I live in Texas. 95% of truck owners never put anything in the bed never mind tow. They drive a truck because it’s Texas. Not because they need a truck.
Yeah most F250 owners I personally know don’t really care about the towing but do like hauling stuff in their beds. It’s just the cheap fuel that lets this Texas truck mindset thrive. I don’t like it when people give bad generalization on different types of technologies just because of a few niche inconveniences. They seem to forget that everything improves with time.
And that is exactly who Tesla made these vehicles for, the vast majority, and they keep adding chargers, which means you can usually do it, but slowly, but I bet some people want to tow a boat 30 or 40 miles to the nearest lake, which they can do already, but put chargers by the boat launch and you can double it.
it doesnt matter! trucks are made for work and heavy duty applications! we should not repeat that crap with EVs, ICE trucks are alreay way more capable than EVs to begin with!
@@battery_wattageits not bad generalization! ICE are just much, much effective and polyvalent technology, EVs doesnt compete except 0-60. batteries will never reach the crazy level of liquid fuels, just look at spacex its powered by fuel not batteries.
One of the things I think is worth mentioning is that towing with an EV is a better driving experience. Yes, the range sucks but the actual driving is much better especially going up and down hills. I used my model Y to tow a heavy trailer full of stuff from LA to Monterey CA. It effortlessly tackled steep grades. Going up, it did not slow down at all and I had plenty of power in reserve if I wanted to pass. Going down, the regenerative braking helped me from using the brakes and I experience no braking issue. My gas powered F150 with a comparable trailer and load slows down and struggles getting up steep grades. I usually end up stuck in the slow lane. Going down hills the brakes fade and vibrate as the rotors heat up. I've replaced the pads and the rotors only to have the same problem show up again and again. In a situation where I am towing within the range of the battery pack or I can tolerate the extra charging stops and time, I would pick the EV everytime.
In a nutshell: if you want greater EV range while towing you must drive slower. Towing faster than 50 mph is illegal in many countries anyway, going with even just 40 mph will get you many miles more at not a horrible time loss penalty at all.
Something that could make it better in the near term is a trailer with its own battery pack and motor. Could be detached and charged at superchargers with your truck. If anything it could just offset a good chunk of the lost range while towing
@@wolfgangpreier9160 3 ton toy was my nickname in high school. Lmao jk. Why are you here? It’s an EV channel. I just said a different option. Fully acknowledge the current limitations of towing with an EV. But let’s be honest 90% of truck owners in the U.S. almost never tow anything or have anything in their beds. I would actually use mine and plan to do so but they’re way more who don’t
Yes and we already have caravans that have their own motors and battery packs and all a caravan is is a trailer with rubbish on top of it already. It's the obvious solution and it would work for petrol vehicles too. I find it hilarious that people think their ICE vehicle doesn't lose range in bad weather or while towing. :D Or that they claim to be towing that regularly which is an obvious massive lie.
@@jonevansauthor But they simply drive to the next petrol station that is always just around the corner and fill it up in under 30 seconds. Its not more than a minor inconvenience. And it even costs less than these expensive excited electrons.
@@StormtrooperGary117 I am here because i want a CT for hauling and towing. I do not accept the negativity of the people that it can "only" tow 150 miles. Which is much more than i demand. If they want more they shall buy a Mercedes E-Actros or a Scania. They can tow 42 tons over 500 km. I do not want to buy a oldtmerish Ford E-Transit without Software and with analog levers and gauges, a just as old VW E-Crafter, Mercedes E-Sprinter or Fiat E-Ducato which are the competitors to the CT here in Europe. I want a mid sized truck with working Software, Working App, few maintenance and good efficiency. I certainly do NOT want a truck that goes 0-100 in under 2 seconds. For that i can always buy a Model S Plaid or a Porsche.
I agree with your break down of what needs to be done for a better Ev truck towing experience. Actually all the things you mentioned about energy dense cells and DC fast charging speed should be on the top of all Ev manufacturers list and be implemented in all Ev's. I dream of the day when affordable Evs can do 300 miles real world range with taking into account buffers in the battery. That should be the target for automakers plus better resistance to heat and cold and last but not least is price of the vehicle being affordable enough for the majority of people. Long way to go but will get there hopefully sooner rather than later.
