EV or no EV?

[crgildart]

Please note that the rhetoric is biased towards maintaining the status quo ante.

First, long distance vacation driving is more relevant discussion on a ski forum, but forum relevancies don't - and shouldn't be allowed to - set individual forumites' daily priorities. If LDVD takes third or fourth seat behind everything else, it's doing well for itself.

Second, you're still thinking in terms of the current pattern of LDVD. In the current pattern of LDVD yes, an ICE might save you a few hours getting to Vermont from NC and back. BUT what you're not accounting for is changes to LDVD patterns. I submit to you that, for example, on multiday travel, with built-in overnight travel stays, the EV might be able to claw real world convenience back.

Until you can get 12 hours at highway speeds in all conditions it's a non starter. Long haul trucking is what's going to have to drive that kind of innovation.. Loca law enforcement also has that need, that or a fleet big enough to dedicate two cars per active LEO.. Hot swappable batteries is probably the best plan there.. Otherwise my power tools and lawn mower would already be able to handle a full work day on one battery.

 

[afadeev]

Until you can get 12 hours at highway speeds in all conditions it's a non starter.

Non-starter for whom, exactly?
Personally, if a road trip is longer than 5-6 hours, I'm flying. Regardless of the drive train in my parked cars (I have a combo of EV and ICE cars).
End of story.

Long haul trucking is what's going to have to drive that kind of innovation..

I'm not sure if long-haul trucking is a primary market segment for EVs. Long haul heavy trucking (class 8) market is just not large enough.
Either way, it would be a commercial, and not a consumer play.
So few of us here will get to participate, or care.

For reference, all US heavy trucks (classes 4-8, not just long haul) adds up to ~400-500K unit sales and $117 B/year in sales.
In contrast, US light (consumer) vehicles market is ~14-16M unit sales and ~$715 B/year in sales.

ATD Data

ATD Data presents an annual financial profile of franchised new medium- and heavy-duty truck dealerships.

www.nada.org

North America Automotive Market - Share, Trends & Industry Size

The North America Automotive Market is expected to reach USD 0.94 trillion in 2023 and grow at a CAGR of 5.43% to reach USD 1.22 trillion by 2028. General Motors, Ford Motor Company, BMW AG, Tesla Inc., Stellantis NV are the major companies.

www.mordorintelligence.com

Loca law enforcement also has that need, that or a fleet big enough to dedicate two cars per active LEO.. Hot swappable batteries is probably the best plan there..

2 cars per LEO + hot swappable batteries == two extremely expensive and impractical ideas.

It's starting next spring. Tesla drivers must be thrilled about having to share the SuperCharger plugs with bottom dwelling Ford owners..

I am one, and I don't care.
Ford is not coming empty handed. Ford has a network of ~10K fast chargers that it will be rewiring to use Tesla plugs. Tesla has ~12K SuperChargers.
There are a lot more Teslas and Ford EVs on the road.
Net-net - more chargers for everyone, but Tesla drivers get the better end of this deal!

a

 

[crgildart]

Non-starter for whom, exactly?
Personally, if a road trip is longer than 5-6 hours, I'm flying. Regardless of the drive train in my parked cars (I have a combo of EV and ICE cars).
End of story.

Personally, anything less than a 12 hour drive and I'm DRIVING.. arriving with all my gear/quiver, not worrying about having to make sure my boots are carried on.. only to have the flight delayed and getting there in 14 hours instead of 12 with my own car.

Ya gotta be a two day drive to warrant air travel.

 

[crgildart]

Non-starter for whom, exactly?

2 cars per LEO + hot swappable batteries == two extremely expensive and impractical ideas.

Exactly why EVs are still a non starter for that application as well..

 

[cantunamunch]

Personally, anything less than a 12 hour drive and I'm DRIVING..

12 hours at highway speeds puts me at MSA.

Sorry, I can't even begin to see that as a compelling threshold for single charge range, below which I wouldn't buy an EV.

If the EV is comfy to nap in, a trip to Colorado with current charge ranges would be approximately 3 charging naps. I'd totally do that.

 

[raytseng]

Loca law enforcement also has that need, that or a fleet big enough to dedicate two cars per active LEO.. Hot swappable batteries is probably the best plan there..

