My objections began as a collection of practical points and frankly aesthetic ones: I like my motorcycle to rumble, for example. Still, there are also practical reasons why electric vehicles aren't as wise a choice for long-distance work.
That said, he's convinced me that there are many practical arguments in favor of electrics, too. There are some areas where they are positively superior to gasoline engines:
... it can get out of a jam, such as the mud, because it has a precise, computer-controlled motor built into each wheel. The software slows down the wheels, preventing slippage, giving the vehicle better traction than a traditional pickup, Burns said....Electric trucks also have a big advantage in towing, which is that they can deliver peak torque effectively immediately.
"So a typical gasoline drive-train has well over 1,000 parts. When you look at it that way it’s very prehistoric, it’s essentially a Model T," Burns said. "We have four moving parts."
...
Typically, when a pickup's bed is empty, it doesn’t drive well because the engine is in the front and the weight is there, Burns said. In the case of the Endurance, the center of gravity is low and the in-wheel motors put weight on the four corners.
"This is a car without a gear, without a transmission and a drive axle, so there is nothing down the middle of the car. The only four moving parts are the wheels," Burns said. "The result is the software that’s driving that and the suspension that’s driving it means you get a pickup that drives like a sports car.”
He said it has performed well in crash tests, too. But Burns knows there are naysayers who don't believe traditional pickup owners will want an electric version, so why enter a truck war you can't win? He believes he will ultimately win it.
"After hundreds of years of refinement and countless hours of engineering, a pickup truck only gets about 17 mpg and it’s not going to get any better," Burns said. "So it really needs a reset. We’re not coming out with a 10% better pickup truck, we’re coming out with a 500% better pickup truck and it’s safer, it’s quieter and it’s fun to drive and it costs less to own.”
Charging times and range remain practical considerations. Still, we may be approaching the point at which electric vehicles become viable on the long highway and not just in the city.
Some comments for your friend:
ReplyDeleteit can get out of a jam, such as the mud
So can any skilled driver--also from snow. IC vs electric just isn't that big a deal here. 'Course, it's better not to get into the mud or too-deep snow in the first place. That's not always avoidable, but it's rare. Driving deliberately in mud or snow should be done in purpose-designed vehicles, whether battery or IC.
How about floods? When I was in the Philippines, I routinely drove my IC car through streets flooded up to the bottom of my engine (not something to be tried unless you know the unseen road surface, and you know how fast the water is moving). Water often shorts, catastrophically, electric circuits and batteries. 'Course, it's generally better not to drive in floods in the first place....
So a typical gasoline drive-train has well over 1,000 parts. ... We have four moving parts.
True enough, but this seems a solution in search of a problem. I routinely drive--and my father before me--my cars for hundreds of thousands of miles--and other than routine maintenance, I've never had a transmission problem. We're unusual, though; most Americans turn over their cars much more often than that, well inside transmission lifetimes. True enough that electric transmission maintenance costs should be much less, but much less than not much isn't all that. Slight advantage to the electric, but....
when a pickup's bed is empty, it doesn’t drive well because the engine is in the front and the weight is there....
It's easy enough to move the engine amidships--that's a marketing decision that will be made when the actual market cares enough. Again a solution looking for a problem. Plus, pickups are designed, and sprung, to carry loads. It's easy enough (though not necessarily convenient) to carry some bags of sand in the bed. And there's that mud and snow and flood....
This is a car without a gear, without a transmission and a drive axle, so there is nothing down the middle of the car.
We've had this thing for some years now--front wheel drive. Nothing down the middle for most IC cars. His electric will need a transmission, though, if he wants to keep his electric motor running at constant speed or constant torque (depending on need) for optimum use and minimal heating and maximum life of his battery. IC cars have access to quite reliable CVTs, which eliminate most of the manual shifting problems and most of the problems of automatic transmissions. So much so, that my current Fusion has paddle shifters behind the steering wheel, should I miss, that badly, personal control over sporty gear shifting.
