I can't find the post where the guy wanted something like Uber, but the driver shows up in a beat up pickup truck, and just agrees with everything you say, "Hell yeah, brother!"
Yet again I consider the disparities between the US market, as described by commentors, and the UK market. Cybertrucks never made it to road legality here, and would probably have required an HGV license (if the maximum manufacturer permitted vehicle+load weight is over 3500kg).
The US style pickup is pretty rare. There are some Ford Ranger/Raptors, which look comically large but are apparently smaller than the common F150 (??). People who need a truck bed get a Ford Transit or similar with the bed variant.
Agricultural use cases are handled with actual tractors (who can use the cheaper "red" diesel!)
The pickup in the US is a staple of the plumber, roofer and other tradesmen, and as you say; this use case as a tradesman’s tool is broadly filled by the panel van in Europe.
To some extent you even see this in New York too. Certainly there’s a need for these vehicles in rural areas where road conditions may be poor or absent altogether and the work needs done regardless.
The cybertruck on the other hand isn’t a work vehicle, it’s bought by the same people who buy the super kitted out models and who have no interest in using it for work, let alone taking the thing off road.
Ultimately I think of it as the modern Delorean, but I don’t think it will engender the same level of good will when it ages out and becomes less common due to the increasingly negative profile of Musk and his connections to the politics in which the vehicle was created.
Basically every trade in Europe seems to use either vans or vehicles like a Mercedes Sprinter with a flatbed (don't know the proper term. Those still seat 3 people and have a huge bed, all with a regular license.
If you would be using it just locally, as opposed for road trips, note that it has an LFP battery. LFP batteries are perfectly happy to be always charged to 100% and discharged down to 10% (lower is OK but most people want to keep some spare in case they aren't able to charge when they expected to).
Lithium nickel batteries suffer accelerated aging at high charge and at low charge, so it is usually recommended to stay in the 80-20% range, only going to 100% shortly before a road trip.
A Slate with a 200 mile range operated 100-10% would give you 180 miles between charges. That would be the same range as a lithium nickel battery EV with a 300 mile range operated 80-20%.
I only have one car at a time (not married). I frequently visit family that lives about 80 miles away that live in a charger desert. I used to own a Chevy Bolt and it could get me to those family and back on one 100% charge with a little bit for grocery runs etc. while there. Even that I wish had like maybe another 20 miles of range lol.
What are your use cases that need more range than 200 miles? I used to drive a nissan leaf with 90mi range in southern california and only had to stop to charge outside the home a few times for days where I went between LA and Orange County. Otherwise I never really cut it close - and this was with the slowest wall outlet charging at home.
Personally I live in the Midwest. I make fairly frequent drives of around 200 miles to visit friends and family. I drive a pluggable hybrid. EV charging stations exist at both destinations, but are very spotty in between.
During the winter, range plummets. That 200 isn't getting me all the way from A to B. Having a hybrid fueling option is just much more practical for me.
I'm not saying I couldn't get it done, I could, but sitting for hours waiting for some slow-ass EV charging station in the middle of winter is not bullshit I'm signing up for.
Not that I am trying to argue with you, I'm not, but people have a "gas station mindset" about EVs and it leads to confusion, so let me spell out how this trip would look with a "charging station" mindset:
Leave home at 100%/200mi
Drive to destination (approx 3 hours) arrive with ~0%/0mi
Charge while at destination to 80%/160mi
Begin driving back home with a 20%/40mi deficit of range.
Stop anywhere/anytime after you get below 60%/120mi
Charge for 20%/40mi (~10 minutes)
Complete drive home and fully charge again.
Total extra time on 400 mile trip vs gas (assuming 300 mi tank range, so 1 fill-up): ~5 minutes (or 8 minutes if you stop for a quick charge on the way so you don't have to white knuckle down to 0%).
For cold driving in the winter, it would probably be closer to an extra 20 minutes.
I love my EV, but you're really not being at all realistic here. That's more of a perfect possible case scenario based on numbers from a website, not a real world scenario. I take a ~350 mile drive to Milwaukee in our 300 mile range car (2025 Ioniq 5) and we have to stop three times on the trip in each direction.
