Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: MechAg94 on September 23, 2022, 11:43:27 AM
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Couple Tries Electric Truck and Had to Stop Every 100 Miles
https://ehlinelaw.com/blog/couple-tries-electric-truck-stops-every-100-miles
Overall, the couple’s all-electric pickup truck expedition amounted to 2,700 miles and no less than 27 charging stops
When using their all-electric pickup truck, the couple towed four-wheels, their Ford Mustang Shelby GT, in a flat car hauler trailer. The total weight was 14,260 pounds while the trailer was 6,000 pounds, and this is standard weight.
https://tfltruck.com/2021/11/rivian-r1t-tows-a-sports-car-cross-country-stops-at-every-walmart/
They report stoping at many Electrify America fast chargers that are generally installed in a Walmart parking lot or at a shopping center. They report stopping at many Walmart stores along the way. Some charging stops were less successful than others. They report one charger with a low output of just 30 kW. Assuming most fast chargers are capable of charging at 150 kW or even 350 kW – 30 kW is slow indeed.
First time I saw a real life towing example with an electric vehicle. On the plus side, it was able to pull that 6000 lb trailer.
I have heard people say that hydrogen fueled vehicles are expected to hit the heavier vehicle niche where pure electric falls off. I haven't seen any detail on that.
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I have heard people say that hydrogen fueled vehicles are expected to hit the heavier vehicle niche where pure electric falls off. I haven't seen any detail on that.
https://www.volvotrucks.com/en-en/news-stories/press-releases/2022/jun/volvo-trucks-showcases-new-zero-emissions-truck.html
Brad
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A youtube car review channel did a similar test in Colorado. Similar results, too.
Here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zce-wC__kkU
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Sort of a tangent, but while on Google maps last week, I saw an "EV charging stations" button that wasn't there before. When I hit it, it showed all the charging stations in that map region with Google reviews.
Some of the reviews were... interesting. While a few stations got five star reviews for quality and speed, most of them were getting knocked for being too slow. I guess the EV driver speak is "miles per hour of charge" for what's good or bad. It seemed like 500 miles per hour was decent, but most of them weren't charging at that rate.
Then of course what caught my eye was that most of the reviews focused on amenities in the area, mostly restaurants, as people were getting a meal as they waited for a charge.
Note that I was only perusing Idaho and Utah. More urban states might have different results.
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Electric cars are one way fed.gov can limit people's mobility. [tinfoil]
My next door neighbor recently bought a Hyundai electric car. She likes it, says it charges from "just regular house current" but I guess they installed a "special plug" in her garage for overnight charging.
She mostly drives around the Austin, TX metro area - fairly short trips - and hasn't had any range or other issues in the couple of months she's had it, and hasn't noticed if use of A/C affects range. So it seems to meet her needs, which are basically just local transportation for errands, shopping, etc.
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From what I have seen so far, electric trucks are best used in urban fleets where the top speed rarely breaks 45mph, range between work related stops is low, and manual labor at the destination site is high. Think furniture delivery, warehouse distribution to sales outlets, things like that.
Best configuration is extremely high and aggressive regenerative braking so that the instant your foot is off the throttle, e-braking is applied. It takes a learning curve to get good at it, but the goal is to avoid using the disc brakes at all. Wind resistance becomes brutal to vehicle efficiency past 45mph, so surface street travel is more energy efficient than highway as long as e-braking is your dominant means of coming to a stop at intersections.
Harvey and Florence, living their retirement dream with a fifth wheel, are not going to be well served by an electric rig at all.
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Sort of a tangent, but while on Google maps last week, I saw an "EV charging stations" button that wasn't there before. When I hit it, it showed all the charging stations in that map region with Google reviews.
Just for funsies, I decided to give that a try. St Louis to Chicago is a common trip for people in my neck of the woods, so I plugged that in. The longest gap was about 120 miles, between Edwardsville and Atlanta. Illinois' capital city lies between those 2 points, and one would presumably find a charging station there. One presumes...
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Was chatting with a Tesla customer the other day... He stopped about halfway between STL and Chicago to boost it.
He was heading to Springfield, MO, so was getting a charge in STL, and another one about halfway down I-44...
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Just for funsies, I decided to give that a try. St Louis to Chicago is a common trip for people in my neck of the woods, so I plugged that in. The longest gap was about 120 miles, between Edwardsville and Atlanta. Illinois' capital city lies between those 2 points, and one would presumably find a charging station there. One presumes...
I was in Springfield 3-4 years ago (the last iGold rally I went to). There were charging stations, at the IL state capitol building. They were in the same outlying lot that the bus we rode had parked in.
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This story was making the rounds a while back:
https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/electric-car-four-day-trip-more-time-charging-sleeping
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I have heard people say that hydrogen fueled vehicles are expected to hit the heavier vehicle niche where pure electric falls off. I haven't seen any detail on that.