TBC because I ran into the character limit....
Eric Hines
Cont'd
ReplyDeletecosts less to own
To whom? The individual owner isn't paying for a significant fraction of the costs due to government subsidies for "green" issues, (failed and failing) loans to battery makers, and the like. There are oil subsidies, too, but as a per centage of total cost of production, the oil subsidies are chump change compared to solar, wind subsidies.
Battery cost--in payload, lifecycle, dollar cost. My Fusion Hybrid--2014 vintage--ate badly into my trunk space, was good only for some 20,000 cycles--~100k miles--and cost 20 stacks to replace at EOL--a third of the total original price of the car, which itself was subsidized because hybrid. There's been improvement in all of those, but there needs to be much more improvement.
Carbon footprint and environmental pollution: electricity doesn't coalesce out of the æther; it comes mostly from coal and gas fired power plants. While coal-firing is losing to gas, neither are losing to "green," and they won't for the foreseeable future. Western Australia has already discovered the cost of going all in on wind. The environmental damage from mining battery materials and from manufacturing batteries can easily be extensive. The metals themselves, primarily lithium and nickel currently, are toxic. Handling these--especially when internalized--will keep battery costs elevated.
Eric Hines
The problem is that the software can be hacked. So you have to basically separate the wifi stuff from the actual controls.
ReplyDeleteBut without near room temperature super conductors and the Navy patents HUAC on non gravity based impulse drives, this technology is not cutting edge. It's not even close. It's just a refinement of an electric motor or solar power generator.
The last one is one of the practical arguments with which I started. Now, here in Western NC hydropower is a very real option. In fact I've got a reliable stream fed by seven springs that runs across the property. I could drop a generator in myself, which would adequately power my house, an electric truck, and several other families' needs as well.
ReplyDeleteSomeday I even might do that, though right now we're just trying to get through the present crisis. But then I could replace my oil heat (mostly I burn firewood, but there's a backup oil heater) with an electric heat pump, which would largely eliminate my heating and cooling costs. Running the pickup would eliminate a large part of my gasoline costs. The advantages are real enough, if you can solve some of the practical problems.
My recommendation is to wait a few years. These things will be junk in no time.
ReplyDeleteSure Tesla is sexy and it has AI, but again, similar issues.
Gasoline is getting cheap enough you can basically stockpile it, if you have enough underground bunkers that don't easily blow up.
ReplyDeleteA potential problem is that unlike diesel, gasoline has some weird "additive" they put in, that might degrade it after x years. Intentional, I suppose.
Batteries and miles between charge are still going to be a problem pro the foreseeable future in large swaths of the US, especially west of the 100th Meridian. Yes, there can be charging stops, and are, but when the governor closes the rest areas and the charging stops go with them, electric cars have more of a problem. I have not seen the EV version of jerry-cans, unless you are towing a generator (and fuel for the generator.)
ReplyDeleteLittleRed1
As for people who don't know what the hell I am talking about. I am talking about technology centuries ahead of the current military "cutting edge" aerospace engineering.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/31798/the-secretive-inventor-of-the-navys-bizarre-ufo-patents-finally-talks
I have done my due diligence looking at the research. I also brought up Tel Aviv's sapphire based superconductors, that are also related to levitation.
The technology is already here. It just hasn't got enough engineers that know how to engineer it, because our current version of physics is OBSOLETE. Not quantum physics but Classical Physics based on Newton and Einstein.
Totally obsolete now.
Counter: But NASA...
Y: don't get me started there.
Yes, there can be charging stops, and are....
ReplyDeleteEven were charging stops as ubiquitous as gasoline stations, little useful would be solved. I can recharge my gasoline tank to a 400+ mile range in a couple of minutes. It takes how long--and for how far into the future before the time required comes down--to recharge a battery pack to a 400+ mile range?
Oh, wait....