You're not actually going to get 200mi from 100% when you have 2 people and baggage loaded and traffic exists, and no one sane would be comfortable arriving with literally 0% battery. Charging stops take minimum 10 minutes just accounting for getting off & back on the freeway; usually more like 30-40 minutes because why would you not just charge back up to 80% since you're stopped anyway? Your destination hotel almost certainly does not have a charger, or if they do they charge an idle fee, so you can't just leave it overnight, so really that has to count as another charging stop.
For a 200mi each way trip, realistically you're talking probably two 30 minute charge stops in each direction. That's not completely unacceptable (eg just have some lunch at one of the stops) but your 5-8 minute quote is absolutely not realistic. A bump up to 300mi range would drop that down to one stop in each direction, which would be a real benefit.
Sorry to be blunt, but if you need to stop 3 times to charge to go 350 miles in an 300 mile range EV, you are doing something severely wrong or there is a problem with your car.
The only way I can make this happen in my head is the combination of driving in freezing temperatures, with the heat blasting the whole time, while doing ~80mph.
Mind you we do trips to Maine in the winter and only have seen ~20% range loss. Heated seats, cruise control at 65, heat on only as needed (about 5-10 minute an hour).
I occasionally drive 300 miles in an EV rated for ~319 miles, and I have to stop once in each direction, but I also have to charge at my destination. There's a Tesla station near there, and the rates are fantastic if you get there before 7 AM.
I keep it at 65 and let the heater do whatever it wants to do so that people are comfortable. Temperature, elevation differences, and wind definitely change things.
There's a section of the drive where I average something like 1.3 mi/kWh on the way up the mountain, but something like 6 mi/kWh on the way down. On the return trip, it's kind of fun to see the guess-o-meter show 110 miles remaining over the course of 25 miles, or have it actually increase.
I'm sure that gas vehicles follow a similar pattern, but I don't pay attention to usage like I do in an EV.
A drop from 80% to 20% in a 300mi car is 0.6 * 300 = 180 miles. It's a 350 mile trip. 350 / 180 = 2 80-to-20 discharges, and that's assuming no little detours for stopping at a cheese store or whatever. So we could do it in 2 stops if we were OK arriving with 20%, but we need some charge at the destination for getting around MKE, so it's three stops. And yeah, we drive 75 because that's the speed of traffic and the HVAC does whatever it does to make us comfortable.
There are 30-50 mile (>10%) stretches with no fast chargers in WI. I'm not going to risk being stranded if one is broken and I need to make it to the next one. I'm not really interested in nibbling around the edges & hypermiling to save one half-hour stop.
A few things -- I am not op, but I do drive an EV and sometimes drive it through some rural areas.
> Stop anywhere/anytime after you get below 60%/120mi
This is the aspect which isn't really possible in very rural areas. There is nowhere to stop at to charge, or the options are very limited. It's getting better, but it's the reason why people want more range.
Plus, in the midwest, the ranges tank in the dead of winter, due to sub-zero temperatures and headwinds.
If you can.
I have some family that doesn't have any power near where I park when I visit.
I'm also there for less than the _many, many_ hours it would take to get an EV from ~0 to ~80% on a standard 15A/120v outlet.
In one case, they have a pretty big tesla super-charger something like 40 miles from them so I can top all the way up just before I get there if I go slightly out of my way. In the US, we still have a long ways to go in the US before _high current_ charging options are as ubiquitous as gas.
Slow ass ev charging? My f150 charge from almost dead to almost full in 35-40 minutes and it has 300+ mile range and 135kWh battery. And its still a 400v architecture
> Slow ass ev charging? My f150 charge from almost dead to almost full in 35-40 minutes
Unfortunately a lot of people only really have a level1 class charger at home and that's a 10+ hour charge on a F150. Probably somewhere around 5-7 hours for a level 2 charger but that's only a "given" on new construction.
If you live close to a level3 charger than you can get topped up in under an hour but that also isn't as convenient as plugging in when you get home and forgetting about it since you have to drive to the charger.
It's pretty perfect as a 2nd family car (and I may buy it for exactly that if the production model reviews are good) but yeah, it's a tough sell for a primary car with that range. Assuming they manage to meet their sales targets and stay in business, I bet it'll improve rapidly over the next couple of model years.