The reason gas vehicles have much better range is partly due to them being inefficient by default, and a significant part being due to energy density, but its more complicated than that. energy density is the most obvious. 75% of the energy in your tank is lost, but if you have a 27 gallon tank, thats still 202kwh of USABLE energy left over after ALL losses are accounted for being used to directly power your vehicle. then. wetake into account that ICE engines are more efficient at higher loads. thats why semi trucks get some 8-10mpg bobtailing, but with a fully loaded trailer towing will be close to 5-8 mpg while towing many tons of weight. then we see that most ev batteries are around 100+kwh at full capacity in the battery, not the amount going to the motors producing power. then take into account that because of heat, engines actually make MORE efficient power when under load while the opposite happens with ev motors. batteries get more efficient as they heat up but motors drop as temps increase, leading to even more energy losses, while a gas or diesle engine would get more efficient with more load. with an ev, ANY amount of resistance you add to the vehicle makes it less efficient because the heat generated in the motor actively makes it less efficient along with consuming more energy, while in a gas car the heat and load makes it more efficient. so ev's do have a long ay because even once you can match the loaded range by having a big enough battery with dense enough cells, you're still dealing with the fact that gas and diesel become more efficient with load, while ev's will always become less efficient with load, even if you do fix all of the previous problems with charging and energy density, you're gonna end up needing more energy available compared to a gas vehicle to go the same range with a trailer because of efficiency degradation in ev vs efficiency improvements in ice
The Tesla semi can go 500 miles on a charge at 80,000lbs GVW, and it is very efficient doing it. They just don't make anything between a semi and a Cybertruck yet, and I don't think they will till the other two are fully ramped.
@@fjalics well, it can do it, but its not ideal. That run they did with the semi was sitting in the slow lane getting passed by other semi's going 55. They did go in the mountains which is a huge pro for ev trucks over conventional, but in terms of range, they still had to really work to get that 500 mile figure. Still great they they were able to pull it off, but when you have such a powerful truck, you probably don't wanna be getting passed by conventional trucks in order to reach that range. But it's always a work in progress and due to how many cells are in a semi, any improvement in density would scale up more significantly than for a smaller vehicle.
@user-rm7kb3il6x IDK what kind of cells they have in the semi, but they recently upped the energy in their 4680 cells by 10%. Tesla said they want to consume 3 terawatt hours per year by 2030. That is a lot of incentive to improve batteries, and that doesn't include everbody else.
@@fjalics Sure, let's assume Tesla can do those numbers at 55mph. It's range as an electric truck is going to be far greater at 50mph hauling potato chips (air.) What's needed is to pair the energy density of diesel with the efficiency curve of electric motors. (Like Edison Motors boo-yah.)
I don’t see any Model T towing 10k pounds back in the past. Took many years to get gas vehicles to this point. People need to calm down about the EVs vs ICE debate
What if the trailer also adds 100kWh of battery? Expensive... true. Also, got to appreciate the pull through Tesla supercharger station where the one Tesla parked there is going the wrong way. Ha ha. Love it. ;)
Yeah. For the cybertruck they could have extended the range with doing the semi method and disconnecting the rear motors like the semi. But they choose the current for cruising. Also Edison motors. Has the best solution for the transition period and heavy hauling.
I would think a solution would be specialized trailers where batteries are built into the trailers to extend range. Also, trailer dedicated stalls could be programmed to only turn on for vehicles with trailers to keep unwanted cars out of those stalls.
While there will be multiple solutions on the market like trailers with batteries and motors in them, trucks like the ram charger, and others. Ultimately I’m betting that trucks with 200 kWh or larger batteries with super fast charging and well placed DCFC will be the most common and widespread solution. This will happen is once we get to a higher volume of battery production, plus battery prices come down even more, And fast charging technology gets slightly better. Just look at what Porsche came out with on their next gen taycan. Over 300 kW until 60% state of charge. That’s 40 kWh in seven minutes. Assuming a battery pack with double the kWh capacity would have roughly double the top charging rate, you could see a truck that would be able to onboard 80 kWh in seven minutes. The further you extrapolate that out the more impressive it gets. This would be the death of gas trucks. It would take 10 minutes to fill up a big tank at a gas station especially if it’s a slow pump.
