Thoughts on EV tow rigs

[Wcl]

Well if the only thing you use your rig for is towing, but forget extended trips in the backcountry unless you use your truck to haul fuel and a generator to charge your ev.  Evs arent trucks until i can spend a week in the woods, not happening soon.  Why bother having a truck.

[shawndoggy]

22 hours ago, oldjeep said:

 I'm not particularly interested in paying a premium for an EV - 10-20K is a crazy adder when I get my trucks in the 33K range. 

Those days are over.

[oldjeep]

22 minutes ago, shawndoggy said:

Those days are over.

Yeah - looks like it would cost me 43K at the local dealer today

[Sparky450]

16 hours ago, hethj7 said:

It was a small horse trailer weighing about 4,500 lbs.  What got me was 1 hour and 13 minutes to get to full charge on a supercharger to start the test (for about $14).   Time is money for most so that would be a deal breaker.  Recharging overnight at your destination or home would be fine, but for a road trip that would be awful.  

I put 300 miles on my truck some days. And they don’t have super chargers at job sites. 
 

Heck , today  staying local. I will put 150 miles on my truck. 75 of that is towing about 9k.  

[electricjohn]

On 1/8/2022 at 12:08 PM, ThinBuLine said:

The only practical way to get around the long charging times with current technology is to have quickly removable battery packs and swap them out at service stations to “fill up” when your charge is low. I love the Tesla we have but I’ll never have strictly an electric car without having a fossil fuel vehicle in my fleet. 

Battery pack exchange has been talked about in the trucking industry. I think it's the only way to go.

[COOP]

 

Battery swap has been shown in the past.

 

[oldjeep]

22 minutes ago, COOP said:

 

Battery swap has been shown in the past.

 

Curious to see how that would work under MN Winter conditions.

[Steve B.]

The battery swap was amazing. Someday that pack will be the size of a regular car battery and way more powerful.

Steve B.

[uk_exile]

I'm surprised by the lack of suspension movement. Was expecting some lift when removed then sink when battery installed. I've no idea what type suspension or springs they have. Maybe that's why so little movement.

[justgary]

37 minutes ago, Steve B. said:

Someday that pack will be the size of a regular car battery and way more powerful.

Probably not, but here's to Doc Brown and the next best thing...

[justgary]

11 minutes ago, uk_exile said:

I'm surprised by the lack of suspension movement. Was expecting some lift when removed then sink when battery installed. I've no idea what type suspension or springs they have. Maybe that's why so little movement.

You can see at 1:28-1:30 where they let the car down again, so they were holding it up by the frame for the swap.

[Bozboat]

On 1/12/2022 at 3:37 PM, COOP said:

Heres the video:

 

 

This video inflicted EV PTSD on me.

[Bozboat]

6 hours ago, oldjeep said:

Yeah - looks like it would cost me 43K at the local dealer today

You should buy a dozen at $43k each and ship them here where 2017 F150s with 60k miles are going for low 40s. 

[Bozboat]

2 hours ago, electricjohn said:

Battery pack exchange has been talked about in the trucking industry. I think it's the only way to go.

What would the price point be? If it cost $15-20 to charge one, plus inventory and equipment costs as someone has to maintain a charged inventory and all of the swap hydraulic systems.   Oil change shops would be well suited to convert but it seems like it would cost $75-$100 to swap and at that price swapping every 150 miles would break me. 

[electricjohn]

1 hour ago, Bozboat said:

What would the price point be? If it cost $15-20 to charge one, plus inventory and equipment costs as someone has to maintain a charged inventory and all of the swap hydraulic systems.   Oil change shops would be well suited to convert but it seems like it would cost $75-$100 to swap and at that price swapping every 150 miles would break me. 

Why 75-100. I say 15-20 with a small O + P mark up. A pallet jack should be all that's required. Plug and play. Simple engineering. Like gas grill tank change outs, where you're only paying for the energy and never own the tank or rack in this instance.

[dlb]

Battery technology is sure to evolve.

Tesla boasts that there are cars out there with 300K miles on a single battery.  My question about battery life is which is more important charging cycles or age?  Computers and handhelds it seems to be charging cycles.  My 11 year old MacBook had its original battery 10 years and was fine.

Surely some of the early ones, Nissan Leaf for one, did not hold up well.  (Though I know plenty of folks who bought them off lease because the economics of ownership were a steal)  Other vehicles don’t seem to have issues.  Europe and China are way ahead with EV adoption so there will be evidence out there in the next year or more on this.

[justgary]

Expect about 3,000 charge cycles out of most lithium batteries, except that a very well managed and properly cooled LiFePO4 can probably go up to 6,000 cycles.  That's almost 20 years of mostly daily charging, at which point they will most likely die of old age.

[dalt1]

We crack me up! People who totally dog electric because it will not work for them. I have had 3 Nissan Leafs  for purposes they are intended for and they worked great. No I couldn't tow my boat but guess what, I have a proper truck for that. Many drive trucks and will never tow, for them, these will work great. Let the technology evolve and if it's not for you now wait and see if it will grow to your needs.

[RyanB]

46 minutes ago, dalt1 said:

We crack me up! People who totally dog electric because it will not work for them. I have had 3 Nissan Leafs  for purposes they are intended for and they worked great. No I couldn't tow my boat but guess what, I have a proper truck for that. Many drive trucks and will never tow, for them, these will work great. Let the technology evolve and if it's not for you now wait and see if it will grow to your needs.

The title of the thread is “thoughts on EV tow rigs”………

[hethj7]

2 hours ago, RyanB said:

The title of the thread is “thoughts on EV tow rigs”………

Beat me to it!

[dalt1]

"if it's not for you now wait and see if it will grow to your needs" My thoughts.

 

[BaBaLoO]

Hydrogen for towing is the future, batteries have a slim chance of being used for towing, just not logical unless nuclear fission comes into play. 
 

 

[hethj7]

19 minutes ago, BaBaLoO said:

Hydrogen for towing is the future, batteries have a slim chance of being used for towing, just not logical unless nuclear fission comes into play. 
 

 

Lots of folks are looking into this.  Economics still don't seem to pay out and producing it green is still a costly proposition.   If you want to go down a rabbit hole, read a bit about the hydrogen rainbow.