Full electric F150

Except acceleration and possibly maintenance.

 

And I can only go the speed limit. So who cares?

 

You're out of touch with recent changes in the electricity market. Back when the A/C event happened most generation plants were also utility / investor owned. They had an obligation to serve and were controlled by their PUC but entitled to a 10% profit. Right or wrong. Boondoggles were common but as long as the obligation was met AND it was still cheap it was allowed to exist. That was then, now the market is allowed to function to fund generation plants based solely on the profit potential. That's why we got gas fired plants when gas was cheap. That's why solar and wind is so spotty, they really only prosper when government steps in with artificial profits. The market will generate the power....eventually....at a cost.

 

I dunno man, any time I have superior acceleration my maintenance costs skyrocket. Tires ain’t cheap!

 

It may take time, but they're pushing it hard NOW.

If everyone buys an EV and charges at night, how can grid usage be the lowest? I would expect it to be the lowest when everyone is at work and not running the a/c at home....

So you are pushing a conspiracy that the automakers are in bed with the oil producers to keep ICE as inefficient as possible?

Wow, maybe I should move to Canada to get those awesome rental rates!

Another thing you miss is the cross-over point when an EV starts actually saving me money. I average 36mpg in my car. Doing the math on an entry level Tesla it would've taken me 9 years to break even, given my electricity KWH costs. How does that make sense? You talk about emotion, but the logic doesn't work.

 

It doesn't make financial sense to eat honey oat bread instead of Wal-Mart store brand white bread, but I'm not an accountant. I'll spend my money on what I like. Anyone who drives a BMW and then preaches fiscal responsibility really needs a pickup to haul their giant brass balls around.

 

Bud, I rent vehicles for work all the time. I get the best rates National, enterprise and some others can offer. It’s NEVER $50 a day. After surcharges, fees, and taxes it’s always 80+ a day.
It’s irrelevant to argue with you. You’ve made up your mind how it’s illogical for someone who doesn’t use the bed of a pickup on a regular basis to own the pickup. I’d argue me owning an 800whp supercharged mustang is illogical too, but vehicle purchases are hardly logical. If that was the case everyone would drive the most fuel efficient, econobox made, with no variety. That’s obviously not the case.

 

Speed is velocity.

 

EVs make a lot of sense for vehicles running daily delivery routes. Distribution centers have large rooftops that can be covered with solar panels that charge on-site packs during the day while the vehicles are out running the routes. They could even stand up covered parking areas for trailers with more panels on them. Lots of weekends and holidays for them to top off the vehicles for that first route following. And no, I'm not saying the panels could fully charge the on-site packs but they could do a fair chunk of it. The vehicles run fixed 100-150 mile routes most days. They can recharge off of the batteries overnight and be ready to go for the morning routes. Trying to put an EV into every household before doing something like that is silly.

 

I'm in the depends camp on this. I don't want to drive a blender but the Tesla wall battery makes good sense to me. Power grids have to deal with ramping up and down power as demand fluctuates. Having batteries distributed across the grid sitting in wait for demand could reduce the need for power plants to ramp up and down quickly as demand fluctuates. Now whether that's a fixed battery bank or the battery pack of a car is perhaps something to consider. Most might not go for the expense of a dedicated battery to hang on the wall but if the car can serve that dual role then perhaps it is an easier sell. Throw some small arrays of solar on homes that can add to capacity for recharging those items and I think that is a recipe for a better power distribution system.

Plus that batteries and solar could make the weather related disruptions less of a disruption. If it is priced accordingly I don't see why you couldn't get people to buy in...

Did I mention I don't want to drive a blender?

 

The battery systems are a different discussion for me. Those are a great idea.

I see a clear difference in use case for the technology there.

 

People who are for electric cars for the most part have no clue what AC, DC, amperage or a relay is let alone describe their relationships.
Plugging a car that charges level2 or higher is 240v at 30amps or more. Its not a small load on the grid. It’s as much or more than a central AC unit.
Grids can try to guess average usage for that time of day of the month/year but when you have such large “steps” in usage it’s hard to plan for it. It’s why brownouts occur during hot weather. The scheduling missed the guess of how much extra power to bring on. They can’t just overproduce, or underproduce....

so until we have a large capacity battery storage (can be lithium, can be water pumped to higher level for later generator powering, can by flywheel, etc) to “flatten” the load spikes needed from power plants, the idea that we will milky Willy be plugging in and disconnecting cars that draw 50amps is not feasible. Today? Sure, the electric cars are such a small minority it’s not even worth mentioning. Now imagine plugging in a OTR rig that needs 300kw+ of power and pulls 600v and 100amps. And now imagine millions of such vehicles.

Listen I’m all for it. I even made my own house backup power wall from used lifepo4 cells from a hybrid bus, that power two inverters for emergency house power. I’ll be installing solar panels as well. I believe in it. But as someone who actually knows about it in depth. No, it’s not happening any time soon.

 

What’s a capacitor?

 

A funky battery.

 

Lol. I ended up driving thru Bodymore to Annapolis the other weekend and there was no one anywhere close to the speed limit. I was going over 90 and was getting the same feeling I used to get riding a 600 at the same time as Panagales were on the track...

 

It's acceleration they are good for anyway, not top speed.

 

I can't really give you any specifics, but when they get bigger your air conditioner ceases to condition air.

 

I do like the Ford, but I’m more interested in how the Rivian works out.
The drain whilst towing for all these EVs is TBD in real world usage…

 

With this big push for electric vehicles with lithium batteries, where are we going to mine all these things from?

Seems just slightly like they go together