No offense taken. No experience in trucking industry whatsoever, just pointing out how fast things can change and how reluctant people can be to it. Worked as an electrical technician in the late 90's early 2000's. When something is without a doubt substantially superior, it is adopted rapidly. History has proven this time and time again. The power grid has been antiquated for decades, and needs to be upgraded regardless. We need to move away from coal power plants, we all know that, people fear nuclear way too much. When some say this is how it's been for x amount of time and won't change, that never usually works out in the end, things always eventually change. Humans used horses for thousands of years, the infrastructure, jobs, everything! disappeared basically overnight. When self driving trucks work, the long term savings, even after building the infrastructure, will be astronomical. Yes many occupations will cease to exist, but new ones will pop up. Again this isn't a matter of if. EV car sales are more than doubling every year, EV vehicles in some fashion are here to stay.
Electric vehicle sales were around 3% this year up from about 1.3% in 2018. If the trend continues 50% COULD come in about four years. I doubt that though lol.
I believe the "power grid" as we know it today is not going to be compatible with the ever increasing demand for electricity. The cost of transmission of electricity is a big problem. I don't remember the numbers exactly but somewhere around half of the electricity produced is lost in the transmission of the electricity to its POU.
While i do like to poke fun at EV's and their owners... ...I'm actually all in on electric vehicles, but, I'm also surprised someone hasn't tried a diesel (read; natural gas) generator/electric truck fleet. Fed ex has tested turbine/electric. (A $100,000 powertrain retrofit) Locomotives have been in existence for 100 years for good reason.
I've been thinking the same thing. Tanks, ships, large dump trucks all use generators that power electric motors. My guess is bulk and weight is the hold up. That goes the other way as size goes up though. Plus you still have the complex engines with all the moving parts and maintenance.
This is true I believe too. Ive read lots about how the future will be numerous small power plants feeding smaller areas versus 1 massive power plant being distributed over large areas. I just heard someone a few days ago on talk radio talking about how in the near future nuclear fusion can be a real possibility, and he could see smaller fusion reactors about the size of a semi-truck being a viable thing. A reactor that size could power something like 100,000 customers, so do the math...a city of a million would position 10 of these reactors around, or however many is needed scaled to the need. I do think thats a very possible future for our electricity needs.
Exactly. Riding motorcycles makes you happy. I saw recently that electric vehicles now outsell vehicles that have manual transmissions. Self driving vehicles still have a ways to go. Also, ev's still have narrow operating conditions. As range increases, recharging time decreases, and the infrastructure can support all of this, then those operating windows get a whole lot bigger. That will take some time though.
GM cancelled the Volt this year. That's unfortunate because I thought that was a great idea. Run it as an EV until the battery drain then the gas engine to recharge the battery.
1958 Ford nucleon concept car. Where are all the clean, infinite-range nuclear-powered cars, ships, and planes? - ExtremeTech
It has a lot of good features. Electric drive trains are superior in every way other than range and already many needs can be met with electric. There are engineering reasons for the shape but it looks goofy to me. My big question applies to all pickups: When did crew cab short bed become standard? Apparently pickups are mostly a fashion choice these days. An 8 foot bed single row cab is a far more useful truck for most people that actually need a truck. If you want to transport your family to the mall, get a minivan. They are pretty nice and designed for the task.
Well in a lot of peoples defense people buy them for the dual purpose - carry the family around AND have a bed for general use. Having a reg cab 8' bed truck is great for work but useless if you have any kids. What ticks me off is that its damm near impossible to find a crew cab 1/2 ton with a 6.5 foot bed! I have an extended cab F150 with 6.5 bed and want to step up into a crew cab for backseat space for my kids, but every crew cab F150 I see has a 5' bed! They do make crew cabs with the 6.5 but they are wicked rare and hard to find. I do agree reg cab 8' bed trucks are the bomb and Im looking forward to the day when my kids are grown and gone and I can justify owning that configuration again. Hopefully they aren't all electric by then!
I just bought a Nissan Leaf used. It the most basic model. I’m loving it for my 10 mile trip to work and around town. Meets almost all of my needs. Very inexpensive used!
I mostly agree. Minivans just have a bad stigma, people want to look tough in a truck. I've owned both a standard cab and extended cab truck. A standard cab truck has no room in the cab for a piece of paper let alone anything else, I'll never own one again, extended cab or 4 door for me. Prefer the 8' bed, but you can get by fine with less, if I need more I hook up my trailer, holds way more than any 8' bed can.
Good point about the trailer. The bed is always with you and it’s convenient. A trailer can carry more and it is also generally easier to load and unload. Way better access and lower.
When I was shopping for a crew cab 1/2 ton, a lot of them had the 6.5' bed. The main reason you see a lot of the 5.5' beds on the crew cab 1/2 tons is that the 5.5' bed is the longest that will fit in a standard size garage. Even then, my 5.5' bed on my supercrew Ford barely fits in my garage. I've got a couple inches from the garage door to the front or back to the wall , that's it. I had to eliminate a good 50% of the trucks I was looking at because they wouldn't fit in the garage. It's a subtle difference to spot in the wild, but once you see the " space" between the end of the cab and the rear wheel well, it will be obvious which are the " long bed" y.5' vs the short bed 5.5'. Getting my truck was a great choice. It replaced a V8 Audi allroad wagon. The 5.0 v8 gets better mpg than my Audi wagon did, and fits a lot more in it. It tows more too, and has just as many features on it. The only thing it's worse than the Audi for is parking, and it's probably electronically limited to 108 mph or so. The Audi did north of 150 mph.
Also you can abuse a trailer and not worry about dents. The fact that you can either reach in on smaller trailers and get all the wood out or whatever you're hauling, and on bigger trailers, you get the dump function, and unload easily. Or a flatbed and you get a forklift or grapple or other equipment to unload easily.