Exactly. 200mi EPA is essentially 130-150 highway in winter, which is stopping for charging every 2hrs going 65 - not feasible for anyone living in the midwest.
most people don’t use the capacity of the pickup trucks on the road today. I’m not going to tell people what to drive, but I know personally a smaller pickup with occasional bed use and better efficiency and parking the rest of the time would be an easy sell.
Then you need to get our and do more real work of lots of different types. Exposed bed is often an advantage!
I have a welder, the safety instructions include "Never carry the gas tanks in an enclosed vehicle" -if there is a leak the gas tanks (nitrogen, argon, helium) can quickly displace the oxygen inside and I'll die before I know what happened.
Most things I carry don't need to be inside constantly. A little rain won't hurt anything, I wouldn't want to store anything outside but just a couple hours won't harm most things.
Also it is a lot easier to load things in a truck than a van. I can lift it over the sides (perhaps with a forklift). I can stand up in the back while arranging things - even when it is full I can stand upright.
I have used both trucks and vans to carry things over the years. Both are a compromise - and like all compromises there are negatives where something else would be better. Overall I fall on the truck is better side for what I do most often - but that is overall and I recognize there are good reasons some will choose something else.
> if there is a leak the gas tanks (nitrogen, argon, helium) can quickly displace the oxygen inside and I'll die before I know what happened.
This is something so many people don't realize.
When you hold your breath for too long, that feeling of suffocation isn't caused by a lack of oxygen, but the build-up of CO2.
If you replace the oxygen in a room with an odorless gas non-oxygen gas, your body doesn't tell you. You don't feel like you're suffocating. You just start suffering the effects of lack of oxygen. Dizziness, confusion, lightheadedness, but you likely won't realize anything is wrong. Your judgement and ability to react goes away and you lose consciousness without ever experiencing the desperate urge to breathe.
Another good example of this is when pilots fly too high without supplemental oxygen or adequate cabin pressurization and become hypoxic. They become confused and lose coordination while feeling perfectly fine. By the time they realize something is wrong, they may no longer be able to do anything about it.
Every Saturday I fill my truck bed with garbage cans and dump them at a transfer station across the highway from where I live. (We have no trash service in this rural area). I used to cram bags of trash into the back of my Honda CRV, which worked, but was often messy and stinky. You can hose out the back of a truck bed.
I used to think trucks were mostly useless, but have found that many people have weekly uses that make a lot of sense.
I do question the logic of lifting your truck so high you can't reach into the bed.
> Then you need to get our and do more real work of lots of different types.
I repair farm machinery, I design datacentre networks, and I design and build extremely complex electronic equipment. I'm good for the "real work of lots of different types".
I just don't see the point of a vehicle that gets my tools and equipment rained on.
I keep a minivan as a secondary vehicle / "work truck". It tows, I can fit 4x8 plywood or drywall sheets flat on the floor, and drive them around in the rain. Then put the seats back in and take 6 kids to a movie.
EV trucks sound good but you can't haul anything heavy or your range plumments. Unless the battery is huge but that is weight. A truck that can't haul is just for show.
Even gasoline trucks are stupid no low end torque, you need to rev it. I had a 6 cylinder Cummins diesel and at 500rpm idle on a hill it could move the 10,000 pound truck up the hill.
I feel like this is less true nowadays. Or at least, less of a concern.
I have a Rivian and my 400mi range gets cut significantly (down to 200 or 300, depending on the trip) when I have 7k lbs on the back, but never enough to stop me from towing. And with good charging in the area, it's a non issue. And waaaaayyyyy cheaper than diesel.
Maybe if I was towing daily, I'd feel different. Your mileage may vary. (Couldn't resist the closer!)
Edit: btw instant torque is a game changer. You can't beat an EV on that front
I used to think this way, but it turns out that EV trucks hold up on range better than one would expect thanks to regenerative breaking. The added weight of cargo requires more energy to get up to speed, but you get most of that back when breaking, so it's not lost energy. Meanwhile, a gas or diesel truck's range plummets when hauling since all the energy used to accelerate the load is lost in breaking. I'm not saying that EV hauling is perfect or a solved problem, but that the trades offs aren't as intuitive as they might seem.