A lot of local law enforcement vehicle use is actually idling/stationary, or responding to local incidents; not really driving long distance, and you can search and find districts who used teslas as a case study and realized cost savings...although IIRC a lot of the savings was via reduced maintenance costs more than anything.

If you're thinking though like highway patrol and cruising back and forth along long stretches then obviously that isn't the best use.

Just like with consumers though it doesn't have to be all-or-none, they can take a mixed use approach, use the EVs where it is more efficient, and use ICE vehicles where that is more efficient.

 

[scott43]

The idling is important when it's -25c..

 

[Tom K.]

Until you can get 12 hours at highway speeds in all conditions it's a non starter.

Agreed. Not saying this is true for everybody, or even the majority of people, but it certainly is for me -- and it's probably 13 hours, because it takes me 12:45 to drive to Moab.

Hot swappable batteries is probably the best plan there.

This sounds compelling, but honest question, is anybody actually pursuing this? I think some kind of battery technology that currently (ha!) seems impossible but would allow for recharging at 5X current supercharger rates is a future liklihood.

Non-starter for whom, exactly?
Personally, if a road trip is longer than 5-6 hours, I'm flying. Regardless of the drive train in my parked cars (I have a combo of EV and ICE cars).
End of story.

I guess, for me? Our road trips are all biking and skiing related, with quivers involved, so we're driving, not flying, and we're comfortable with up to 1,000 mile days for two consecutive days.

12 hours at highway speeds puts me at MSA.

A rare, degenerative neurological disorder?! Nah, you just have to stop every 3 hours and do some quick (slightly embarrassing) fast walking, stretching and arm waving while refueling. For me, the key to a long driving day is the first two stops, when I'm always tempted to push another or two. That can catch up to me later in the day.

Also, a wife that is a marvelous copilot and dog wrangler is a huge asset!

 

[cantunamunch]

Eh. Disorder for sure.


Still working on regaining copilot's sight and balance so she can play again.

 

[crgildart]

Still working on regaining copilot's sight and balance so she can play again.\

Hoping Herself can be herself again soon.

 

[crgildart]

Full disclosure, Mrs wants to go EVE for her nest work commuter vehicle and I'm all in on that.. Just not a good option for a current (HA!). ski/camping/fishing/biking fun chasing long trips vehicle here.. We have at least one round trip to Oklahoma and back which will involve moving son's college apartment belongings back to Durham.. An EV would not be ideal for that making a 2 day trip a 3 day trip each way. I suppose it "could" be done in 2 if we push the limits to the full max of EV capabilities.. but any detours or other snafus and we get behind schedule. It would definitely take at least 3-4 hours longer stopping to charge instead of stopping to refuel/drive thru snacks.

 

[Tom K.]

Hoping Herself can be herself again soon.

+ like 1,000! I had no idea, so apologies to Tuna for any unintended offense.

 

[Scruffy]

I'm not sure if long-haul trucking is a primary market segment for EVs. Long haul heavy trucking (class 8) market is just not large enough.
Either way, it would be a commercial, and not a consumer play.
So few of us here will get to participate, or care.

For reference, all US heavy trucks (classes 4-8, not just long haul) adds up to ~400-500K unit sales and $117 B/year in sales.
In contrast, US light (consumer) vehicles market is ~14-16M unit sales and ~$715 B/year in sales.

There is a lot more "driving" (pun intended) the electrification of the trucking fleet then just the number of sales of units. Each long haul truck ( esp. class 8 ) dives up to 10 times ( on average 6-7 times ) the miles of the average family car per annum, and uses 30times the fuel doing it. The government run "decarbonization" of transportation effort as of late has trucking squarely in it's sites, and will be assisting in making it happen.

Here's some interesting articles:

Why the economics of electrification make this decarbonization transition different

The economics of fleet electrification and decarbonization are demonstrably viable. We explore how commercial transport operators can capture this value.

www.mckinsey.com

Getting to carbon-free commercial fleets

Commercial transport operators can take action now to decarbonize their fleets and start to lower their total cost of ownership.

www.mckinsey.com

 

[Scruffy]

Interesting tech on turning the trailer of a tractor-trailer rig into the EV engine to assist current ICE tractors and thus turn the whole rig into a hybrid trucking vehicle.