I keep debating to cancel delivery of cybertruck. Keep hoping they actually make it a usable truck for towing and actually make it achieve 500 miles of EPA range.
I honestly highly question the future of electric hauling. I don't think its really a flaw with current techniques as much as it just is a flaw with the system itself. Gas already was pretty poor at hauling compared to diesel so it shouldn't be that supprising EVs are behind. But making more dense batteries won't really solve the problem. The problem with more dense batteries is it means it takes even longer to fully charge. That would means either wiring batteries for lower voltages which means lower charging speeds or making more dense chemistries that charge the same rate per energy volume but more of it. If we really wanted you could make a 1000 mile Model 3 right now with the same sized battery, but it would take 3-4 times as long to recharge and lose some of the power. People actively complain about charge times and performance is a major marketing point so this isn't really an option. The Aptera right now plans on doing this which is how it has so much range, but charging 4 times slower rate than a Model 3. Even trains have struggled to make batteries work out and usually resort to powered lines or just using diesel. I can't really imagine the govenment or states paying for powered highways just for electric trucks and pickups to make more sense. At most they could change the sensors at stop lights to wireless chargers, though cities likely have the weaker grid for that and how do you charge people for using state or federally offered power? I can really only imagine dystopian methods to do that.
If increasing the battery density was all you did then you're right, it wouldn't solve the issue. That's why he also said you'd need to increase the charging speed. By I'd argue that still isn't enough, you will need trailers that have their own batteries and motors built in. That solves multiple issues. For one you don't need to carry around a huge battery all the time just for the once a year towing you do, and it would then be possible to charge both the car and trailer at the same time, reducing the time to charge what would otherwise be a huge battery. I know of two companies working on this very thing so it won't be theory for long.
I agree, minimal battery pack size for a truck should be 250 kWh. The reason car companies are not putting such batteries in a trucks is only the cost. GM could squeeze such battery in Silverado no problem, size and energy density is not an issue. I believe cybertruck will also going to get bigger battery, just in a year or two. As usual, Tesla's first production years of a model are the worst cars. About charging - also agree, but I think proper infrastructure will arrive much faster, in about 5 years
It is important! US and German boys must be able to tow 3000 tons @ 420 over the Autobahn over 1000km in one run without toilet stop. They are ze master of ze universe!
@@wolfgangpreier9160 I wish I knew the one weird trick to increase my bladder size. Elon should work on that instead of Neuralink. :D (and yes, I recognise Wolfgang is being witheringly sarcastic in case anyone thinks I didn't). Also I'm pretty sure Steve is flat out lying about 'most people'. I think he means if you go to farms, you'll see more trailers which they use for work. On their farm. Or to take stuff to somewhere nearby. He's ignoring the fact that in rural areas most people live in villages, towns and cities and definitely do not need to know and that most people on farms do not tow , most of the time. My grandfather had a tractor and a plough and a trailer. Didn't use any of them frequently. He certainly didn't have a boat.
@@jonevansauthor I thought every US household has at least one speed boat, a bunch of dirt bikes and a bunch of ski doos for winter. They visit grandma 3 states over every weeked with all their 42 kids and 13 wifes. They all NEED, desperately need, big powered Diesel SUVs. That cost not more than 5000 US$ and are of course maintenance free. Am i wrong? We've got one trailer in the family. Its a family heirloom from one of the grandfathers. And still running the same as in 1950 when he built it. We have currently one old Diesel Renault with a tow hitch. I've ordered a tow hitch for one of my Tesla Model Y. We need this trailer sometimes for a 150km round trip to get some old IT equipment from "the City". And to deliver old defective parts to the local dump. We visit grandma 3 states over in Poland at least 6 times a year. Without trailer.
When robotaxis become a thing you can have large aerodynamic pods to transport things that would normally require a truck+trailer. This will improve range significantly for "towing". Imagine having a pod with a large dolly that rolls out that you can secure your bass boat too. Then you can pull up to a lake and deploy the boat into the water with the dolly and winch built into the pod.
Better than that, you can drive wherever you're going, and get there at normal speed. Your stuff will arrive whenever you told it to. And you won't have to own the trailer/vehicle, just book it.
