Why Tesla's are bad at towing!

The problem with your theory of buggy manufacturers and diesel trains is, electric cars have been around for over 100 years. There's been mass produced electric cars on and off for all those years. How come they still aren't the "go to" form of propulsion after 100 years of refinement?
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Good point! I wonder if Tesla fanboys also use Unix. The arguments are the same.

time2roll wrote:

agesilaus wrote:
If you want to talk about not going to happen, you should think about the 'electric car' revolution. Barring some major technological development in energy storage the electric vehicles will never become the major segment of the transport mix. Not possible, not enough lithium, not enough electrical generation capacity and not enough electrical transmission capacity. It might cost trillions to rewire the country for 100% electrical vehicles. And the only possible current source of generation that could do it is nuke, if you insist that a minor gas be controlled.

Buggy manufacturers said the same thing for years with strong industry growth even as automobiles were small and growing.

And don't worry the first diesel train engines were relegated to the switch yard as they did not have the range or strength to pull freight between cities.

History would seem to be repeating itself one more time. Either way it will be interesting to watch how this unfolds over the next couple decades.

The problem with your theory of buggy manufacturers and diesel trains is, electric cars have been around for over 100 years. There's been mass produced electric cars on and off for all those years. How come they still aren't the "go to" form of propulsion after 100 years of refinement?

Buggy manufacturers did not have physics and engineering on their side. Just because some self serving idiot says something doesn't mean it's worth quoting. Assuming they actually said that.

agesilaus wrote:
If you want to talk about not going to happen, you should think about the 'electric car' revolution. Barring some major technological development in energy storage the electric vehicles will never become the major segment of the transport mix. Not possible, not enough lithium, not enough electrical generation capacity and not enough electrical transmission capacity. It might cost trillions to rewire the country for 100% electrical vehicles. And the only possible current source of generation that could do it is nuke, if you insist that a minor gas be controlled.

Buggy manufacturers said the same thing for years with strong industry growth even as automobiles were small and growing.

And don't worry the first diesel train engines were relegated to the switch yard as they did not have the range or strength to pull freight between cities.

History would seem to be repeating itself one more time. Either way it will be interesting to watch how this unfolds over the next couple decades.

agesilaus wrote:
If you want to talk about not going to happen, you should think about the 'electric car' revolution. Barring some major technological development in energy storage the electric vehicles will never become the major segment of the transport mix. Not possible, not enough lithium, not enough electrical generation capacity and not enough electrical transmission capacity. It might cost trillions to rewire the country for 100% electrical vehicles. And the only possible current source of generation that could do it is nuke, if you insist that a minor gas be controlled.

Heh heh. You might want to do a little research. Especially on that electrical generation capacity thing. The utility companies don’t seem to see things the same as you do.

Cheers.

Campfire Time wrote:

pianotuna wrote:
How many folks tow at 75 miles per hour? 55 would make more sense.

Watch it again, he accounted for 60 mph towing.

Square of the speed is the biggest factor. 60 x 60 = 3600; 55 x 55 = 3025; 3025 / 3600 =~ 14% savings, all other things being equal.

75 x 75 = 5625 ; 3025 / 5625 =~ 46% savings.

Towing at max load weight is, in my opinion, a bit of a red herring, and unwise. Doing so on any vehicle is not going to give good results, fuel economy wise, nor result in a long life. Of course, you can tow a 50,000 pound load with an inadequate vehicle--but how far, and how fast?

When I have time, I drive 49 mph (78 kph) because it happened, in the past, to be a "sweet spot" for my class C. Because of some recent changes, I may be searching for a new sweet spot--probably faster.

My "one day record" for driving was 1400 kilometers (870 miles). That was done at 55 mph in my previous class C diesel.

In the last two weeks I saw a suggested lease price of $79 per month (36 months) on a Hyundai Ionic. Perfect for a daily commute, but not much good for towing any serious load. To be fair, the initial payment is $999. That effectively raises the lease price to $107 per month. Prices are going to drop, and five year ownership costs already favor Bev's.

BYD has produced 500,000 Bev buses. Most travel 155 miles on a charge with a battery capacity is 150 kwh.

The buses range in size from 23 feet to 60 feet.

These units are by no means perfect. But the operating costs are well below diesel units.

As to recharging, if I were a campground owner, I'd be installing meters. 150 kwh would be possible on a 50 amp pedestal at 14 hours.

GM is promising many Bev and plug in models in the near future.

I'm probably too old to see a BEV RV, but ten years from now I suspect there may be lots.

The Trans Canada Highway (#1) is in the process of having charging stations installed at Petro Canada gas stations. They are approximately 120 miles apart. The locations will be using the fastest possible charging method (DC high voltage) and can recharge to 80% of capacity in 30 minutes.

If you want to talk about not going to happen, you should think about the 'electric car' revolution. Barring some major technological development in energy storage the electric vehicles will never become the major segment of the transport mix. Not possible, not enough lithium, not enough electrical generation capacity and not enough electrical transmission capacity. It might cost trillions to rewire the country for 100% electrical vehicles. And the only possible current source of generation that could do it is nuke, if you insist that a minor gas be controlled.

agesilaus wrote:
OK there are roughly 50,000 miles of interstate. I'm sure you'd want to add in all those miles of state thruways and such so lets call the total 70,000 miles. These are all multi-lane so let make a guess and call them 6 lanes, 3 each way, on average. Those will be more expensive to electrify so lets call that $1,000,000 a mile which works out to $70,000,000,000. Who is going to pay for that? I vote electric car owners should foot the bill. Plus the O&M costs.

Not going to happen ever.

But really do you think the first 1% would pay for all infrastructure and then the remaining 99% just come along and enjoy the ride.

Just some general observations from his excellent mathematical presentation, not necessarily EV related.

1. Rolling resistance is a higher factor than most of us acknowledge. In his example of the Model X towing at 70, the required energy is 100.4 kWh and 84 kWh at 60. Since speed only effects the aerodynamic portion of his example, subtracting the difference of 16.4 kWh from the Aero column leaves 29.4 vs 32.8 for rolling resistance.

2. It would have been nice if he had included a column depicting the effect of inertial changes such as accelerating from 0 - 60. In real life one would have accelerated and slowed down many times in that 100 miles especially in the mountains. However that would have made his example more complicated.

3. Real life, most people towing get about 10 MPG whether towing with small TV and small trailer or larger truck with a large trailer (assuming gas). Since gasoline has about 33 kWh per gallon, the trip would really take about 330 kWh.

agesilaus wrote:
OK there are roughly 50,000 miles of interstate. I'm sure you'd want to add in all those miles of state thruways and such so lets call the total 70,000 miles. These are all multi-lane so let make a guess and call them 6 lanes, 3 each way, on average. Those will be more expensive to electrify so lets call that $1,000,000 a mile which works out to $70,000,000,000. Who is going to pay for that? I vote electric car owners should foot the bill. Plus the O&M costs.

Do we really want the government in charge (no pun intended) of the fueling requirements for travel? That is a recipe for disaster.

So now we get rid of 150k+ gas stations and now the government is in charge of what we pay and when we pay. Sounds like a scary proposition to me.