Dodge all in on electric too 500 mile range Ram
This is the last of the major vehicle manufactures to go all in on electric vehicles https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/electric-ram-1500-pickup-in-2024/
Forum Discussion
Grit dog wrote:
And I'm saying, the cost of bigger wire is a drop in the bucket compared to the total cost of major infrastructure upgrades to a campground. Had to upgrade that job above I was talking about from 10 ga to 8ga on the service legs. "Only" cost $3k in wire. And there's only enough wire on that job for about 2 custom homes.
Extra 3 on the wire, but you don't mention the total cost of trenching the lines in, setting boxes and all.
Do you recall the recent thread on here about a new campground? 75 site or 175 site, or whatever it was, with a $10M price tag.
How much of that do you think was electrical infrastructure? I'd take a rough guess at 20% +.
But my point stands; If you double what it costs to install the electrical, you don't double the cost of the total campground. And the cost to bury the wire does not change much when you change the size of the wire.
I mean, how much can it cost to do some grading work and run some dump trucks around? (Same mentality you were using, but I'm sure you can relate as a dump truck driver)
So $2M to wire and fire up a new campground. Rebuilding existing infrastructure is never or almost never cheaper than new construction.
Yes, when you think about upgrading a existing CG from 30 to 50 AMP, much of the work must be done with smaller machines and different technology. Open area, nothing in the way. Bring in a machine that can trench 10 ft deep, can cut 3 ft deep pretty fast. OTOH, if size restrictions mean the biggest you can use can only dig 4 ft, that 3 ft deep trench will be slow. And there will be a lot more places where you need to push pipe.
We agree, the cost to just add EV charging will be high. But it is hard to argue that many CGs can meet power demands of todays campers. (Remember when the highway sign marking the turn-off to a state park had a drawing of a tent? When did they all change to drawing of TT?) As campgrounds upgrade their system to handle the big loads of the modern RVs, it will be a relatively small extra expense to prepare for the vehicles.