If we invested in trains, the most efficient way to move cargo over land, we wouldn't need to worry about how far your toy truck (all pickups without a company logo are toys) can haul your... what, boat? Anyway, it's a dumb problem and I don't care if it doesn't get solved.
@@spencermuirhead3261 Sure it is. It has even done it before with the interstate highway system, for example. Are they in the mood to do it again? Hell no. An at this point, the kind of debt it would take, added to the existing debt, would be enough to make even a Democrat nervous.
Electric Trucks are completely worthless in certain scenarios. It's fine on the interstate, but if you want to pull a trailer on a scenic state highway with only level 2 charging available you would have to drive 100 miles, charge overnight, drive 100 miles, charge overnight, etc. Until there are DC fast chargers in every tiny town then EV trucks just aren't practical for pulling a trailer in that use case.
Please tell this to Scania, Mercedes, Volvo, Tesla. I guess they are of different opinion. And they would be correct. Just because you personally are not able to drive a EV does not mean everyone else must follow your ill adivise.
Scania, Mercedes and Volvo probably don't drive their semis on routes that take them through Salmon Idaho, Afton Wyoming and Hanksville Utah. Unfortunately the current plan to build out DC fast chargers puts too much emphasis on high-use “corridors” instead of ensuring that you can travel anywhere in the US. We desperately need at least a couple of DC fast chargers in tiny towns in rural areas.@@wolfgangpreier9160
@@papa_woody well, not really, since pickups are already redundant. An entire class of vehicle that doesn't need to exist since vans do a better job with cargo and tools and cars do a better job at being, funnily enough, cars.
I love all these tesla meetups at the charger box. Then yall can get together and blow hella smoke at each others same car you drive and feel good about yourselves collecting together to collectively raise all our insurance and electric rates.
@@wolfgangpreier9160 your rate or your coverage? Not sure how adding more load to the electrical grid would be somehow a net positive resulting in some sort of long term benefit. So I dont actually see any reason to brag about paying higher electric bills in general. But way to cope with being foolish I guess.
@@webreakforsquirrel4201 I guess you've never calculated the needs of EVs vs the energy needs of fossil burners. I will make it easy for you and anybody else reading this. You - or the Germans, Chinese, Brazlians whoever - need 15% more electric energy in the whole transition to fully 100% electric energy driven BEVs. Thats 100% BEV instead of 100% fossil burning vehicles of all sizes. Lets say you can buy 10% EVs every year. Which of course is ridiculous, nobody can ever buy as many cars in one year. Then it would take you 10 years to need 15% MORE energy in your grid. Thats a increase of 1.5% each and every year. You think you can not achieve this very low goal? Then you are living in a poor country. Sorry.
@@webreakforsquirrel4201 because electricity is a better form of power than oil. Cheaper, faster, less traffic, more flexible, kills fewer people with traffic, kills fewer people with pollution. I know the US doesn't have an electricity grid but you *could* have one. You can go 230v while you're at it, and really reap the benefits of the 20th century. And he's 'bragging' about higher bills because he has a much higher quality of life living in Europe than you get in the US. I realise that's not a *big* brag but it's true.
@@webreakforsquirrel4201 If you can eliminate the cost of fossil fuel and make do with 15% more electric energy you can ultimately safe about 50-70% of your current energy cost. But of course if you want to spend all your money on fossil fuel because it tastes so good i will not be able to stop you.
RAM Charger is not the answer IMO. You're creating tailpipes emissions along with added complexity of ICE and EV. Plus the engine can't propel the vehicle in a pinch. Future battery technology is the long-term solution.
Maybe focusing on improving the truck is the wrong solution. The ice solution. If you need to tow a trailer , get a trailer with a motor and drive battery, if you need to tow an RV - get an RV with a battery and motors. Think of a truck that has 300 mile range AND 350 mile range towing a flatbed trailer carrying two motorcycles or lumber. We need to think EV solution not ice solution.
You can certainly fit a lot more solar on the roof of a trailer than you can on the roof of the vehicle itself - so having trailers that do double duty as range extenders by having 10kW of solar on their roofs and plugging into the vehicle through the NACS port is definitely one solution to this. It’s going to require, however, software that can recognize when a trailer is plugged into the charging port vs when it’s just plugged in at a charging station.
