Why Tesla's are bad at towing!

[ShinerBock]

Two words......energy density.

Video - Why Teslas Are Bad At Towing (Today)

Maybe someday, but not today.


Now let the excuses commence......

[pianotuna]

time2roll wrote:

wilber1 wrote:
I've never seen a train or subway that ran on batteries, including Tokyo.

Batteries are not needed for a dedicated route.

I understand the London tube first ran with steam engines. Doubt that was pleasant.

Actually the first ones were horse drawn.

[pianotuna]

agesilaus wrote:
Oslo to Tronheim is about 300 miles BTW, Boston to Miami is 1500 miles.

And how often do you drive Boston to Miami? Or 1500 miles? And do you drive 1500 miles without at least one overnight stop? (I sure don't).

Assuming one eats meals out (car travel) then I'd stop for both lunch and supper. If I pushed *really* hard I could do 500 miles per day.

That gives charging time at noon and supper, with overnight stop (full charge), another noon and supper, another overnight stop (full charge) and then lunch on the third day.

That would be possible right now even with the limited number of charging locations.

[pianotuna]

Hi Campfire,

Both Petrocan and Volkswagon are private for profit companies.

The Hotel nearest me has 3 level two charging spots. They are being used by travelers from BC on occasion. That is 600 miles.

[GeoBoy]

valhalla360 wrote:

Yosemite Sam1 wrote:
Norway who in March had 58% of new car sales are EV is planning of curb wireless charging.

European countries, unlike us, don't see EV vehicles as political, tree-hugger socialist plot. Just that's economical, practical and environmentally sensible.

Ummm...norway sales are almost completely a political tree hugger socialist plot...the govt MANDATED EVs and heavily penalizes anyone who doesn't buy them.

Funny thing is Norway can afford this political boondoggle because...get this...they sell huge amounts of that nasty oil to fund it.

Soooo, the truth comes out.:B

[agesilaus]

Yosemite Sam1 wrote:
Norway who in March had 58% of new car sales are EV is planning of curb wireless charging.

European countries, unlike us, don't see EV vehicles as political, tree-hugger socialist plot. Just that's economical, practical and environmentally sensible.

Just how far can you drive in Norway. Not very far compared with the US, 1500 mile trips are very rare I'd say. I do not argue that EV aren't suitable for urban only driving. They are workable for short trips. But comparing Norwegian driving with what we do in the US is just silly. The same applies to the UK and other European countries.

Oslo to Tronheim is about 300 miles BTW, Boston to Miami is 1500 miles.

[Campfire_Time]

pianotuna wrote:

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.

You're taking his video much too literal. He's showing how the numbers work, not how we tow. Take the more realistic numbers we all tow with. The math is sound.

Do a little more research on BYD. The BYD buses are an apples to oranges comparison to Tesla cars and PUs. Again, plug in the numbers. No surprise they get 155 miles.

Interesting the approach Canada is taking. In the US it will have to be private enterprise that sees the need. No doubt the auto manufacturers are going to have to get involved in helping to finance charging stations. Small mom and pop gas stations are not going to put this stuff in without financial incentive.

[NJRVer]

valhalla360 wrote:

Charlie D. wrote:
Tesla said they have a goal of installing solar panels on the roof.

Yeah!!! If can now adds 50ft of range per day.

I'm exaggerating a bit but run the calculations on how much power you can generate given the surface area and angle to the sun available. It's simply not a viable solution to anything.

More in terms of the solar roof panel powers accessories in the car, leaving the batteries strictly for the motor.

[RandACampin]

Teslas are bad period!

[valhalla360]

Yosemite Sam1 wrote:
Norway who in March had 58% of new car sales are EV is planning of curb wireless charging.

European countries, unlike us, don't see EV vehicles as political, tree-hugger socialist plot. Just that's economical, practical and environmentally sensible.

Ummm...norway sales are almost completely a political tree hugger socialist plot...the govt MANDATED EVs and heavily penalizes anyone who doesn't buy them.

