pianotuna wrote:
ksss wrote:
This pull demonstrates the limitations pretty clearly. You would need to top off the charge on your truck off before you started up the hill, then recharge once you got to the top, assuming that capability exists. When you put all of that together, it could take you half a day to get to the top of hill and able to continue on your drive. That is not practical. While this is a steep climb, there are many climbs in the USA that would also create a similar issue. Plenty of work to do here.
Respectfully, going down hill the truck would gain charge--so there is no need to charge at the top of the hill.
As seen in the video, the truck gained almost no charge going down the hill. It took 17% battery capacity to climb the hill, but only regained 2% coming down. That really highlights the aerodynamic drag penalty that must be paid when towing a high profile vehicle. It may be true that a carefully engineered EV solo will regain going downhill much of the energy spent going uphill, but add a huge amount of aerodynamic drag behind it and that efficiency goes away.
I believe that electric vehicles are the future and their time is coming, but some people are so excited about them that they refuse to acknowledge physics. I was at a Harley dealer a while back chatting up a salesman about the Livewire electric motorcycle. He told me that if you rode a circuit that had lots of up and down, when you returned you would actually have more charge in the battery than when you left. Sadly, I'm sure some people would actually believe that.
