Tesla cybertruck

[Michael]

The first time I looked at a Chiappa Rhino I thought it was ugly because I was looking at it as a revolver. Then I looked again, judged it by it's merits and long story short, I am on my 4th one now. Best revolver I have ever shot. The moral of the story is as long as you cling onto convention, you will never see the future through your eyes and condemn yourself to be a passenger in your own life.

What does this have to do with a EV? I don't know but the Europeans hate it.

15757381698638374180099691816097.jpg

[mr_maxime]

"Whoops, I went done ran outta battery!" is a scenario that you'd have to insist on putting yourself in.

But for your mountain scenario, just point your truck back down the trail and regenerative brake back down to ground level.

https://youtu.be/BSWR-0GkNCk

[gluaisrothaii]

Since 2013 we have about 113,000 miles in electric.

2013 Tesla S85- 45,000 miles (sold to upgrade to performance dual motor)
2015 Tesla P85D- 65,000 miles (still have this one)
2019 Fiat 500e- 3000 miles (just leased for shorter city commute)

Have hit Santa Barbara, LA, Tahoe numerous times, Santa Rosa, etc, etc. Never a concern with range given the Supercharger network. Tahoe is especially fun- no loss of power with increased altitude makes the drive up 50/80 a joy; plus watching the range increase on the downslope drive.

I might have a different mindset than others with respect to fuel management, being a pilot. It's something that's always top of mind. But for most folks EV management is easy to get used to. The one annoying thing about driving the DeLorean is having to gas it up. With the electrics, I plug in when I get to work. Takes 30 seconds. Gassing up is messy, smelly and takes far too long with the CA fuel nozzles. I can pump 30 gallons of 100LL per side into the plane faster than I can get 15 of 91 out of the local gas pump.


Blue skies,
Ken

[Chris4099]

I can't wait for the first story of a Tesla truck that dies out on a remote mountain trail because the battery is run down.

About 4 or 5 years ago, Tesla updated the GPS system to make sure that never happens unless you are an idiot. Basically if you start driving away from any known charging locations, it will popup an alert on the screen warning you that you are about drive out of range of charging (unless your navigation destination is a charging location). I had this happen to me when I was driving in Montana to my brother in-law's place. Because I had never charged there before, the car started warning me about 70 miles into a 150 mile stretch. Fortunately I was able to ignore it since I was planning on just plugging into a 120v outlet at his place. My next trip there, the warning never appeared since it knew about that charging location from the past trip. Of course it probably won't handle off road driving right now, but there's no reason they can't update it once the truck is released.

Over the last 6 years, my wife and I have driven over 130k EV miles. Never once have we run out of charge. If you are unsure if you will make it, just put the destination into the GPS and it will calculate the power required (factoring elevation changes and temperature). Unlike a gas car, you'll know if you can make it without a refuel before even leaving! If not, just plan for a charge somewhere and no worries about running out. Of course this only really applies for road trips. Daily driving it's even more of a no big deal. Just spend 5 seconds unplugging when you leave and 5 seconds plugging back in when you return. You'll have a "full tank" every day.

[DMCVegas]

Its possible but that's really user error. When you consider how much less likely it is to have a mechanical failure, I'd say it really shouldn't be a concern. Imagine doing that with an Ice truck and the fuel pump or clutch dies, you'd likely need a tow, but the ev doesn't have those parts to break down.

I have a coworker who drives a leaf, the only breakdown he had was the original 12v battery dying around 5 years into ownership.

I think a big problem with Evs currently is everyone making their own battery and in different form factors. If they started standardizing and using a common supplier it might make adoption easier, especially if they make them swappable like a forklift battery pack. Even using 18650 cells like Tesla does but a different packaging would speed up overall adoption and hopefully lower overall costs. 18650 are also used in laptops and can be used in a home battery backup storage, so there is an incentive to mass produce a standard form outside of evs

The problem isn't that manufacturers haven't coordinated together on a single system, it's that they can't commit to their own platforms. Toyota did a great job with the Prius where they first mass-produced the vehicle, and then as they expanded upon it with different body styles, they stuck with the platforms for multiple models and different sub-configurations under the Toyota New Global Architecture program. Now you've got multiple cars that either use the same batteries, or at least minimal variations. It helps with both reducing initial manufacturing costs, but also with aftermarket support. Look at Ford & GM. They make EVs, and then less than 4-5 years later dump them and all support for them.

The only 2 companies that have come close to Toyota have been Tesla and Nissan with the Leaf. Tesla's stuff is just too damn expensive still, and so they're still not yet open to aftermarket support due to the shallow pockets of the common folk. The Nissan Leaf though is sabotaged straight from the factory. Nissan got cheap and never installed a proper cooling system for their batteries. So while everyone else has EVs that can hit 80%+ battery capacity in 20 or so minutes with Level 3 charging, the Leaf was incurring long-term battery damage, and would eventually refuse to take a charge unless the batteries cooled off. Did Nissan install a proper cooling system in the second gen to avoid this? Nope. They just made the cars charge more slowly, more than doubling time to 40-45 minutes for a fast charge.

As for mechanical breakdowns, a truck has more vulnerabilities than a car, but I'll touch upon that in another post.

[DMCVegas]

"Whoops, I went done ran outta battery!" is a scenario that you'd have to insist on putting yourself in.

But for your mountain scenario, just point your truck back down the trail and regenerative brake back down to ground level.

I can't argue with the fact that people would be responsible for putting themselves into these scenarios. But that doesn't mean that they still won't happen.

