Electric Tow Vehicles - Getting close
Used to be a guy on the forum towing a tear drop with a tesla but really not suitable for the vast majority of RVers. We had a young family camp next to us this weekend and something didn't look rig...
Forum Discussion
I think we have learned a few things about the EV hype over the past few years. They aren't cheaper - in up front cost, lifecycle battery changes, and charging on the road, they aren't green - the caustic chemicals to produce them, the ecological damage from mining raw materials, the source of the electricity to charge them, infrastructure still needs a lot of work, and while they are good at producing power they aren't really great at producing good working power like RVing for the length of time required. I think the government shoved EVs down our throats under the guise of being good stewards of the Earth and a few folks became wealthy as a result. Sales have started to decline and we've already seen major manufacturers shift EV production back to gas and diesel. I'll take a diesel any day, in power production and efficiency.
90% of what you mention will happen anyway weather we use electric or gas vehicles.
I think electric vehicles are the way to go for any application except towing or hauling but they do have a couple hurdles. charging speed the biggest one, apparently ford has a patent for a new charge system that will charge your ev from 20% to full in 5 min. that would be a game changer if it works, and the biggest issue of course is the price compared to the equivalent gas powered car.
I am interested to see what happens with the talks in China right now, hopefully they remove the tariffs off of BYD and a couple other electric car makers, there premium BYD HAN has a 375+ mile range, awd, luxury interior, blows tesla out of the water with fit and finish and quality. for me to buy this in Canada, if it was not terrified at 100% is under 30K CDN so about 24K US .
that is ny issue with the tariffs, not talking about the ones trump has done, but tariffs in general, they use them as protection for local companies who were powerful enough to lobby the government into placing them. this means they don't have to be as efficient, don't have to make as good as a product, and don't have to worry about competing on price point. so ya if you want inferior vehicles at more cost, use tariffs to help make them I guess.
I agree govt mandates only distort the market and lead to bad business choices. I still can't believe they aren't pushing 100-150 mile range commuter cars (maybe 1 or 2 seaters) for $15k focused on multi-car families. At a cheap price, sold for a purpose, I think they would sell well. When they try to get 300-400mile range carrying 5+ passengers, things quickly spiral and really hold up the development.
Honestly, for pickups, I think they tried to get too fancy. Instead of building everything new from the ground up:
- Rip out the 500lb V8, 200lb gas tank and 200lb transmission. Otherwise, leave the truck unchanged.
- Mate a single 200lb electric motor to the drive shaft with a higher torque motor and skip the transmission. Install 700lb of batteries (~70kwh) for a base model (no weight change to the truck). Use the 2500lb payload f150 and double the battery bank (leaving 1800lb useable payload) for 140kwh (a bit more than the extended range F150 EV). Design, tooling and manufacturing costs would be drastically cheaper as 80% of the truck is stock ICE truck. If you make the batteries modular (mounted between the frame rails), you could even offer a 210kwh option (similar to the GMC) though they might have to beef up the suspension as that would start to eat into the payload too much.
- Might be looking at around $8k upcharge for the batteries (offset by the cost of the V8 & transmission) but now it's close enough that fuel savings could justify the cost increase.
- Except for the electric motor & controller, everything is stock, so any mechanic familiar with an F150 can work on the suspension and other components.
For RVs, of course, cost needs to come down but the Ford EV is comparable cost to it's ICE 1/2 tons. The issue is it's only about 60% of the range of the GM EV 1/2 ton and not practical for towing.
Nice thought but you missed a huge chunk of the technology that makes EVs as viable as they are. I’d say actually missed most of it.
An electric motor and a big f…ing battery is easy. Like you said. But wholly more inefficient without the technology controlling it and regenerative braking and the computer telling you where the next charger station is, etc.Oversimplification doesn’t work in this instance.
Actually, it is that simple.
For the longest time, it was battery cost/weight.
- 20yr ago, you were looking at 3 tons of lead acid batteries which became self defeating or $50k to build a lithium pack (back when you could buy a car for $15-25k).
- Now, lithium has come down thru economy of scale to less than 1/10th the price.
Electric motor controllers are nothing new. Golf carts, fork lifts, etc... have been using them for decades. Just need to be scaled to automotive use case. Regenerative braking is basically reversing an electric motor so it acts as a generator. It's sort of like engine braking but turns it back into electricity...easily done mounted to the drive shaft or rear axle.
Charging stations are largely a matter of time. If you want to build a truck stop for EV semis, that's a challenge because you will have hundreds per day coming in wanting 1000-2000kwh in 15 min. Most cars/light trucks will charge at home 95% of the time and only occasionally needing a fast charge of 50-100kwh. The issue is getting the network spread wide enough that there is one convienent when you need a top up. But you can put in a couple medium speed charging stations pretty much anywhere that has a grid connection. If you have decent grid connection, you can put in a few high speed chargers.
Now, I have no expectation that we will see 90% EVs in the next decade but once the govt gets out of the way and lets the market decide how to implement it, I do expect we will see them expand in market share.
na you have to purpose build a ev, the conversions that you see some small companies do don't get the benefit of other features like regenerative braking and are way more heavy than they need to be in some cases. there are 4 guys around me that do electric conversions in the manor you described and to be hones they are a joke compared to a purpose built EV. also you get a lot of mechanical issues on conversions that you just don't get in a purpose built. so by just putting an electric motor at the driveshaft you still have the rear end and such to deal with for repairs, when you use the motors at the wheels all the other mechanical moving parts that need to be balanced and such are gone.
another reason for a purpose built is the battery pack is structural on most new ev's so it is part of the frame or platform everything mounts to so this allows them to save material and weight. take a truck for example if you convert a old one then the new electric motor and controllers go under the hood then you use up part of your bed for the battery pack which adds a lot of weight higher and raises the center of gravity. by structurally intergrading the battery into the floor structure it lowers the center of gravity even more and leaves your box intact for truck stuff.
one major benefit of the structural battery pack is the ability to quick swap it. China and India are already using battery quick swap stations as a alternative of charging on a trip. drive in 5 min later you drive out with a fully charged battery installed. this also solves the issue about aging batteries in your ev.
but even purpose built there is no reason for it to cost more than a "Normal" vehicle
Oops I replied before i saw your reply.