If these are hydrogen ICE vehicles, I wonder if they will still be banned in CA and other states that follow CARB regulations? Given that CA politicians and bureaucrats are not blessed with an overabundance of common sense, I suspect they might be despite producing only water as their exhaust.
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A friend at work has an electric car. He tipped me off on an issue I hadn't considered. People will unplug a charging car, use the charger, and the original user then comes back to an incomplete charge, lengthening their down time.
I would consider an EV for my commute. It's about 10 miles each way, so there would be no need to charge during the day. There are no chargers at work, despite assurances they were coming in early 2021. Last I looked, there are 10 people on the wait list for the five planned charger spots.
However, for anything other than this, forget it. I'll take a 10 minute gas break over a multi-hour stop anytime.
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A friend at work has an electric car. He tipped me off on an issue I hadn't considered. People will unplug a charging car, use the charger, and the original user then comes back to an incomplete charge, lengthening their down time.
Do EV chargers work the same as gas pumps? That is, I can fill my truck with gas, then take the nozzle out and fill a couple of five gallon cans without restarting a transaction.
If EV chargers work the same, what's to keep someone (while you're having an hour long lunch) from grabbing the nozzle and stealing 30 minutes worth of charge from you?
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Do EV chargers work the same as gas pumps? That is, I can fill my truck with gas, then take the nozzle out and fill a couple of five gallon cans without restarting a transaction.
If EV chargers work the same, what's to keep someone (while you're having an hour long lunch) from grabbing the nozzle and stealing 30 minutes worth of charge from you?
My understanding is that when you lock the doors on a Tesla, it locks the charging cable into the charge port, for just this reason. At least on superchargers.
No idea if that functionality exists on the other brands plugs.
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My understanding is that when you lock the doors on a Tesla, it locks the charging cable into the charge port, for just this reason. At least on superchargers.
No idea if that functionality exists on the other brands plugs.
Yes, the Tesla charger locks in place. I haven't tested the other brands, but I bet they don't because they need an adapter to work. The adapter probably locks to the car, but the power cord probably doesn't lock to the adapter.
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Yes, the Tesla charger locks in place. I haven't tested the other brands, but I bet they don't because they need an adapter to work. The adapter probably locks to the car, but the power cord probably doesn't lock to the adapter.
One of the reason I wondered about "stealing juice" is that I recall reading about EV drivers complaining that they would come out of a restaurant or wherever and see that someone had unplugged them, I guess at busy stations where people were waiting in line for a charge.
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One of the reason I wondered about "stealing juice" is that I recall reading about EV drivers complaining that they would come out of a restaurant or wherever and see that someone had unplugged them, I guess at busy stations where people were waiting in line for a charge.
Or some people just like messing with EV drivers.
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According to the article, they were hauling 14,260 pounds. Electric trucks are good enough for everyday use, but to buy one intending to haul that much weight cross-country suggests that this couple has more money than brains.
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According to the article, they were hauling 14,260 pounds. Electric trucks are good enough for everyday use, but to buy one intending to haul that much weight cross-country suggests that this couple has more money than brains.
They bought a pick-up, intending to use it as a pick-up, so...?
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They bought a pick-up, intending to use it as a pick-up, so...?
But the fizzix are still a thing. More money than brains.
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But the fizzix are still a thing. More money than brains.
What I was getting at is that someone made a "truck," and sold it as a truck, even though it can't do what people expect a truck to do.
Having now looked at the specs for the R1T, it appears it only promises to tow 11,000 lbs, not the 14,000 plus the owners tried to tow with it.
So point taken.
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If these are hydrogen ICE vehicles, I wonder if they will still be banned in CA and other states that follow CARB regulations? Given that CA politicians and bureaucrats are not blessed with an overabundance of common sense, I suspect they might be despite producing only water as their exhaust.
Most of the hydrogen I know of is made from natural gas in steam methane reformers. My employer has a facility in Canada that uses electricity to split water (I forget the term) and supposedly the power comes from wind and solar sources.
The "Inflation Reduction" Act recently passed has some substantial tax credits for producing hydrogen. At least part of the credit has a sliding scale so the credit is larger if the carbon ratio is lower. With that in place, I figure there will be people trying to invest in hydrogen production.
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Look, Trains are electric driven and haul tremendous loads thousands of miles! Sure, each engine is powered by honking huge V12 Diesel engines but hey, Electric!
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Class 8 BEVs require about 15,000lbs of batteries to make a realistic 400-500mi range.
For scale purposes, an entire Kenworth T680 diesel tractor with a mid-size sleeper weighs … 15,000 lbs. The diesel drivetrain, fuel tanks, etc weight about 4000lbs. Might be a little more than that but not much.
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^^^Not asking you to violate any NDAs or reveal proprietary information, but is Kenworth looking at electric or other alternative energy drivetrains for semis?