I think regen braking only helps if the load is on the bed. If it's on a trailer, the trailer will have normal breaks and a lot is lost.
(Edit: spelling)
Trailers may not have regenerative braking today, but that's a chicken-and-egg problem; trailers already have wiring hookups, and once EVs become the default for personal vehicles, it's easy to imagine that regenerative braking will become standard.
+1 recommendation for this video. Also the owner of the channel participated in an EV cannonball run several times. I don't think they made it in one go, but still very cool how they had to plan for the trip and modify the vehicle.
I borrow my brother’s truck all the time to transport various DIY supplies. I could probably get a roof rack for my car for things like plywood and drywall, but borrowing the truck is easier.
I have an f150 lightning. Weight isn't a problem for range you barely notice it. Towing though matters mostly about the number of axels and aerodynamics. I have a small trailer I occasionally tow and it knocks the range to just under half which is... Not great but not terrible either. Running around town towing is fine, but if we were doing long distance (hundreds of miles) I'd probably rent a ice vehicle for it.
But I've done a 600 mile each way trip with the bed fully loaded and it's completely fine
I might be ignorant here as a german but how often are people towing something big 100 miles and more were they do not have time to just charge? I would have said 2-4 times a year (lakelife location far away twice a year?).
I mean for sure, if you are the person who constantly need this, EVs might need a little bit more advantages, but what does an avg F150 owner would tow 100mi every day / regularly?
I would put it like this: many many truck drivers in the US go years without towing a thing. Even work trucks (eg plumbers rarely need to tow anything). But, for the people that do tow, they tow a lot.
And the US is an incredibly large place. West of the Rockies it's essentially empty until you get to the coastal cities. So if you do anything agricultural, or your business is located in the rural places because of local resources (wood, minerals, whatever) you will be towing heavy things long distances.
Fun example of distance: last month I was in Tonopah, Nevada. My spouse wanted to try McDonald's. No problem, the sign on the billboard says there is one nearby (that exact word). It was in Hawthorne. 150km away. Americans, especially rural Americans in the Western states, have a different view of driving distance than Europeans. Bill Bryson was not really joking when he wrote that Americans will drive 60 miles for a taco.
For towing, 75% of truck owners claim to use this feature once a year or never.
More than 60% of truck owners use the bed to haul at least once per month; but it's difficult to determine the percentage who could have used a car instead. A small car can fit quite a few bags of soil in the trunk, for example.
I'm looking foward to the arrival later this month of my 280PS ""compact"" EV (Abarth 600E), which will be roughly as much power as every other car I've owned put together.
Some gas engines have low end torque, big block V8s and anything turbo. But yeah if hauling uphill is your thing diesel is a no brainer. It would be great if our half ton and midsize trucks had diesel options but as usual other countries have better options.
Personally I'm going hybrid truck next time. The advantages of electric (torque, 240V inverter) with the flexibility of gas. Payload is lower but I'm hoping they fix that by the time I need a new truck
I want an electric El Camino.
Isn't that kind of the dream of Slate? I reserved two, btw, hard agree.
I think you're about to get something similar with the Ford Fathom.
Who wouldn't?
I can't find the post where the guy wanted something like Uber, but the driver shows up in a beat up pickup truck, and just agrees with everything you say, "Hell yeah, brother!"
If you build it, they will come.
Yet again I consider the disparities between the US market, as described by commentors, and the UK market. Cybertrucks never made it to road legality here, and would probably have required an HGV license (if the maximum manufacturer permitted vehicle+load weight is over 3500kg).
The US style pickup is pretty rare. There are some Ford Ranger/Raptors, which look comically large but are apparently smaller than the common F150 (??). People who need a truck bed get a Ford Transit or similar with the bed variant.
Agricultural use cases are handled with actual tractors (who can use the cheaper "red" diesel!)
The pickup in the US is a staple of the plumber, roofer and other tradesmen, and as you say; this use case as a tradesman’s tool is broadly filled by the panel van in Europe.
To some extent you even see this in New York too. Certainly there’s a need for these vehicles in rural areas where road conditions may be poor or absent altogether and the work needs done regardless.
The cybertruck on the other hand isn’t a work vehicle, it’s bought by the same people who buy the super kitted out models and who have no interest in using it for work, let alone taking the thing off road.