Most mountain trails are not straight up and down. Lots of times when you're trail riding, the trails go both up and down as they go through passes. Even if you were going straight down, regenerative braking alone isn't going to recharge the battery pack to get you out of there. Assuming that the vehicle would even move under it's own power at that point, as it'll most likely shut down completely as a safety precaution. Can't push start it like a manual transmission.

Which brings me to....

About 4 or 5 years ago, Tesla updated the GPS system to make sure that never happens unless you are an idiot. Basically if you start driving away from any known charging locations, it will popup an alert on the screen warning you that you are about drive out of range of charging (unless your navigation destination is a charging location). I had this happen to me when I was driving in Montana...

Yeah, I'ma go ahead and stop you right there. Because I don't think that you're quite on the same page as me.

Anytime you try and further idiotproof something to solve a problem, you'll just wind up creating a better idiot. Warnings are not going to help. And even then, the problem isn't range anxiety here that I'm talking about.

You see, a car isn't a truck. Despite what you see in the suburbs, trucks have a completely different purpose, and elsewhere people actually use them for those purposes. People run out of fuel all the time. Be it hurricanes, or out on trails. Most times we don't hear about these situations because someone just brings some fuel to the stranded vehicles and the problem is solved. Although every few years we do end up hearing about some moron who gets stranded out in Death Valley and dies of exposure... Anyway, you're not gonna be able to just drag a battery pack out there to a remote location to swap out and get the vehicle going again. You're gonna either need to tow the thing out (which is expensive), or bring a portable generator and run it for a few hours to recharge the battery. Which completely defeats the point of owning an EV.

Range calculations are not going to be the same at all. 500 miles on a charge with a 14,000 lbs. towing capacity? Yeah, but not at the same time, obviously. But even then with those calculations, that's on flat, smooth roads. Going offroad you're going to have significantly more power consumption as you travel. You'll have everything from silt to mud. All of which causes problems with grip. Be it too little causing inefficiencies, or too much requiring more torque to overcome. In both cases the range of any vehicle is greatly reduced as power consumption is increased. So what's next? Bring along a 4KW generator with 5 gallons of fuel and spend 4-5 hours charging? Drag 1,200 lbs.s of auxillary battery packs with you, killing your range even more? Or do you option for an off-road recovery? A tow that may cost you hundreds of dollars due to the remote location because you ran out of power.

The point here is that even ICE engines run out of fuel. For all of the advantages of EVs, the major disadvantage now isn't the range, it's the ability to refuel quickly and efficiency in remote places, away from a distribution network. Particularly once we're now leaving the safety of basic commuter cars and we get into purpose-built equipment. Gasoline & Diesel may cost more, but you are paying for a convenience you may not have realized until you're in one of these situations.

[FABombjoy]

I don't see how its worth the time to concern yourself about scenarios that have not occurred. The thing isn't even built yet already people are out there screwin' around in the mountains. "Hey, quit screwin' around out there, you come back down the mountain, yer gonna getcherself in trouble!"

We bought a Bolt EV a few months ago and it brings out a weird side in some people. Some kind of political beliefs blended with whattaboutism blended with either ignorance or a lack of understanding. The humble little Bolt is a great car even on longer trips and our ICE cars feel like Stanley Steamers now.

[Michael]

I don't see how its worth the time to concern yourself about scenarios that have not occurred. The thing isn't even built yet already people are out there screwin' around in the mountains. "Hey, quit screwin' around out there, you come back down the mountain, yer gonna getcherself in trouble!"

We need red flag laws for EV's

[mr_maxime]

Look at Ford & GM. They make EVs, and then less than 4-5 years later dump them and all support for them.

Ford, GM and Chrysler dump support for anything that isn't a truck or muscle car so that's not really a fair point. Seriously, I think Ford's overall sales decreased for anything that wasn't a truck in 2019.

The only 2 companies that have come close to Toyota have been Tesla and Nissan with the Leaf. Tesla's stuff is just too damn expensive still, and so they're still not yet open to aftermarket support due to the shallow pockets of the common folk. The Nissan Leaf though is sabotaged straight from the factory. Nissan got cheap and never installed a proper cooling system for their batteries. So while everyone else has EVs that can hit 80%+ battery capacity in 20 or so minutes with Level 3 charging, the Leaf was incurring long-term battery damage, and would eventually refuse to take a charge unless the batteries cooled off. Did Nissan install a proper cooling system in the second gen to avoid this? Nope. They just made the cars charge more slowly, more than doubling time to 40-45 minutes for a fast charge.

I'm not going to argue that Leaf batteries are inferior to Tesla, but they are definitely not sabotaged. They're just the cheaper option. A salvage leaf battery pack runs $3k-3.5k vs a tesla pack for $8k-12k. This really boils down to what you can afford and not really a problem with EVs in general.

[mr_maxime]

I can't argue with the fact that people would be responsible for putting themselves into these scenarios. But that doesn't mean that they still won't happen.

Most mountain trails are not straight up and down. Lots of times when you're trail riding, the trails go both up and down as they go through passes. Even if you were going straight down, regenerative braking alone isn't going to recharge the battery pack to get you out of there. Assuming that the vehicle would even move under it's own power at that point, as it'll most likely shut down completely as a safety precaution. Can't push start it like a manual transmission.

Like FABombjoy said, this is concerning yourself with hypothetical scenarios. You could just have easily have a gas-powered car run out of gas next to a wall outlet.