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Class 8 BEVs require about 15,000lbs of batteries to make a realistic 400-500mi range.
For scale purposes, an entire Kenworth T680 diesel tractor with a mid-size sleeper weighs … 15,000 lbs. The diesel drivetrain, fuel tanks, etc weight about 4000lbs. Might be a little more than that but not much.
That 15,000 pounds is before cargo, correct?
So, with 40,000 pounds of cargo on board, that's a total weight of 55,000?
So, we'd be talking what, about 150 mile range?
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That 15,000 pounds is before cargo, correct?
So, with 40,000 pounds of cargo on board, that's a total weight of 55,000?
So, we'd be talking what, about 150 mile range?
You might get 150 miles at low speeds, but once you hit the highway that range gets cut by two thirds.
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You might get 150 miles at low speeds, but once you hit the highway that range gets cut by two thirds.
Absolutely breathtaking how we're all going to be saved by the magical electron vehicles!
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They would probably have been mad if a gas-powered truck that got 19mpg unloaded suddenly only got 9 or 10 when pulling a load. I used to be appalled at such nonsensical thinking but, sadly, it's become status quo.
Brad
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Mill Creek - Our BEV and hydrogen fuel cell trucks are public knowledge. So, yes. There’s also work ongoing with natural gas for ICE energy. Other stuff that I’m not sure is public yet.
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You might get 150 miles at low speeds, but once you hit the highway that range gets cut by two thirds.
I'm betting ballistic coefficients or sectional density comes into play here.
Much like shooting a rifle where heavier bullets don't gain as much speed but retain it better at longer ranges than their lighter peers, I bet that heavy loads on trucks suffer less wind resistance penalties as a percentage of total energy cost than passenger cars do.
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They would probably have been mad if a gas-powered truck that got 19mpg unloaded suddenly only got 9 or 10 when pulling a load. I used to be appalled at such nonsensical thinking but, sadly, it's become status quo.
Brad
Part of that also comes from some of the incredibly torquey old motors that existed in the past. The sort of rig where you get 8mpg whether picking up a gallon of milk or pulling a cattle trailer with a dozen cows in it.
I certainly remember the disparity of fuel efficiency when towing being less for older vehicles.
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That 15,000 pounds is before cargo, correct?
So, with 40,000 pounds of cargo on board, that's a total weight of 55,000?
So, we'd be talking what, about 150 mile range?
15,000 lbs JUST for the batteries.
Class 8 allows up to 80,000lbs (82,000 for BEV) without special permits. They can easily go up to 105,000 lbs with the right permits. That is GCWR (gross combined weight rating, so Tractor plus loaded trailer). There’s also weight limits per axel.
For standard class 8 on highway applications IIRC that 15,000lbs of batteries is good for 400 miles on varied terrain. 500 miles under idealized conditions. So probably 350 miles realistically while leaving some reasonable margin so you don’t grind to a halt on the side of the road.
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Electric vehicles have their place, and I'd be open to owning one in addition to gas vehicles at some point.
My wife, for instance, would be very well served by an electric vehicle. I could use one most of the time, for that matter. Long trips are where electric really sucks wind. Long trips in the winter would really be bad.
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Electric vehicles have their place, and I'd be open to owning one in addition to gas vehicles at some point.
My wife, for instance, would be very well served by an electric vehicle. I could use one most of the time, for that matter. Long trips are where electric really sucks wind. Long trips in the winter would really be bad.
No, we have to pretend that there's an emergency, and rush headlong into every allegedly green technology. Your prudence and reason have no place here.
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No, we have to pretend that there's an emergency, and rush headlong into every allegedly green technology. Your prudence and reason have no place here.
You're saying to mount a windmill on top of my electric car to charge it? DONE!
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What I was getting at is that someone made a "truck," and sold it as a truck, even though it can't do what people expect a truck to do.
Having now looked at the specs for the R1T, it appears it only promises to tow 11,000 lbs, not the 14,000 plus the owners tried to tow with it.
So point taken.
Furthermore, trucks have a wide range of capabilities. You can buy a 2.7L 2 wheel drive F-150, but you'd be a fool to try to plow snow with it. It's important do do your homework and buy the truck that truly fits your needs.
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On a side note, Rivian did bring an example of the R1T to the steel fabrication business where I work, and I did get to take it for a spin. It is an impressive vehicle, just obviously not meant to tow 15,000 pounds across the country. I machined the parts for, and was involved in the assembly of the skids and hydraulic lift system that lifts the battery into the chassis on the assembly line.
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Furthermore, trucks have a wide range of capabilities. You can buy a 2.7L 2 wheel drive F-150, but you'd be a fool to try to plow snow with it. It's important do do your homework and buy the truck that truly fits your needs.