Ultimately I think of it as the modern Delorean, but I don’t think it will engender the same level of good will when it ages out and becomes less common due to the increasingly negative profile of Musk and his connections to the politics in which the vehicle was created.
Basically every trade in Europe seems to use either vans or vehicles like a Mercedes Sprinter with a flatbed (don't know the proper term. Those still seat 3 people and have a huge bed, all with a regular license.
[dead]
It can be, if you let it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxus_T90 (EV version)
Could be: https://www.slate.auto/en
If their range was better this would be my next vehicle purchase…
If you would be using it just locally, as opposed for road trips, note that it has an LFP battery. LFP batteries are perfectly happy to be always charged to 100% and discharged down to 10% (lower is OK but most people want to keep some spare in case they aren't able to charge when they expected to).
Lithium nickel batteries suffer accelerated aging at high charge and at low charge, so it is usually recommended to stay in the 80-20% range, only going to 100% shortly before a road trip.
A Slate with a 200 mile range operated 100-10% would give you 180 miles between charges. That would be the same range as a lithium nickel battery EV with a 300 mile range operated 80-20%.
I only have one car at a time (not married). I frequently visit family that lives about 80 miles away that live in a charger desert. I used to own a Chevy Bolt and it could get me to those family and back on one 100% charge with a little bit for grocery runs etc. while there. Even that I wish had like maybe another 20 miles of range lol.
What are your use cases that need more range than 200 miles? I used to drive a nissan leaf with 90mi range in southern california and only had to stop to charge outside the home a few times for days where I went between LA and Orange County. Otherwise I never really cut it close - and this was with the slowest wall outlet charging at home.
Personally I live in the Midwest. I make fairly frequent drives of around 200 miles to visit friends and family. I drive a pluggable hybrid. EV charging stations exist at both destinations, but are very spotty in between.
During the winter, range plummets. That 200 isn't getting me all the way from A to B. Having a hybrid fueling option is just much more practical for me.
I'm not saying I couldn't get it done, I could, but sitting for hours waiting for some slow-ass EV charging station in the middle of winter is not bullshit I'm signing up for.
Not that I am trying to argue with you, I'm not, but people have a "gas station mindset" about EVs and it leads to confusion, so let me spell out how this trip would look with a "charging station" mindset:
Leave home at 100%/200mi
Drive to destination (approx 3 hours) arrive with ~0%/0mi
Charge while at destination to 80%/160mi
Begin driving back home with a 20%/40mi deficit of range.
Stop anywhere/anytime after you get below 60%/120mi
Charge for 20%/40mi (~10 minutes)
Complete drive home and fully charge again.
Total extra time on 400 mile trip vs gas (assuming 300 mi tank range, so 1 fill-up): ~5 minutes (or 8 minutes if you stop for a quick charge on the way so you don't have to white knuckle down to 0%).
For cold driving in the winter, it would probably be closer to an extra 20 minutes.
I love my EV, but you're really not being at all realistic here. That's more of a perfect possible case scenario based on numbers from a website, not a real world scenario. I take a ~350 mile drive to Milwaukee in our 300 mile range car (2025 Ioniq 5) and we have to stop three times on the trip in each direction.
You're not actually going to get 200mi from 100% when you have 2 people and baggage loaded and traffic exists, and no one sane would be comfortable arriving with literally 0% battery. Charging stops take minimum 10 minutes just accounting for getting off & back on the freeway; usually more like 30-40 minutes because why would you not just charge back up to 80% since you're stopped anyway? Your destination hotel almost certainly does not have a charger, or if they do they charge an idle fee, so you can't just leave it overnight, so really that has to count as another charging stop.
For a 200mi each way trip, realistically you're talking probably two 30 minute charge stops in each direction. That's not completely unacceptable (eg just have some lunch at one of the stops) but your 5-8 minute quote is absolutely not realistic. A bump up to 300mi range would drop that down to one stop in each direction, which would be a real benefit.
Sorry to be blunt, but if you need to stop 3 times to charge to go 350 miles in an 300 mile range EV, you are doing something severely wrong or there is a problem with your car.
The only way I can make this happen in my head is the combination of driving in freezing temperatures, with the heat blasting the whole time, while doing ~80mph.
