Electric Super Duty??

[DaveMatthewsBand]

100% right electric cars and trucks are a bad idea
1 They use way more energy to produce a battery than you get back
2 Batteries from electric vehicles are hazardous if you get into an accident. Police had to have special hazmat classes in case they come upon an electric vehicle accident.
3 Producing and deposing of electric vehicle batteries is much worse for the environment than the fossil fuel vehicles built today.
4 If you think that by buying an electric vehicle you are saving the environment you have been listening to too much fake news.

LOL


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[rrlowen]

100% right electric cars and trucks are a bad idea
1 They use way more energy to produce a battery than you get back
2 Batteries from electric vehicles are hazardous if you get into an accident. Police had to have special hazmat classes in case they come upon an electric vehicle accident.
3 Producing and deposing of electric vehicle batteries is much worse for the environment than the fossil fuel vehicles built today.
4 If you think that by buying an electric vehicle you are saving the environment you have been listening to too much fake news.

Other possibilities to consider:
1 Lifetime energy use for an electric vehicle is 1/2 that of a fossil fueled vehicle
2 Fossil fueled vehicles cause approximately 170,000 fires in accidents annually in the US
3 See item 1. New battery technology could increase their potential life past the life of the vehicle, perhaps even to the life of 4 vehicles and then the materials can be recycled.
4 First and foremost, electric vehicles in densely populated cities creates an enhanced, breathable environment for those living there thus reducing incidents of respiratory disease and reducing medical costs.

[bertschb]

The problem with the green EV argument is 83% of our electrical power comes from burning fossil fuels. So, you're either burning fossil fuels to generate the electricity to charge the battery in your EV or you're burning fossil fuel in your gas car. Either way, you're burning fossil fuels.

Until none of our electric power comes from fossil fuels, there is no valid "green" argument for EV's. Yes, EV's are fast, quiet, low maintenance, high tech, etc. and I'll likely buy one some day for those reasons. But they are not green.

[Scott'n'Wendy]

I don't know about electric trucks, but I'm still waitin' on my jet pack! Weren't we supposed to be flying by jet pack by now?

[rrlowen]

The problem with the green EV argument is 83% of our electrical power comes from burning fossil fuels. So, you're either burning fossil fuels to generate the electricity to charge the battery in your EV or you're burning fossil fuel in your gas car. Either way, you're burning fossil fuels.

Until none of our electric power comes from fossil fuels, there is no valid "green" argument for EV's. Yes, EV's are fast, quiet, low maintenance, high tech, etc. and I'll likely buy one some day for those reasons. But they are not green.

bertschb: I didn't mention "green" in my response. I suggest only that there is value in electrifying transportation in densely populated areas because it will result in cleaner air. Even if the electricity is generated using fossil fuels, that process doesn't usually happen in the core of cities. Gas vehicles pump their exhausts almost directly into our lungs.
I agree that right now power generation isn't very clean but this is changing and will change even more over time. Gas powered vehicles have no future environmental upside but electric vehicles will realize the benefits of "greener" power generation.
Where I live, power is generated using hydro turbines so it definitely is "green" here.

[TheLexx]

bertschb: I didn't mention "green" in my response. I suggest only that there is value in electrifying transportation in densely populated areas because it will result in cleaner air. Even if the electricity is generated using fossil fuels, that process doesn't usually happen in the core of cities. Gas vehicles pump their exhausts almost directly into our lungs.
I agree that right now power generation isn't very clean but this is changing and will change even more over time. Gas powered vehicles have no future environmental upside but electric vehicles will realize the benefits of "greener" power generation.
Where I live, power is generated using hydro turbines so it definitely is "green" here.

Unfortunately hydro is not an option here in California, as the environmental activists are loathe to allowing the damming up of any more rivers. This state is headed towards failed state status. Our infrastructure is crumbling, taxes through the roof, pollution is out of control, fires out of control, not enough energy, and quality of life plummeting.

Canada at least has no problems going with hydro power. That's a good thing considering how many rivers and lakes are up there. The other advantage you have is your population centers are spread out and concentrated in only a few areas, with 35 million in all in a country larger in size than the USA. Heck California hs more people in it than all of Canada lol.

The "electric revolution" won't really be an effective green solution until they improve the battery technology so that it's not toxic landfill nor requires massive amounts of waste and energy to make. I bet we will get there eventually, but it's going to take time. Already Tesla's new battery technology has increased the range of the Model S fro 300 mi to 500. That's a dramatic improvement in a relatively short few years.

[geotex1]

bertschb: I didn't mention "green" in my response. I suggest only that there is value in electrifying transportation in densely populated areas because it will result in cleaner air. Even if the electricity is generated using fossil fuels, that process doesn't usually happen in the core of cities. Gas vehicles pump their exhausts almost directly into our lungs.
I agree that right now power generation isn't very clean but this is changing and will change even more over time. Gas powered vehicles have no future environmental upside but electric vehicles will realize the benefits of "greener" power generation.
Where I live, power is generated using hydro turbines so it definitely is "green" here.