My F-150 has the 4.2L V6. I had no idea pickup truck engines were getting so small these days. The last models years I looked at, the trend was bigger and bigger V8s, not to mention those V10s.
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My F-150 has the 4.2L V6. I had no idea pickup truck engines were getting so small these days. The last models years I looked at, the trend was bigger and bigger V8s, not to mention those V10s.
They're getting small because of the twin turbos. I have the 2.7 F150, and it makes the 4.0L on my 4Runner seem like a snail (though that is one bulletproof engine). I wouldn't want to do long distance hauling with the 2.7 just because of the higher RPMs it has to generate at highway speeds to do it. It hauls 3/4 of a ton in the back and get 23 average mpg though, so it's great for a half-assed farmer.
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I’ve got the 5.0L V8 in mine and have been pleasantly surprised at the fuel efficiency. For my regular driving I get over 22mpg indicated (closer to 20.5 actual) over the course of a tank. Way better than the V6 in my Exploder got. If I spend a lot of time on interstates I’ve seen upwards of 27 indicated.
Driving around the property in 4X4 really drops the average.
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My 2007 Chevy with the 6.0L V8 gets surprisingly not-terrible gas mileage. I don't remember for sure what I got when I drove it back from Texas but I think it was about 16 MPG. I've been using it for my daily driver for the past month or so and I still have half a tank from the fill-up I did back in May. I'll be parking it for the winter soon to keep it out of the snow and road salt.
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https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/mercedes-benz-electric-truck?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=organic&utm_content=Oct03&fbclid=IwAR2sEsTD6EO5J5oXEb0PNk6vID3cNadJxpHUjl3VPDsa_DnLWlPS2oBEAIs
Mercedes Benz has a prototype of a semi with 311 miles range.
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https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/mercedes-benz-electric-truck?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=organic&utm_content=Oct03&fbclid=IwAR2sEsTD6EO5J5oXEb0PNk6vID3cNadJxpHUjl3VPDsa_DnLWlPS2oBEAIs
Mercedes Benz has a prototype of a semi with 311 miles range.
The page says 311 miles, but doesn't say what the mileage is loaded. Could be an omission, but none of the electric vehicles talk about loaded range. If they are going to call it a 40 ton truck, then I want to know how far it can haul 40 tons on a single charge. I can only assume they are being evasive. The only item I thought was good is they said the batteries were designed for a 10 year life.
It looks like they haven't done road tests so we will see. Maybe I am just being Mr. Negative. =)
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https://electrek.co/2022/09/19/mercedes-benz-eactros-longhaul-electric-truck/
This article here assumes the Benz semi is talking about loaded range, but we don't know for sure.
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https://electrek.co/2022/09/19/mercedes-benz-eactros-longhaul-electric-truck/
This article here assumes the Benz semi is talking about loaded range, but we don't know for sure.
I've been reading more about this stuff, and weather seems to be a particularly large input. I didn't see it in the article, but I wonder if and/or how they compute weather variables into their averages. From what I've seen, if they computed the 300 miles using optimal temperatures, a ten degree day could knock that range down by a good 30-40%.
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I also just read an interesting article about cabover trucks: https://www.smart-trucking.com/cabovers-make-a-comeback/. Cabovers are no longer popular here but are popular for the European road system. I wonder if cabover or conventional hood trucks are better for the electric format.
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I've been reading more about this stuff, and weather seems to be a particularly large input. I didn't see it in the article, but I wonder if and/or how they compute weather variables into their averages. From what I've seen, if they computed the 300 miles using optimal temperatures, a ten degree day could knock that range down by a good 30-40%.
I think in large part that is because raising the temperature (both of the cab and the batteries) is accomplished through resistance heating.
1. That's likely to be a bigger percentage of loss for a smaller vehicle than a bigger one.
2. I bet in a year or so some manufacturer starts incorporating a heat pump to be more efficient.
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Does a consumer (small) electric vehicle need auxiliary heating or cooling of the battery pack?
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Does a consumer (small) electric vehicle need auxiliary heating or cooling of the battery pack?
Most EV's I've looked at have liquid cooled batteries.
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I also just read an interesting article about cabover trucks: https://www.smart-trucking.com/cabovers-make-a-comeback/. Cabovers are no longer popular here but are popular for the European road system. I wonder if cabover or conventional hood trucks are better for the electric format.
COE is ubiquitous in Europe because of overall length restrictions. Aerodynamics are more challenging that with a conventional North American hood. Both have different advantages and disadvantages as an EV.
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Does a consumer (small) electric vehicle need auxiliary heating or cooling of the battery pack?
If you want to “fast charge” (sneer quotes because even double the speed of the fastest chargers is still glacially slow vs diesel pumps) you MUST have liquid cooling. Otherwise you’ll cook the batteries and their life span will be negligible. Also, the batteries have to be heated in cold climates or your range goes to nothing.