Mind you we do trips to Maine in the winter and only have seen ~20% range loss. Heated seats, cruise control at 65, heat on only as needed (about 5-10 minute an hour).
I occasionally drive 300 miles in an EV rated for ~319 miles, and I have to stop once in each direction, but I also have to charge at my destination. There's a Tesla station near there, and the rates are fantastic if you get there before 7 AM.
I keep it at 65 and let the heater do whatever it wants to do so that people are comfortable. Temperature, elevation differences, and wind definitely change things.
There's a section of the drive where I average something like 1.3 mi/kWh on the way up the mountain, but something like 6 mi/kWh on the way down. On the return trip, it's kind of fun to see the guess-o-meter show 110 miles remaining over the course of 25 miles, or have it actually increase.
I'm sure that gas vehicles follow a similar pattern, but I don't pay attention to usage like I do in an EV.
A drop from 80% to 20% in a 300mi car is 0.6 * 300 = 180 miles. It's a 350 mile trip. 350 / 180 = 2 80-to-20 discharges, and that's assuming no little detours for stopping at a cheese store or whatever. So we could do it in 2 stops if we were OK arriving with 20%, but we need some charge at the destination for getting around MKE, so it's three stops. And yeah, we drive 75 because that's the speed of traffic and the HVAC does whatever it does to make us comfortable.
Why are you leaving home with 80% charge and why are you limiting discharges to 20%?
Also using heat instead of seat warmers just hurts you for the same level of comfort.
There are 30-50 mile (>10%) stretches with no fast chargers in WI. I'm not going to risk being stranded if one is broken and I need to make it to the next one. I'm not really interested in nibbling around the edges & hypermiling to save one half-hour stop.
A few things -- I am not op, but I do drive an EV and sometimes drive it through some rural areas.
> Stop anywhere/anytime after you get below 60%/120mi
This is the aspect which isn't really possible in very rural areas. There is nowhere to stop at to charge, or the options are very limited. It's getting better, but it's the reason why people want more range.
Plus, in the midwest, the ranges tank in the dead of winter, due to sub-zero temperatures and headwinds.
> Charge while at destination to 80%/160mi
If you can. I have some family that doesn't have any power near where I park when I visit. I'm also there for less than the _many, many_ hours it would take to get an EV from ~0 to ~80% on a standard 15A/120v outlet.
In one case, they have a pretty big tesla super-charger something like 40 miles from them so I can top all the way up just before I get there if I go slightly out of my way. In the US, we still have a long ways to go in the US before _high current_ charging options are as ubiquitous as gas.
Slow ass ev charging? My f150 charge from almost dead to almost full in 35-40 minutes and it has 300+ mile range and 135kWh battery. And its still a 400v architecture
> Slow ass ev charging? My f150 charge from almost dead to almost full in 35-40 minutes
Unfortunately a lot of people only really have a level1 class charger at home and that's a 10+ hour charge on a F150. Probably somewhere around 5-7 hours for a level 2 charger but that's only a "given" on new construction.
If you live close to a level3 charger than you can get topped up in under an hour but that also isn't as convenient as plugging in when you get home and forgetting about it since you have to drive to the charger.
It's pretty perfect as a 2nd family car (and I may buy it for exactly that if the production model reviews are good) but yeah, it's a tough sell for a primary car with that range. Assuming they manage to meet their sales targets and stay in business, I bet it'll improve rapidly over the next couple of model years.
Exactly. 200mi EPA is essentially 130-150 highway in winter, which is stopping for charging every 2hrs going 65 - not feasible for anyone living in the midwest.
Sort of glad I wasn't tempted to buy a Tesla yute.
Edge Trucks starting next year
I think about this a lot
It looks so smol IRL
most people don’t use the capacity of the pickup trucks on the road today. I’m not going to tell people what to drive, but I know personally a smaller pickup with occasional bed use and better efficiency and parking the rest of the time would be an easy sell.
My '96 Toyota T100 is exactly that. I would never want to downgrade to a modern monster-pickup.
I don't really see the point of them. They can't carry anything, because the back is exposed.
> I don't really see the point of them.
Then you need to get our and do more real work of lots of different types. Exposed bed is often an advantage!