Hydro is greener but not at all green. The environmental and ecological disruption hydro power has caused can never be restored. Unbelievable amounts of raw materials are consumed in the construction of hydroelectric dams. EVs already failed in the greenest country on the planet! As I said earlier, if you evaluate cradle to grave EV are no improvement whatsoever. None. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Some products I make are to contain the environmental mess from the raw materials they require. From lining lithium pools for deep extraction and evaporation to lining hundreds of thousands of acres of Red Mud generated for aluminum. Then I've visited the literal mountains of spent batteries that there is nothing to do with... Mankind has started a cycle that cannot be stopped, and at this point we're just along for the ride until the Earth corrects itself.

[SolarPoweredRV]

Please identify these “studies?” Studies can point to anything depending on who is doing the studying.


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Here is a good article from Autoweek.com discussing the issue; one very interesting quote in the article noted how the Electric Utility Industry was able to accommodate the proliferation of Air Conditioning in the 1950's, so too, will it accommodate the proliferation of Electric Vehicles in the near future.

One study (mentioned in the article) that showed the US Electric Grid could accommodate Electric Vehicles was done by Pacific Northwest National Labs.

A search on Google resulted in a Mckinsey report that states "Electric vehicles are unlikely to create a power-demand crisis but could reshape the load curve".

Here are the links to the Article and the Mckinsey report:

Article: https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-...rash-the-grid/

Mckinsey Report: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/...energy-systems

[bertschb]

Quote from Elon Musk today. It's nice to finally hear somebody in the industry say this out loud...

"Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Tuesday that electricity consumption will double if the world's car fleets are electrified"

[Overtaxed]

In a word, "no".

First off, don't look at electric "pickup trucks". None of them have the capacity to tow big RV's, they are more F150 than F450. But, leaving that aside, let's say they did build a truck with enough beef/suspension to do it; you're not going to get enough battery in a normal truck to get it done. Towing a big RV is much more akin to towing a semi trailer than driving a car. Your talking about 1KW/m as a reasonable guess for what it would take to get it done. Which means a 400 mile range would take a 400KW/h battery pack (and that's probably optimistic). Which is WAY beyond what anyone is talking about putting in a pickup.

But, lets say they do. Next problem is charging. A Tesla supercharger, the biggest thing currently available, charges at 150KW/hr (with a few at 250KW/h). You're talking 1-2 hours to charge up your truck at a station like that. And forget about charging it off the 50A service in the RV park, it would take days to get it full from that kind of service.

Let's say magic happens and they start building super or even mega chargers (1,000KW/H) all over. Well, the amount of power these things draw is astounding. Those 100 trucks that fuel in an hour at your typical busy truck stop? Well, assuming the chargers were built out, 100 trucks pulling 1MW each, well.. Your into electrical substation level power at that point. Go to a place with a few truck stops together that's really busy, well.. You're into nuclear reactor type power; charging 500 semis in an hour requires the entire output of a small nuclear powerplant.

A gallon of diesel fuel is ~10-15KW of power (after losses) to the wheels. So, do some simple math, to go as far as you can on 10 gallons of diesel, you need a 100-150KW battery. To go as far as you can with a 40 gallon tank on a F450, you need 400-600KW/h of battery on board. And don't forget, you can "charge" your 450 in 5 minutes, putting 400-600KW/h of energy into the tank nearly instantly (at least compared to electric charging).

Short version, we're not even close to the tech required to tow an RV with a electric "pickup". You could do it with the Tesla semi, but there are big logistics problems getting something with 1MW of "tank" charged up. Even the fastest superchargers out there, it's a 4 hour charge time from dead empty!

No, if you're talking about a big trailer/5er, you're not towing it much distance with electric/battery tech anytime soon. Just huge hurdles that we really don't have good answers for, and batteries are nowhere near the power density of diesel fuel (KW/lb). The "right" answer, given todays tech, for long haul/heavy haul trucking is a diesel/electric hybrid; a small diesel engine with a reasonable sized battery pack working together to provide all electric propulsion with the diesel swinging a generator to keep things topped up. We could build this today and because diesels can be built to very high efficiency at a single RPM range, we could save a lot of fuel doing it, simplify the driveline, get a lot more torque.. But that's the path forward given the tech we have today; the pickups are "toys" compared to the range and refuel times in a modern diesel pickup truck. They aren't the answer, in fact, pure electric, IMHO, isn't a viable answer for any long haul application; it's just too much power. Plugging in a semi for a 1hr recharge is akin to close to an entire month's power usage for a typical home consumed in 1 hour!

Long discussion with a lot more math:
https://www.mygrandrv.com/forum/show...0-Shown-Towing