So who will be first with an electric pickup. And when.

Huntindog wrote:

John & Angela wrote:

valhalla360 wrote:
A hybrid or electric pickup is very much viable but not as a tow vehicle.

As is often mentioned, most pickups are used as commuter vehicles (aka: Grocery Getters). If you occasionally need to pick up lumber from home depot, it could be a great option.
- To keep a pickup running at 70mph only takes maybe 60-80hp but they typically have 200+HP engines because the acceleration of a 80hp pickup would be horrid. A hybrid would allow you to put in an 80hp engine and allow for decent acceleration with the MPG advantages of a small engine running at near peak efficiency. The problem for towing is you often need twice as much power on a continuous basis just going down the road and if you climb a steep grade it might be 3-4 times as much. The small battery bank in a hybrid would die very quickly under that kind of heavy usage and then you are stranded on the side of the road or limited to very low speeds with only 80hp.
- Pure electric also works as a commuter vehicle. Plenty of room between the frame rails for batteries and if you don't need a lot of cargo capacity it can carry a lot of batteries but let's take the poster boy tesla. The battery bank that gets 300miles weighs in at 1200lbs. An aerodymaic car might need 40-50hp to maintain highway speeds. Pulling a trailer, the engine is going to put out closer to 150hp to maintain speed so figure 3-4 times the battery bank size or around 3400-4800lbs of batteries Ignoring the costs of that massive battery bank, that will eat up all the cargo capacity of a 1/2ton pickup, meaning it can't handle the tongue weight or anything else in the truck bed. The other big difference is a commuter vehicle is assumed to charge at night and then travel a modest distance before being charged again. When you cut thru the hype, cross country road trips are usually stunts. A typical RV towing experience is often north of 250-500miles in a day which leaves range a real issue. Also, dry camping without electricity becomes problematic. Even 30amp outlets can be a problem. If it's hot out and the air/con is running all the time, can the system supply sufficient power to charge the truck (and will the park take issue with you stressing out their marginal system plus without paying extra).

A lot of urban delivery trucks are very much viable. If you do 100 miles of deliveries during the day and bring the truck back to the warehouse to charge at night, that can be done. There are actually electric delivery vans in europe now.

So that leaves us at a marketing dilemma. People buy Grocery Getters because they want to feel they can do anything even if they never will. Once you get them to admit they won't ever put their house on casters and drive it down the road, the whole case for a full size truck goes away. Most could do fine with a small car and a utility trailer or an 1980's vintage 100hp small pickup (not the overgrown midsize of today).

Good breakdown. I think the only thing I would maybe not be 100 percent with is the typical RV experience. Most of the best RV places from us are 70 to 120 miles away. Although we do the occasional long trip, most summer weekend camping is fairly close.

Also long distance trips in an EV (or at least a Tesla) is quite viable and commonly done today. The Supercharger network is already quite extensive and growing quite rapidly. We routinely stop for 45 minutes to an hour every 3 or 4 hours anyway and sometimes more often. Lots of opportunities to fast charge during those breaks. There are lots of Tesla owners that do north of 40,000 miles a year (thats why they bought a Tesla) Not as good yet with non Teslas as the infrastructure isn't as good. It remains to be seen if other manufacturers will step up to the plate here. It is one of the reasons that Teslas sell so well compared to other manufacturers.

Anyway. I agree that the first EV pickups will probably pointed at the grocery getter crowd that pulls the boat to the lake on the weekend.

How many of the Superchargers will accept a 1 ton dually crewcab towing a 34' 11K TT? I gross about 26K wwith my present truck/TT.
How much more weight in batteries will I need to get 300 miles down the road? At what cost?

None that I know of. I also don't know of anyone doing the big dually pickup thing. The only manufacturer that mentioned one so far was Tesla and he sounds like he may be targetting something like the 1/2 ton market pulling small trailers like the model X does...maybe a little higher tow capacity. Have you heard otherwise?

Many of the superchargers are not drive thru and the trailer needs to be dropped. The bigger ones are drive thru but can't see a dually pulling a large fifth wheel fitting. Maybe 10 years down the road. Who knows.

This one is drive thru but it better be a short combo.

https://cdn.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/tesla-supercharger-baker-ca-40-stalls-model-x-2.jpg

There are a bunch of Tesla X owners pulling tear drops, boats, pop ups etc. Nice looking when they are colour matched. They are rated up to 5000 pound towing capacity.