Electric truck - tow vehicle of future ?

Lessmore wrote:

John & Angela wrote:

Turtle n Peeps wrote:

valhalla360 wrote:

John & Angela wrote:

But yah I hear what you are saying. If you want to really see something depressing go to a drag strip and watch the Teslas knock off half million dollar lamborghinis in the quarter mile. 7 passenger complete with kid seats and cup holders handing lamborghinis and Ferraris their assets...and all in total silence...and a five star safety rating. Ouch

Of course, this is the one performance metric where it does well but is the least road relevant test.

10 laps on the nurberg ring and I'd put my money on a base Ford Focus.

I do find talk about fumes and noise funny. I've had diesel 1 ton trucks idle up behind me in parking lots and surprise me. Modern cars are incredibly quiet and short of sniffing the tailpipe, you really can't smell anything.

You don't need 10 laps. It couldn't even make it 1 lap under full power.

My cell phone won't even make it a day without running out of power and some of you are talking electric class 8's. LOL, good luck with that. 100 mile range, LMAO.

Its true. Most EV's have software that limit the output current under certain conditions and temperatures. Our one EV does that after thirty seconds of full pedal although in normal driving there would never be a reason to have full pedal after thirty seconds. Not sure about our other one or what the parameters are. I am not sure how they do it with the Formula E cars. I would suspect some sort of cooling system. But as far as Tesla's competing on race tracks, remember, these are just luxury family SUV's and sedans, they were not made to race although they do pretty good on the drag strip. Tesla has shown no interest in racing which is generally done as a form of advertising. Tesla also doesn't advertise. Why would they, they have two years of production pre-sold. Class 8 is easily achievable within a couple years and 100 mile would work well for many routes. And since ranges continually increase on all EV's that number will continue to increase and be suitable for more and more markets. JMHO

I wonder how well an electric vehicle will do in a very cold climate, say like mine where winter is generally here for 5 to 5 1/2 months. When snow falls here...it doesn't melt, etc. till the Spring. There are always periods of 25 to 30 below, sometimes colder. The distances between cities and towns are long, many over 100 miles.
BTW, the TV show Ice Road Truckers is filmed in the province

Diesel and gas vehicles work well here, but I understand that electric vehicle batteries lose significant efficiency, sometimes unpredictable amounts if temperature is very cold. If this is the case, I wouldn't want to be driving an electric vehicle in situations like this, where I'm watching the meter indicating that the vehicle is losing electric power more rapidly than I thought it would, while I'm driving on a long, empty highway with few towns.

I think pure electric vehicles work better in warmer, less severe climes...but how they will work in places like Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, etc. during a severe winter has me wondering.

Well, the country with the highest density of electric vehicles is Norway. Currently 55 percent of all new vehicles sold in Norway are electric and that number continues to rise. Yes cold weather plays a role in range of EV's but ranges continue to increase as batteries get cheaper. Norway is a smaller country but remember, this is the EU. People routinely live in one country and work in another as a citizen of the EU can work anywhere in the EU. Commuting distances are similar. So EV's can work in colder climates. Having said all that, the infrastructure for work place level one or level 2 charging is also much better. Building codes have been changed requiring level 1 or 2 charging in apartments and condos and of course level 3 charging is much more available. We are a few years behind on this side of the pond but it is beginning to change fairly quickly where we are. We live in a cold climate and both our EV's suit all our needs...but then again, we knew that going in..or we wouldn't have bought them. My point being that obviously EV's are not suitable for everyone's needs, but they are for many.

One of the things I like about our leaf is the preheat feature. From the iphone I select preheat, steering wheel warms up, seats warm up and the heater/heat pump comes and its toasty warm within minutes...and all in the garage without having to run an engine and gas out the garage. We like it.