Recently viewed this vlog that relates to this comment. Tesla's acquisition of Maxwell gives them the tech "recipes" to increase the kWh of the battery cells within the same size/weight package. I expect to see this sort of tech be the foundation of the "T150" truck.
Ah, I hear the song of the uninformed...
Minor nits first: The 85kWh battery was Tesla's first on a car they built fully themselves. The tech that's shipping in their cars now is a little lighter: 80kWh is 1,054 pounds (including the shell and other support structure, not just the battery cells).
Now, the 33.7kWh per gallon is a typo. It's 32.7. But that is the energy content of the gasoline, and the vast majority of that becomes waste heat in an internal combustion engine. If you're lucky, you get about 30% of that as motive power, or 9.81 kWh/gal. The electric motors, OTOH, are around 90% efficient. That's why their "MPGe" ratings sound so fantastically high compared to ICE vehicles. But, your 36-gallon tank is still about 350kWh... And like I said, I expect a 300kWh battery option.
That's laughably easy for an EV. The single-motor Model 3 (the small Tesla sedan) gets 250 hp and 317 lb-ft. The dual-motor performance version of the same car is 450hp and 471 lb-ft. The pickup could use the larger motors from the Model S or X, or anywhere from 2-4 of the model 3 motors. The Tesla Semi uses 4 of the model 3 motors, and that thing scoots unlike any truck you've ever seen (that's a Model S holding the camera):
I can fly 7 hours in my airplane before I *need* to fill up. The question is not *can* you, but *do* you? I've driven 700 miles in one shot maybe twice in my life, and it SUCKS. And I only did it because someone was paying me to do it.
Again with the 15 minutes thing. Not sure where that comes from (probably all the FUD), but I think you're probably stopped for longer than you think when you stop on a road trip. By the time you gas up (which requires your attention and presence, unlike charging a car), move your car, take a leak, and grab some food you're probably closer to the 1/2 hour mark, which is about what you'd need to drive another 350 miles in a pickup.
What is fud?
Ours would be unusable if I were towing my camper with a Tesla pickup. They’re designed for cars to park at. A lot of infrastructure would need to be built to make the pickup towing thing viable, existing network, hasn’t been built to support it.
This might answer the question...
Why would anyone be scared of a car.
My brother recently moved to the North Atlanta area. So using an app that allows me to plan a trip by showing me where all the EV charging stations are, I took a look at the route between Dallas and Atlanta, and filtered for Superchargers only.
Oh well nothing new there. Many of the same reasons why nuclear energy is still an evil boogie man to many. Ironically greenies are some of the biggest haters of nuclear because of the propaganda spread by traditional energy years ago.
OK, I probably should have said it's rated for 5000 pounds.
Those "pickup towing giant aircraft" stunts don't really impress me much. You're not putting 10% of the weight on the hitch like a normal towing operation. All you're doing is pulling something that happens to be heavy that's carrying its own weight and has wheels. Whoopty doo. A single human being can pull that aircraft too...
Without a fast charging network, nobody else's electric is going to do much of anything. This is one of the most shortsighted pieces of the puzzle for the non-Tesla portion of the industry. None of the auto manufacturers have announced a fast charging network or even any support for it. In fact, at least some of them have announced they're NOT supporting any networks or investing in any charging infrastructure.
In addition, none of the oil companies are diversifying into it. They're still too busy trying to spread FUD about electric cars.
One might say "There's an opportunity for someone else!" But this stuff is going to require a huge company with a lot of money to make a huge investment that won't pay off for quite some time. Each fast charging station costs on the order of $30,000. As of January, Tesla had a little over 12,000 of them, and the Supercharger network is growing at a very fast pace. Obviously, Tesla does not pay $30K per Supercharger (that's retail for some of the units by ABB, Eaton, AeroVironment*, etc) because they're designing and building them themselves, but they've certainly made a massive investment in infrastructure that's given them a huge competitive advantage: There is NO non-Tesla BEV that can really be a good road-trip vehicle right now. But, someone is going to have to make that investment for everyone else, or the other manufacturers are going to have to cave and give in to Tesla's offer to allow their vehicles onto the Supercharger network. Who know what'll happen.
Rich,
Curious, how many trips to the gas station do you make a year around home. How many road trips do you make a year? Basically, I think you are focused more on the edge case than the normal. As such, you likely end up with a much higher carrying cost
Tim
I'm not sure what you're getting at. You charge your car at home. You charge your car along the way if you're traveling somewhere. Depending on where you're going, maybe you charge the car while you're there, or you just charge it up at a Supercharger early in the trip back home (or late in the outbound trip).
Both?
My point was that just because you don't have any chargers in your own town doesn't mean that a Tesla is a bad choice for you, because you should never actually have to use chargers in your own town with a Tesla.
Meh... The problem isn't malls. Plenty of those already have charging stations. And there's plenty of places that have a fast charger, in highly populated areas. The problem is, who's going to pay to put in a fast charger in the middle of rural Montana, or Utah, or any of the other places in this country that have very little in the way of population? They'd rather spend their money in places where there'll be more traffic and they can make their investment back faster.
So, it's kind of a chicken-or-egg problem. There won't be a whole lot of non-Tesla EVs sold as primary vehicles until there's an infrastructure in place to support long road trips with them, but nobody wants to invest in that infrastructure until they'll be able to make their money back on it in a reasonable amount of time.
It'll be interesting for sure... But I don't think Ford will beat Tesla on price on an EV truck in the beginning. Their problem is battery cost. Tesla's investments in their own battery production are already paying dividends in the form of lower battery costs than anyone else can manage. Since the pickups will likely make up for their size with big batteries, Tesla will have a cost advantage. Hopefully that translates into prices that are similar, if not lower for Tesla.
Lol. You’ve been posting on here long enough to know better... rich will have hard data to back up his position on EV. Not emotionally based drivel like you just challenged him with ... lolRich,
Curious, how many trips to the gas station do you make a year around home. How many road trips do you make a year? Basically, I think you are focused more on the edge case than the normal. As such, you likely end up with a much higher carrying cost
Tim
Insert a Sheldon sarcasm meme
