Electric truck - tow vehicle of future ?

Of course. Although I will not make promises to the comments from Canada.

time2roll wrote:
I would buy a plug-in hybrid truck if there was decent electric range for day to day commute.

Range loss will depend on how you use the vehicle. Seat warmers go a lot further than the cabin heat. Warmish garage will keep the battery capacity up. Using the climate control to warm the vehicle while plugged in and before you leave can also help.

And if needed a fast DC charge station would really help. Not many around yet :(

In Southern California there are a ton of DC fast chargers and literally more every month. Bring up plug share and check ut your area. You might be surprised. https://www.plugshare.com/ Our network here in BC is getting better every year and will take a big jump next year as the kootenays are populated with combo CCS/Chademo sites. We rarely use them but are nice and handy for longer trips especially for us as we have a relatively short range EV. Max 200 KM but we plan around 160 KM charge stops. 95 percent of our charging is done in our garage.

The Tesla network is growing rapidly all over the world as well as the CCS and CHADEMO networks. It will take a while to fill all the holes yet although in Europe they are about twice as far along on this than we are on this side of the pond.

time2roll wrote:
I would buy a plug-in hybrid truck if there was decent electric range for day to day commute.

Range loss will depend on how you use the vehicle. Seat warmers go a lot further than the cabin heat. Warmish garage will keep the battery capacity up. Using the climate control to warm the vehicle while plugged in and before you leave can also help.

And if needed a fast DC charge station would really help. Not many around yet :(

We set the timer to warm the seats and steering wheel before we go to work. The garage hangs around 10 degrees anyway so we don't really need to pre-heat. We have never been in really cold temps (colder than about minus 15 celcius but we see about a 20 percent drop in range...depending on the heater usage it would probably closer to a third.

Again though, EV's are not meant to be a Panacea at this point. If they don't work for someone then of course don't buy one. If they do, then there may be some advantages in terms of everything from drive quality, low maintenance costs and of course fuel costs. For those doing 100 KM commutes or greater there can be some serious savings there.

Those big subsidies are for SpaceX to develop a lower cost supplier to launch equipment in place of Raytheon and Boeing. Very little to do with vehicles.

The big development has been to land the boost stage rocket and reuse for the next launch. This is new technology and has been successful.

I read SpaceX is launching at 1/2 to 1/3rd the cost of the competition.
Rocket science, not road science.

I would buy a plug-in hybrid truck if there was decent electric range for day to day commute.

Range loss will depend on how you use the vehicle. Seat warmers go a lot further than the cabin heat. Warmish garage will keep the battery capacity up. Using the climate control to warm the vehicle while plugged in and before you leave can also help.

And if needed a fast DC charge station would really help. Not many around yet :(

Turtle n Peeps wrote:
Musk is farming the government. And doing quite well with this strategy. 5 Billion is nothing to laugh at! With 5 billion of our dollars one would think he could make money with his company.

But keeping it in perspective, those tax credits are available to any EV manufacturer not just Tesla although every body seems to focus on Tesla. So, GM, Ford, Nissan etc. And in the big scheme of things, how much does it cost to furnish a military to keep the shipping lanes open to the middle east so the oil continues to flow. Some context is needed here. There is also a technology race going on here. Is it better to throw money at a start up company on this side of the pond and subsequently have the leading technology here or better to import the technology and the vehicles from overseas. Every Tesla sold is directly taken from BMW or Mercedes.

Public records show that Tesla makes money on every Tesla sold, but he spends a ton of money on R and D and the losses continue to add up. At some point will it pay off. Who knows. The share holders think so...at least at this point. It will be interesting to see how history judges the decisions made now on supporting a radically divergent technology company.

hone eagle wrote:

time2roll wrote:
Bolt has 230 mile range.

How about in Canada ........ in winter?

Have heard estimates of 30% reduction in Winter.
So 161 miles or 259 km.

A little too close for comfort for us. We often do a 250 km commute up to cottage country, even in the winter. Not a lot of charging stations along our route, and anyway don't want to wait around in some shopping mall in freezing weather for the thing to charge up.

The Volt (plug-in hybrid) would be a better choice for us and is cheaper than the Bolt cause of the smaller battery. But it lacks the mechanical simplicity of an all-electric.

Musk is farming the government. And doing quite well with this strategy. 5 Billion is nothing to laugh at! With 5 billion of our dollars one would think he could make money with his company.

time2roll wrote:
Bolt has 230 mile range.

How about in Canada ........ in winter?

Bolt has 230 mile range.