Correction: EV's are great AT towing, but they are horrible FOR towing. they can tow very well, but they are not good for towing because of energy density, charging speed, and charging locations that work with a trailer. but if you need to tow short distances where refueling was not a factor (specifically in mountainous regions), ev's are actually very good at towing, just not practical for most towing situations.
@@TailosiveEV What do you mean build? I mean use a regular backyard generator. If you don't have one, they're actually really easy to rent. Getting the Tesla to accept a charge while it's in motion on the other hand, is apparently possible. If you are renting a trailer, and most people need a trailer less than they need a truck, you can probably rent a generator at the same place. This just gave me a business idea. Charge electric landscaping tools with a generator between locations. Then you can offer a quiet landscaping service with a big premium.
To keep the truck and trailer going at highway speed would require a minimum of something like a 75 kW generator, so you're talking about something close to what Stellantis is doing with the Ramcharger (6 cylinder engine).
It comes down to the efficiently losses thatEV’s take on when weight or aerodynamics is concerned. An electric motor will always be second to an ice motor when carrying loads. It’s simple physics.
Since you're talking "long term" you left something very important out of this equation: wireless on road charging. That completely changes things and makes long range towing much easier. And yes, this technology does already exist in mutilple places, though yes does need a build out after these early days.
I recommend solar powered roads that charge the passing cars wirless. And where there is no sunb you can use a solar satellite and beam the energy down with directed microwave rays directly intot the moving car. And when there is no space for staellites you can use a pantograph and overhead electric lies and get your energy from those.
@@wolfgangpreier9160 I'm not sure it's possible to do solar roads and wireless charging roads at the same time. That said, solar roads sort of defeat the whole point of what makes solar viable. Space solar that you describe is not in use yet. There are already wireless charging roads at work in the wild in Europe, Israel, and Detroit Michigan.
@@Dr.Gehrig That was pure sarcasm. Its all complete nonsense. Just as the fusion reactor, hydrogen powered anything or E-Fool. Or graviton storage. Or cold fusion. Or worldwide peace.
@wolfgangpreier9160 the problem there is you're mixing things that do currently exist with things that don't. Things that have uses with things that don't. Assuming that emerging technologies are the same as non existent technologies is a mistake. Efuels likely have a place in decarbonizing air and maritime vehicles if biofuels cannot (on their own). Wireless charging roads though are being built out as we speak and as I said, have been built in other locations. They exist now, are being used now. If we are speaking in the years from now and decade and decade plus from now term, they are worth considering.
@@Dr.Gehrig "Efuels likely have a place in decarbonizing air and maritime vehicles if biofuels cannot (on their own)" That is wishful thinking. There is no known industrial process of extracting carbon mono or dioxide from the air in the needed purity and quantity to be used in creating that stuff. Only in small batches up to a hektoliter a year. Can you show me one - only one Gren H2 producer with more than 1 Megatons of H2 and oine - pleas only one worldwide producer of green CO2 - extracted from coal power plants or out of thin air who produces 1 Million tons of cleaned and dried 100% CO2 next to the H2? And please do not repeat promises - even from Elon - nor marketing speak. Not newspeak, not polemics, not wishful thinking. Just existing facts and figures. "Wireless charging roads though are being built out as we speak" No they are not. Please don't BS us all. They are wet dreams of wannabe road huggers - vs tree huggers of trees that were planted to produce cardboard. Also called "Kartonwälder" in Germany. Wireless charging on roads does not work. Or can you show me one single instance where after 5 years of road use those roads are still existing and charging vehicles? Just like those solar roads where the surface is made of embedded solar panels they tried in netherlands. Its all pure nonsense. Just as overhead lines with pantograph do not work for EVs. Just for trains on a fixed track. Just as E-Fuels do not work because nobody knows how to get the needed CO2. Just as H2 does not work because producing green H2 is not profitable and the only factory that tried it went bankrupt last year. Wireless charging does not even work in the garage @ home. The efficiency is just too bad. Or can you show me one single company and EV that uses wireless charging anywhere? Not tryouts i know that the theory does work. Y'all seem to forget two rules: Science is the law, everything else are recommendations. And: Never bet against Elon.