Eric Hines
https://www.military.com/video/aircraft/military-aircraft/tr-3b-aurora-anti-gravity-spacecrafts/2860314511001
ReplyDeleteI was looking up the t3rb, that I mentioned here before. ANd apparently mainstream websites are now actually willing to print it...
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/05/18/navy-cruiser-commanding-officer-fired-after-4000-gallon-fuel-spill.html
ReplyDeleteShe wouldn't be... one of those naval officers that graduated due to that whole... thing about whatever gender, was she?
But hey, thanks for wasting 4000 gallons. Old Grim here, might have been able to use some of that... if it was legal to hold that much TNT equivalent in Georgia private territories.
Of all the points made by said friend of the benefits of electric, one point was not addressed - a critical point, relevant even to IC vehicles made over the last two decades - what happens when the computer that runs the whole damn thing just decides to .....stop.
ReplyDeleteOh, wait....we all know that computers NEVER do that.
0>;~/
Simple, turn it off and on again. :P
ReplyDeleteSimple, turn it off and on again.
ReplyDeleteWon't work if the reason the computer stopped was because it was on when an EMP hit the area.
Eric Hines
I wrote post on the the pros and cons of electric vehicles, in response to an analysis by a smart investment guy named Vitaliy Katsenslson
ReplyDeletehttps://chicagoboyz.net/archives/61482.html
It's an interesting math problem and a decent argument on the practical possibilities, but nothing I have seen yet will come close to pulling my gooseneck trailer with a full load, soo..... still moot. I enjoy watching the technology progress and imagining what would cause me to change my mind, though.
ReplyDeleteThe other interesting thing about our current 'Green' wave of technology is, it's essentially parasitical. Every single modern alternative energy device is premised on the idea of having conventional power generation backing it up, either because of weather conditions or because its operation is essentially premised on energy transfer and storage - as in the electric vehicle. So really, to say that the electric vehicle is transformative is limited - nobody has yet replaced the portability and energy density of a gallon of fuel. The only real transformation is going to come when that happens.
ReplyDelete@ E Hines - how often do you drive a pickup 400 miles at a go?
ReplyDeleteYour other counter, that IC transmissions don't give that much grief anyway is a good one. That is not a major consideration in pickups for personal use. But I think the aesthetic effects, the rumble and the sense that the engine is working, dammit, like an engine should, continue to be over-important to the owners. As companies switch to electric anythings because of long-term cost considerations, the people who use them at work will get less opposed to them and come to prefer them for personal use. Until then, people want the feel, the sound, the history. The advertisers know their mark.
Note: I am a pickup owner who is going to be glad to be done with it once the old house sells and I don't need to get so much stuff from the hardware store and take such big stuff to the dump anymore. No more brush and logs. No more stacks of 6 4'x 8' sheets of plywood. No more snowblower to the small-engine repair shop. Not the core truck demographic, but there are enough of us to influence the market. The truck feel doesn't matter to us. If it tows the boat or the bobhouse just as well, we're good.
A couple of random observations.....
ReplyDelete1) I've driven the new Chevy 1/2T diesel-powered truck. Highway mileage over 26MPG, not 'around 17.' (Sorry--I don't drive them though more typical 25MPH, stop-start heavy traffic. It's 90% cruise-controlled 78 MPH....)
2) Assuming you can get past the range limits on an electric, don't forget that there are NO oil-changes required, which saves at least $100.00/year in maintenance costs. Not much, but add that to no gasoline purchases and......
3) Gooseneck/5th-wheel towing is a matter of ponies and foot-pounds (plus suspension tweaks), no more, no less. Don't have any idea what them there electrics have in their power toolkit and of course pulling an extra 20,000 lbs undoubtedly has an effect on range.
Incidental, but fun: Electric dragster - does the quarter mile at over 200 mph. Weirdly silent and very very fast https://jalopnik.com/watch-this-electric-drag-racing-record-nearly-silently-1843529789.