Watch how Range Energy turns a semi-truck electric just by adding a trailer

Range Energy's RA-01 trailer adds EV tech to a standard class 8 trailer to enable hybrid operation without any change to the tractor.

electrek.co

 

[crgildart]

FWIW, the stopping longer so the driver can rest/refresh is only valid when one person is driving. We just switch drivers when one is due for a break.

 

[twa2w]

Exactly why EVs are still a non starter for that application as well..

Except that maintenance costs may be less with an EV and the life of an EV may be twice as long as a ICE. And as tech gets better, this only improves. Maybe.
And perhaps less need in the future for hwy patrol as cars become smarter and self-driving. Fewer accidents, speeding reduced due to programming of max speeds. Overall potentially reducing the need for the number of patrol cars and emergency vehicles. But granted, we are a long way off from that.

 

[crgildart]

Except that maintenance costs may be less with an EV and the life of an EV may be twice as long as a ICE. And as tech gets better, this only improves. Maybe.
And perhaps less need in the future for hwy patrol as cars become smarter and self-driving. Fewer accidents, speeding reduced due to programming of max speeds. Overall potentially reducing the need for the number of patrol cars and emergency vehicles. But granted, we are a long way off from that.

Are the costs low enough to offset the need to have a 2nd one charging while each LEO is driving one? Keep in mind they also need to be armored more than a traditional car and thus heavier and more power consuming to propel and brake.

 

[twa2w]

Are the costs low enough to offset the need to have a 2nd one charging while each LEO is driving one? Keep in mind they also need to be armored more than a traditional car and thus heavier and more power consuming to propel and brake.

Hard to say. Obviously, the initial investment would be higher if you have to have almost double the number of cars, but if the cars last 2-3 times as long and maintenance is about 50-75% less, then long term it may be cheaper. If fewer patrols are needed, that may impact things further. May not be in my lifetime though. Much may depend on self-driving cars and how that affects accident rates and travel speeds. May be little need for random hwy patrols in many locations. Cars can signal when they have issues or accidents. Who knows where tech will lead and what advancements in batteries and charging will take place.
BTW most police cars, even in the USA, do not have additional armour. They do have added lights and some have Roo bars(aka bull bars -in the US I think). but the total weight is not much more than a loaded family car.

 

[raytseng]

Are the costs low enough to offset the need to have a 2nd one charging while each LEO is driving one? Keep in mind they also need to be armored more than a traditional car and thus heavier and more power consuming to propel and brake.

You can Google this and law enforcement itself articles on that and get straight lists of pros and cons from departments that tried out an ev pilot, you don't need to theory craft it, nor do I want to just copy what other articles and reports wrote.

There is a flaw in your leading question in that you're insinuating there a hard requirement for continuous high speed /long distance pursuits and officers need to be on the go all the time, so the only approach is you need to buy 2 vehicles per officer so they hotswap..this proposal is pretty much thrown out as ludicrous in the present, but that is due to the leading to the bad scenario. If anything, depts look at the opposite frugal end and if they can still hot seat the vehicle.. they analyze the fast/supercharging cycles to see if they can get 1 ev to support 2 shifts charging over shift change.
Just Google "evs for police depts" and read the first 10 results and they will walk through everything.
Remember this is fleet usage where a dept has many vehicles they can task to different specific uses, not a personal vehicle where there is only 1 vehicle that has to do everything.
I take that the general starting recommendation for depts, is for a dept to pilot and task to where there is good mission match. They can find out in small scale without risking everything. In other words, pick the low hanging fruit. It is not a situation where they need to go all in to reap benefits.

The other thought is theg haven't even picked the low fruit yet, yet the concern is whatabout the high fruit. By the time you finish picking the low fruit, there maybe better fruit pickers...aka better technology.

 

[crgildart]

The LEO and military vehicles won't be 100% EVs until the power grid is 100% renewable and immune to weather related disruptions. Around here losing the grid for 5 days after a bad winter storm or hurricane is an every other year thing. Worst to ever hit our neighborhood was 10 days and most of the state was down.

ICE generators powered the gas pumps and propane suppliers.. We keep 5 twenty pound cylinders on hand at all times to run the gennie. EVs are probably SOL by day 3 in that situation. A full tank of gas can keep your smart devices charged for a week easy.