I have a welder, the safety instructions include "Never carry the gas tanks in an enclosed vehicle" -if there is a leak the gas tanks (nitrogen, argon, helium) can quickly displace the oxygen inside and I'll die before I know what happened.
Most things I carry don't need to be inside constantly. A little rain won't hurt anything, I wouldn't want to store anything outside but just a couple hours won't harm most things.
Also it is a lot easier to load things in a truck than a van. I can lift it over the sides (perhaps with a forklift). I can stand up in the back while arranging things - even when it is full I can stand upright.
I have used both trucks and vans to carry things over the years. Both are a compromise - and like all compromises there are negatives where something else would be better. Overall I fall on the truck is better side for what I do most often - but that is overall and I recognize there are good reasons some will choose something else.
> if there is a leak the gas tanks (nitrogen, argon, helium) can quickly displace the oxygen inside and I'll die before I know what happened.
This is something so many people don't realize.
When you hold your breath for too long, that feeling of suffocation isn't caused by a lack of oxygen, but the build-up of CO2.
If you replace the oxygen in a room with an odorless gas non-oxygen gas, your body doesn't tell you. You don't feel like you're suffocating. You just start suffering the effects of lack of oxygen. Dizziness, confusion, lightheadedness, but you likely won't realize anything is wrong. Your judgement and ability to react goes away and you lose consciousness without ever experiencing the desperate urge to breathe.
Another good example of this is when pilots fly too high without supplemental oxygen or adequate cabin pressurization and become hypoxic. They become confused and lose coordination while feeling perfectly fine. By the time they realize something is wrong, they may no longer be able to do anything about it.
Every Saturday I fill my truck bed with garbage cans and dump them at a transfer station across the highway from where I live. (We have no trash service in this rural area). I used to cram bags of trash into the back of my Honda CRV, which worked, but was often messy and stinky. You can hose out the back of a truck bed.
I used to think trucks were mostly useless, but have found that many people have weekly uses that make a lot of sense.
I do question the logic of lifting your truck so high you can't reach into the bed.
A dropside van is usually used for that kind of task in Europe: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/vans/used-vans/dropside
Lifting things in and out is considerably easier when you don't have to lift it over the sides.
> Then you need to get our and do more real work of lots of different types.
I repair farm machinery, I design datacentre networks, and I design and build extremely complex electronic equipment. I'm good for the "real work of lots of different types".
I just don't see the point of a vehicle that gets my tools and equipment rained on.
The rear being exposed makes them bad at carrying things that need to be inside, but it makes them good at carrying things that should be outside.
Also they are much easier to load items with heavy machinery.
If your machinery is that heavy, put it on a trailer.
Tonneau covers on the bed work well.
Not going to load manure into the back of a minivan.
Even a minivan wins in most categories, but they don't have the towing or hauling capabilities that live in the imaginations of many men.
I keep a minivan as a secondary vehicle / "work truck". It tows, I can fit 4x8 plywood or drywall sheets flat on the floor, and drive them around in the rain. Then put the seats back in and take 6 kids to a movie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_truck
I live in a rural agricultural area and these are all over the place. Replacing crazy expensive side-by-sides.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j76f6E0oOW4
I bought one in the US for $8k for hauling equipment around. I love it. 40mpg, gets the job done.
EV trucks sound good but you can't haul anything heavy or your range plumments. Unless the battery is huge but that is weight. A truck that can't haul is just for show.
Even gasoline trucks are stupid no low end torque, you need to rev it. I had a 6 cylinder Cummins diesel and at 500rpm idle on a hill it could move the 10,000 pound truck up the hill.
I feel like this is less true nowadays. Or at least, less of a concern.
I have a Rivian and my 400mi range gets cut significantly (down to 200 or 300, depending on the trip) when I have 7k lbs on the back, but never enough to stop me from towing. And with good charging in the area, it's a non issue. And waaaaayyyyy cheaper than diesel.
Maybe if I was towing daily, I'd feel different. Your mileage may vary. (Couldn't resist the closer!)