Funny thing is Norway can afford this political boondoggle because...get this...they sell huge amounts of that nasty oil to fund it.

[valhalla360]

pianotuna wrote:

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.

Not really a comparable example. These are mostly city busses that operate at 0 to 45mph (vast majority of time under 30mph). Assuming an 8hr shift, 155miles translates to an average of just under 20mph.

Aerodynamic losses are a couple orders of magnitude less than an RV running at 60mph steady and they have dedicated yards with custom charging stations to park at night.

For a city bus route, yes BEV will work now and likely you will see them take over the city bus market on fuel if nothing else. A diesel bus running 8hr a day burns a lot of fuel for the cost difference diesel vs electric fuel can pay for a pretty big upcharge on the initial price. Of course, this assumes the battery packs hold up long term as these busses get far more use than your average passenger vehicle.

[valhalla360]

Huntindog wrote:

ShinerBock wrote:

agesilaus wrote:

4x4ord wrote:
I think it makes sense to have the power for electric vehicles embedded in the roadways to keep the batteries charged as the vehicles drive along the road... kind of like trolley busses.

LOL how many millions of miles of roadway are there in the US? Aha! There are about 4,071,000 miles of road, changing all the time of course. And figuring a conservative $100,000 a mile to electrify that would be $4,000,000,000, that 4 Trillion bucks plus operating and maintenance costs. And that does not include all the dirt an gravel roads that we like so much out west.

Not to mention the fact that wireless charging is very inefficient and wastes a lot of energy. There is also the factor of voltage drop over long distances.

I have thought about this alot. You would not need to wire every road. Start with the interstates, then the seconday highways and major roads. The beauty of is that with the car being constantly charged while driving, then the on board battery can be a lot smaller, as it would only be needed in residential areas.
Cars could be cheaper and more efficient, and the nasty stuff in batteries would be lessened.
If we ever get to 100% EV use, there will be some crashes,,, and a crash could turn into a hazmat situation real easy when two huge battery packs run into one another.

Keep in mind, his estimate of 4million miles of road is sort of incorrect. If you are outfitting lanes, even small roads will have 2 lane miles per mile of roadway...freeways and arterials generally start at 4 lane miles per mile of roadway.

And his estimate of $100k per lane mile is wildly low. I would be shocked if you could keep it under $500k and that's if the road is already being rebuilt.

Then you have the maintenance costs. I work with traffic signal loops (essentially wires embedded in the pavement)...if the pavement isn't in top condition, it's a nightmare trying to keep sensors operational. You could expect similar with embedded power cables. Now one option would be to bury them deeper but the deeper they are the less efficient wireless charging is and the losses increase with the square of distance.

[valhalla360]

Charlie D. wrote:
Tesla said they have a goal of installing solar panels on the roof.

Yeah!!! If can now adds 50ft of range per day.

I'm exaggerating a bit but run the calculations on how much power you can generate given the surface area and angle to the sun available. It's simply not a viable solution to anything.

[wilber1]

time2roll wrote:

wilber1 wrote:
I've never seen a train or subway that ran on batteries, including Tokyo.

Batteries are not needed for a dedicated route.

I understand the London tube first ran with steam engines. Doubt that was pleasant.

No they aren’t. I don’t see what they have to do with battery powers vehicles. The only thing they have in common is electric motors.

[time2roll]

wilber1 wrote:
I've never seen a train or subway that ran on batteries, including Tokyo.

Batteries are not needed for a dedicated route.

I understand the London tube first ran with steam engines. Doubt that was pleasant.

[time2roll]

mooky stinks wrote:
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?

Yes the gasoline vehicle progressed much faster at the beginning. Battery, motor and digital technology have taken a bit longer. The progress has come from other than the automotive industry. Remember when the world thought Elon was crazy to run a vehicle on laptop batteries? It about took the invention of the laptop to make EVs even possible.

The real trouble for petrol is that progress may slow as resources are increasingly directed toward EVs.

As I said it will be interesting how it plays out. Could be a big break in petrol technology soon that puts EVs back in hibernation. Time will tell.