharge in a few minutes, or you just swap out a pack for a fresh one. Electric power is better in just about every way imaginable. It's the storage of energy that has always been the problem, as petroleum fuel is very energy-dense.

 

We will see, in the light duty market, in the Class 8 heavy truck segment, I see it taking much longer for Batteries to replace Diesel fuel.
The weight comparison alone is too far to the diesels advantage, and weight is MONEY in that world, plus you lose the ability to run partial fuel loads to gain cargo capacity, a battery’s weight is consistent regardless of charge level.

Also recharging times will have to improve Dramatically to be practical in the commercial market.

The infrastructure is also going to be a HUGE challenge, just the addition of DEF was a headache, and logistically is was a much easier fit.

I’ve been moving freight from “Point A” to “Point B” for more than 31 years, I expect to be moving freight for another 12-15 years, and I Honestly don’t expect to see wide spread Electric trucks or Self Driving Trucks during my career


Doug [/QUOTE]

 

Change can happen overnight. Some of your concerns are easy to overcome, some not so much. Power to weight is probably the easiest. Partial fuel load would be pretty easy, just remove a bank of cells. Infrastructure is the big one, but again things can change fast. People really don't like change, especially when it may drastically affect the industry they work in. I didn't think self driving would be around this soon, it's pretty much here now. Manual transmissions are pretty much gone now, even though I prefer them myself. And the big one, reliability will be dramatically improved. Similar to what happened with piston engines vs jet turbine engines in aviation. This isn't a matter of if, it's a matter of when.

Battery Banter 1: Are Internal Combustion Engines Going the Way of the Horse?

 

Hi Andy, no disrespect intended, just curious as to your experiences and where your point of view comes from, what is your professional background?

Removing cell packs to maximize payload just doesn’t seem practical to me, that would necessitate using a forklift, using a shippers personnel and equipment, many would balk at that, but more importantly, it would mean leaving it behind, and having to return for it, and losing that “Fuel” capacity until you do.
With diesel you can adjust the fuel load very precisely, and based on need, adjusted to scale locations, you might be surprised just how common it is to adjust fuel loads that way.

The infrastructure is going to be a Huge issue as it is not compatible with the current systems, in places where a 12 lane fuel station is adequate, just replacing or adding electric charging capabilities to the fuel lanes will not give the through put capacity needed.

Just changing out battery packs isn’t practical because of the number of independent and small carriers, combined with the expense and service Life of battery packs, who pays for, and determines when the battery packs are replaced? That COULD work for National Mega Carriers doing battery swaps at their own terminals, but that would really only be practical for the LTL Carriers, truck load, not so much, that is too restrictive on OTR operations

Yep, automatic transmissions are becoming more common in heavy trucking, and I personally DETEST them. Sadly, Many driving schools don’t teach manual transmission shifting anymore, and the drivers actually have an “Automatic Transmission ONLY” restriction on their CDL’s

Then there is just too many diesel fueled /driver driven trucks around to make a change like that “overnight” the production alone would be astronomical to not only provide the for normal attrition, but wholesale replacement as well, then the other issue of disposal of the current fleets.

On top of all the industry challenges, our power grid would be Overloaded just trying to charge a nation of all electric personal vehicles, never mind the additional capacity of charging a national fleet of Electric Trucks as well. To make that situation worse, they are already scheduling the closure of many coal fired power plants DECADES before their expected service lives end, and there are Serious proposals to remove 4 Snake River Dams, and more on the Columbia River as well, with No Replacement capacity specified

There are simply Too Many “Challenges” for me to take large scale electric truck operation in mid term future seriously, after having been in the industry for more than 30 years


Doug

 

Andy, another issue with removing battery packs to meet weight regulations is depending on how the series/parallel schematic is designed, that may not be an option, you Need a certain number of cells to provide the optimum voltage for the HP/Performance you intend to get. Unless you are using many small cells in multiple packs all designed to each provide the needed voltage, then wired in parallel, removing a cell pack would reduce your voltage to less than optimum, which would reduce torque, acceleration and top end speed

Typically, battery packs are sized to have the correct number of cells for the need, as large as will fit the available battery space.

Larger cells tend to be more efficient and have greater life and output capacity than parallel wired packs of smaller cells.

As to manual transmissions being practically gone, that is true, in the Light and even medium duty trucks, but in the Heavy Duty Truck segment, manual transmissions are still very common, and very available in new trucks, and likely will be for the foreseeable future


Doug

 

EVs have to learn to walk before they can run, until they are 50% of passenger car sales for a while, they won't be ready for longer range, higher weight, long haul markets.
Battery bulk, weight and recharge time is a huge penalty for more than commuting or local delivery applications.
Tesla gave up on swapping battery packs to save charging waits, even computer controlled it couldn't be done reliably, due to coolant leaks. (Tesla battery packs ride under the whole vehicle, and are liquid cooled to avoid thermal runaway.)
The two things required for a 1:1 with conventional powered vehicles is a 1:1 in mass per unit of energy with gasoline, and a recharge/battery swap in the same time a typical fill up happens.
Until then EV will be a niche product, for a few specific missions.

Invent the Mr Fusion, and this all becomes the equivalent of the curly florescent light bulb, unloved, unliked, toxic, and easy to forget thanks to better technology

 

Welcome to the club, Husky Man !

Thank you for joining up and posting.

 

Some things in life just don't need to be explained.