ReplyDeleteNothing close to Top Fuel, obviously (they are well over 300 mph now)
@ E Hines - how often do you drive a pickup 400 miles at a go?
ReplyDeleteI no longer drive a pickup, but when I did, it was as follows.
At a go? Nearly every time when going cross-country. If just around the local area, not at a go, but that's pretty much the distance between times I refueled. Unless I had reason to believe I was going to have trouble getting to the next gas station, or have trouble getting gas at a station--like Harvey did all the way up to Plano--or I was planning or had reason to believe I'd need an o'dark:thirty go the next day.
It's the same for the cars I drive today. My wife is more conservative; she fills up at the half-tank mark--~200 miles. Takes her just a couple minutes, too.
the aesthetic effects, the rumble and the sense that the engine is working, dammit, like an engine should, continue to be over-important to the owners.
I grew up on Glasspacks, big mouth exhaust pipes, no muffler at all. And the rumble at idle or the roar revving at a stop light. You feel it in your chest, in your bones, as well as hear it in your hindbrain. An MP3 file in an electric car just ain't up to the task.
Electric dragster - does the quarter mile at over 200 mph.
There's also a decently performing electric Porsche: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m31EgQkswg The whine isn't the same, though....
Still, there is hope for the battery crowd.
Eric Hines
If you live out West, a trip to a place 300 or more miles away happens several times a year. For me, just to leave town is 50- 80 miles, maybe more than 100. IF you're towing, you're probably either going further than 300 miles, or you're hauling stuff every day. Towing large loads decrease range in in electric 70% +/-, and as mentioned previously batteries last right around 100k miles, so if you'r hauling everyday, as in a work truck, you might only get three years out of a battery. I'll take oil changes for maintenance any day. It's also a kind of slight of hand to no refer to the battery as a moving part- it's moving, a few electrons at a time, but as noted, within a few years, it's just as dead. It's still an expendable component.
ReplyDeleteHow often do I drive a pickup 400 miles at a go?
ReplyDeleteWell, let's see, for many of us living here in "flyover" country, that's a given at least once a month. For me, a recent drive to pick up burn barrels at my closest city was 130 miles one way just to get to city limits. Finding the place, picking up any other items that are more easily found in greater abundance in a larger urban area, and then driving home......easily 300-350 miles. That's just to pick up burn barrels. Just to my closest urban area. Should I need or want to go to my state's capital or even a true metropolis, it's an early morning to late night day trip or at least one night on the road -- easily 600-800 miles round trip. So, to answer your question, yes, many of us actually DO drive a pickup 400 ++ miles at a go.
Mike D -- >0;~}
I'm glad someone took it in the intended spirit, Sly! ;)
ReplyDeleteEh, most of those 400+ were only technically so. Recharging doesn't take that long, though it is slower than a fill-up. But lunch is fine. Even a coffee and a donut, a pee, and a stretching walk can get you close.
ReplyDeleteIt is different out West, I'll grant. I'm not sure it's as different as is claimed.
400+ miles are technically and practically real miles. And travel, at least for me, is the means of getting from here to there, where I have stuff to do, and then back, where I have other stuff to do. Coffee and a doughnut are for eating on the move. The pee when it's needful, the stretching walk when I arrive.
ReplyDeleteIt's the same in the West, in the Midwest, in the East, in the South. Coastal, or flyover country, the miles measure the same; the only difference in this context is the density of the refueling stations.
Recharging still takes in the neighborhood of 20 minutes as recently as 2019--just to get to 50%. It's an hour and a half to get a full charge. That may be no big deal to some; it's wasted time to me.
https://mechanicbase.com/electric/how-long-does-it-take-to-fully-charge-a-tesla/
https://www.vehiclesuggest.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-charge-a-tesla/
Recharging an electric pickup may be different, but I don't see the battery packs being importantly different.
Eric Hines