Edit: btw instant torque is a game changer. You can't beat an EV on that front
I used to think this way, but it turns out that EV trucks hold up on range better than one would expect thanks to regenerative breaking. The added weight of cargo requires more energy to get up to speed, but you get most of that back when breaking, so it's not lost energy. Meanwhile, a gas or diesel truck's range plummets when hauling since all the energy used to accelerate the load is lost in breaking. I'm not saying that EV hauling is perfect or a solved problem, but that the trades offs aren't as intuitive as they might seem.
I think regen braking only helps if the load is on the bed. If it's on a trailer, the trailer will have normal breaks and a lot is lost. (Edit: spelling)
It also doesn't help if you have a long freeway trip where you don't brake.
Trailers may not have regenerative braking today, but that's a chicken-and-egg problem; trailers already have wiring hookups, and once EVs become the default for personal vehicles, it's easy to imagine that regenerative braking will become standard.
braking
You should watch this video - aero dominates vs weight (factors very little), especially with strong regen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmKf8smvGsA
+1 recommendation for this video. Also the owner of the channel participated in an EV cannonball run several times. I don't think they made it in one go, but still very cool how they had to plan for the trip and modify the vehicle.
> A truck that can't haul is just for show.
I borrow my brother’s truck all the time to transport various DIY supplies. I could probably get a roof rack for my car for things like plywood and drywall, but borrowing the truck is easier.
Are you from 2010?
My EV has 470PS, it can hauul plenty heavy for long range. Weights 2.2 tons.
Even the Ford F-150 Lightning was already able to pull 4.5t and has a range of 300 miles.
I think you’re missing the second half: or your range plummets.
Theres been plenty of F150L towing tests and the results are… bad. Maybe 100mi of range if you’re towing something big?
I have an f150 lightning. Weight isn't a problem for range you barely notice it. Towing though matters mostly about the number of axels and aerodynamics. I have a small trailer I occasionally tow and it knocks the range to just under half which is... Not great but not terrible either. Running around town towing is fine, but if we were doing long distance (hundreds of miles) I'd probably rent a ice vehicle for it.
But I've done a 600 mile each way trip with the bed fully loaded and it's completely fine
I might be ignorant here as a german but how often are people towing something big 100 miles and more were they do not have time to just charge? I would have said 2-4 times a year (lakelife location far away twice a year?).
I mean for sure, if you are the person who constantly need this, EVs might need a little bit more advantages, but what does an avg F150 owner would tow 100mi every day / regularly?
I would put it like this: many many truck drivers in the US go years without towing a thing. Even work trucks (eg plumbers rarely need to tow anything). But, for the people that do tow, they tow a lot.
And the US is an incredibly large place. West of the Rockies it's essentially empty until you get to the coastal cities. So if you do anything agricultural, or your business is located in the rural places because of local resources (wood, minerals, whatever) you will be towing heavy things long distances.
Fun example of distance: last month I was in Tonopah, Nevada. My spouse wanted to try McDonald's. No problem, the sign on the billboard says there is one nearby (that exact word). It was in Hawthorne. 150km away. Americans, especially rural Americans in the Western states, have a different view of driving distance than Europeans. Bill Bryson was not really joking when he wrote that Americans will drive 60 miles for a taco.
For towing, 75% of truck owners claim to use this feature once a year or never.
More than 60% of truck owners use the bed to haul at least once per month; but it's difficult to determine the percentage who could have used a car instead. A small car can fit quite a few bags of soil in the trunk, for example.
I'm looking foward to the arrival later this month of my 280PS ""compact"" EV (Abarth 600E), which will be roughly as much power as every other car I've owned put together.
First, the intended customers of the Cybertruck don’t need to haul anything; it’s a lifestyle vehicle. Second, EVs have solved the torque problem.
A huge fraction of the truck owners barely (if ever) haul anything, so that's not a dealbreaker for an EV truck.
It just has to look manly and rugged, any actual offroad or hauling capabilities are at best a nice-to-have.
How do you define huge? How do you define "barely if ever"? Do you have any evidence to back your claim?
Some gas engines have low end torque, big block V8s and anything turbo. But yeah if hauling uphill is your thing diesel is a no brainer. It would be great if our half ton and midsize trucks had diesel options but as usual other countries have better options.
Personally I'm going hybrid truck next time. The advantages of electric (torque, 240V inverter) with the flexibility of gas. Payload is lower but I'm hoping they fix that by the time I need a new truck