What will it take to make you seriously consider an EV?

Towing is going to be a huge issue for EV trucks. You just can't beat aerodynamics.

I wonder if the industry could go in the direction of having a gasoline range extender built into the trailer. There will need to be a standard of how electricity could be fed into the vehicle while moving. I'm thinking of something like an engine used to drive refrigeration units on semitruck trailers. Those refrigeration units are usually between 30-50hp. A 50hp generator should be able to double the range of the Ford Lightning towing the trailer in the video.

 

This is how some PHEVs work. My car is an EV first with a gas engine that can provide assisted power (it can also run only on the gas engine but you lose a lot of horsepower). Also in colder climates, you need the ICE to help assist with heating the battery and the car.

It's basically an inversion of traditional hybrids. Traditional hybrids have a small electric motor that assists the ICE. In this model the ICE assists the primary electric motor when needed (with the ability to run the vehicle on full EV mode when possible)

 

Actually that's a really good business idea for the future, assuming the EV truck market takes off.... I'm not even sure that EV is the future thou. Seems like it might be...

 

There's work being done on aux batteries for pickups. Here's one that is being designed like one of those extra gas tanks with pumps you see on ranch trucks and such. There's also room for extra batteries if you raise the floor of the bed just a bit. You could also put batteries in the trailers to help.

Any solution that involves gasoline is a non-starter and would be like investing in typewriters at the time IBM started using MS-DOS to make personal computers.

(The USB ports in this illustration look huge.)

 

But just like when MS-DOS, PC's, Apple //e's, and dot-matrix printers were becoming popular, IBM was still making typewriters like the Wheelwriter because people couldn't afford a PC or had no use for one. There's always a transition period for major technologies - just like we saw electric cars, gas cars, and horse & buggies share the road at the turn of the century. I think what really needs to happen more than "slap more batteries on it" is a change in battery chemistry to make them better (which is happening) or something better than batteries. I'm hoping something like that starts to appear in the next couple of years in the form of solid state batteries or hydrogen power that's readily available to the public. In either case, we'll need to then worry about the infrastructure needed to support them, and that may be the biggest hurdle.

 

Yeah, they were still making them, but not a lot of energy was going into making new models. And of course we need better tech. We'll get there and it will likely be a more sudden transformation than we can imagine at this point. We're probably in the 8-track phase transitioning to cassettes right now.

 

VW Board Ousts CEO Herbert Diess After Pivot to Electric Vehicles
Chief executive is stepping down effective Sept. 1 and will be succeeded by Porsche CEO Oliver Blume

Key shareholders in Volkswagen joined forces with labor leaders to oust Chief Executive Officer Herbert Diess, who was in the midst of a push to turn the German auto company into a top maker of electric vehicles.

Mr. Diess will be succeeded by Oliver Blume, CEO of VW’s sports-car maker Porsche AG and long an ally of the Porsche-Piëch family that controls a majority of VW voting rights. Mr. Blume will retain his job running Porsche, which is slated for an initial public offering this autumn.

The departing chief executive had repeatedly clashed with unions, which hold half the seats on the German equivalent of the company’s board of directors. Until now he had retained the support of the family, heirs to the VW Beetle inventor, Ferdinand Porsche.

 

Can you post links with your articles?

 

i will try. Most are behind a paywall.

 

It doesn't matter - when posting stuff, you should probably post the link you're getting it from just to give credit to the person who wrote it. Whether someone wants to pay to read the entire article is up to them. It also lets people know if it has any credibility. lol.

 

Ya…that sounds like too much work man.
but feel free to select the title and Google it. article should come up..

Credibility. Lol. like that matters to people.

 

Nah, it really matters. Just post a link to the articles. It's been asked since the dawn of time on this forum.

 

Kia Sportage PHEV are now available to order through dealerships according to a few posts on Reddit and Kia Forums.

There are two trims:
- X-line PHEV for $39,875 with destination charge
- X-line Prestige PHEV for $44,285 with destination charge

Both qualify for $6,534 EV tax rebate for those who qualify.

Both seem like pretty decent deals, coming in at less the hybrid trim once the tax credits are factored in.

I am ready to jump in and place an order but my wife feels iffy about it. We test drove a non-hybrid Sportage this past weekend and she said it drove well, but is still unconvinced about the Sportage. She's not really telling me why she's hesitant, but I am not going to push since she will be the primary driver for the new car. I think she's more of the type to 'fall in love' with a car at first glance and none of the cars we test drove so far had the IT factor.

We will hopefully test driving a Ford Escape soon. The Ford Escape PHEV also looks good on paper.

 

She's intimate with another car -- sorry, but it's obvious.

 

Where is the dislike button!


Here's something everyone might find amusing/sad that really shows how some dealers are ripping customers off. We also went to a Toyota dealership to test drive a Rav4. Surprisingly the salesperson on the phone said they had cars available to test. So we went over there just to find that their test vehicle is a 2020 Rav4 with 50k miles, not 2022. .

Then when I asked about dealer markups, the person said there is no market adjustment. However, there are some mandatory dealer add-ons. Here are some of the add-ons for a 2022 Rav4 Hybrid LE with MSRP of $30k.

- One dual port cigarette lighter to usb adapter $59
- Floor Mats $275
- Clear Bra for the front bumper $695
- Fabric protector $399
- Window tint $795
- Nitrogen filled tires $410 wtf
- Apex Protect GPS $3,995 double wtf

Maybe it's negotiable, but that's where the dealership is starting at. Almost $7k of add-ons for a $30k car. I crossed off that Toyota dealership immediately.

 

Which Toyota dealership? Should give the clowns free advertising. lol. Those rip-offs have existed for years, though. It's why dealerships are called "stealerships". They're like the carnies of the sales world. I swear they're still using the same stupid tricks, schemes, and scams to trick customers into paying for unnecessary stuff for the past 50 years, and people still fall for them because they don't know better or because they just don't care.

 

Trailers of the future will be a structural battery pack with electric motors (wheels) on the front and back so there is no load on any part of vehicle train. Basically an electric wagon that powers itself. Then the wagon is plugged into the passenger vehicle that controls the destination. For non-commercial, you'll be able to click on the screen and tell the vehicle to back a trailer in. Think google maps at a boat ramp ... it will have been done dozens of times a day, thousands of times a year, that the software will be able to do it very easily for most destinations.

For enterprise, eventually the wagons will be able to navigate themselves, specifically cross country logistics.

 

It was Mike Calvert Toyota on 610 South Loop. What's crazy is that the dealership was packed. We went on a Saturday afternoon. Mazda and Kia both had a handful of customers. Ford was dead, no customers and no receptionist. It took a good minute to even find a salesperson. Mike Calvert was PACKED. There were at least 2 dozen people just sitting in the waiting area. We had to wait about 20 minutes after checking in to talk to a salesperson for the test drive.

I bet that dealership is making hand over fist right now.