New electric Ram

[Aircommuter]

If I had an EV, and I was headed out of town on the highway, and ran out of battery power, there is no way to get a ride to te nearest charging station and get a 5 gallon can of electricity. Also EV's are actually dirtier to the air than gas engines (because they get their power from the coal fired power plants)
There are also devastating effects to the environment as part of the batery construction and disposal processes.

This is why I will never own an EV

So true, read about Thacker Pass in Nevada.
Plus the fact that they take 8 times longer than filling a gas tank. Where will they all park? Plus they need to quit making back in stations so they can accommodate trailers. Some think the electric fill up is so cheap, just wait until all costs get added in.

 

[JKLines]

Interesting discussion. Since this is the RAM forum, I'll assume we are talking about electric trucks. The only thing I find attractive about that concept is the torque electric motors can generate. With that in mind, I can't understand why diesel locomotive design has not moved to trucks. Basically, the concept of a diesel generator running electric motors driving the wheels has been around for centuries now so it's not a new concept. This would allow advancement of the drive systems, etc.
As far as the electrical grid goes, it doesn't even support the current demands on it in many areas ... particularly as coal generating plants are shut down. So far, "renewable" energy has only been successful on small scale ... for example when you have a setup for a house, enough power can typically be generated for that without significant impact to the environment ... which is supposed to be the point of renewables to be better for the environment. To access that properly though you need to look at the full life cycle off the source to fully determine the impact to the environment. So far the only renewables that have successfully provided significant power to properly support the grid is nuclear and hydro ... and I really don't see that changing in the next century. Projects to upscale solar and wind to support more than a house or two have pretty much failed ... both from the standpoint of the economics, power generated and the long term impact on the environment. The only way wind power is attractive at all for the power companies is because of all the taxpayer dollars they get to subsidize their investments in this technology.
The one technology I would like to see further developed is advanced small modular reactors (SMRs). I had a high school electronics teacher back in the 70s that would talk about everyone having a reactor the size of a breadbox that would provide all of your power needs ... like driving across the country without needing to refuel or recharge. Now that's a vision. Great advancements are being made in this area. They are much smaller, safer, and economical over the current large generation plants. In addition, if these smaller modular plants were distributed across the grid, it would generated jobs across the country to maintain them. It's more of the concept we had where I grew up where there were hydro plants in many communities.

 

[2012RAM1500RT]

You know what this means. Your an old guy like me and want what we are used to. Make a cool EV that looks like a 69 Camaro and sell millions of them. The problem with that is that believe it or not most of the population would not know or care what a 69 Camaro looks like. I know it's blasphemy but true. The younger people if they want car at all want something futuristic and styling they like and from a marketing standpoint they are the growing market where us old guys are a dying market...literally.

Make mine a '70 GTX but otherwise, you may want to go to a classic car show and see in real life (not the internet) what the kids like in real life. The younger kids and adults I talk to and know in my life always say they wish they lived back in the '60s and '70s when they see the cars and hear the fun we use to have. The only thing that I'm ok with in getting old is knowing I won't have to deal with the futuristic things "They" (whoever they are) say we will like.

 

[mcarey]

So you are saying that not towing if you have a truck is bad? I don't tow anything with my truck and I didn't buy it to tow anything ... I bought it because I like how it looks, I also lifted my truck knowing that I am not going to be towing ...

So explain your harsh reality lol ...

I said nothing of the sort. I don't tow either.

What I am saying is that the users of this forum (based on how many posts you see, even in this thread, about towing) likely represents a much smaller group of people within the entirety of truck owners.

The harsh reality would be that frequent and/or long range heavy towing is likely a low priority use case in the initial adoption of EV trucks.

 

[MikeR]

All this chat about EVs and if there will be enough electrical capacity reminds me of when I took a computer class (DOS) in the early 80s. The teacher said there was a guy developing a "windows" program that would operate with pages and images. He said it would never work because no personal computers had the memory or the storage capacity to handle such programs.

 

[CheechDogg.0n37s]

I said nothing of the sort. I don't tow either.

What I am saying is that the users of this forum (based on how many posts you see, even in this thread, about towing) likely represents a much smaller group of people within the entirety of truck owners.

The harsh reality would be that frequent and/or long range heavy towing is likely a low priority use case in the initial adoption of EV trucks.

Thank you for clarifying for dummy like me lol ...

And yes I agree ... for me towing is not even a priority and doubt that it ever will ...

 

[Evguy1]

Make mine a '70 GTX but otherwise, you may want to go to a classic car show and see in real life (not the internet) what the kids like in real life. The younger kids and adults I talk to and know in my life always say they wish they lived back in the '60s and '70s when they see the cars and hear the fun we use to have. The only thing that I'm ok with in getting old is knowing I won't have to deal with the futuristic things "They" (whoever they are) say we will like.

I agree with most of this although most of us "car guys" surround ourselves with like minded people and our kids tend to follow in our steps. What I don't understand and here is where my personal likes takes over is HOW THE HELL HAS THIS THING GOT 1.25 MILLION PRE ORDERS!!!

 

[2012RAM1500RT]

I agree with most of this although most of us "car guys" surround ourselves with like minded people and our kids tend to follow in our steps. What I don't understand and here is where my personal likes takes over is HOW THE HELL HAS THIS THING GOT 1.25 MILLION PRE ORDERS!!! View attachment 484787

The media and the internet. Find real life people and ask when they ordered one. Also isn't everyone's kid the future?

 

[mcarey]

What I don't understand and here is where my personal likes takes over is HOW THE HELL HAS THIS THING GOT 1.25 MILLION PRE ORDERS!!! View attachment 484787

People wanting to post their reservation email on Facebook. I would have loved to see how the numbers panned out if it was non-refundable.

 

[2012RAM1500RT]

People wanting to post their reservation email on Facebook. I would have loved to see how the numbers panned out if it was non-refundable.

LOL, Facebook! Ok, now I believe it! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!

 

[CheechDogg.0n37s]

People wanting to post their reservation email on Facebook. I would have loved to see how the numbers panned out if it was non-refundable.

I was just about to say that a lot of preorders actually fall through ... its a flex thing lol ...

But just imagine how much money they are making out of the pre order deposits ...12 million in pre order deposits just for the ford bronco alone .... insane

 

[Evguy1]

People wanting to post their reservation email on Facebook. I would have loved to see how the numbers panned out if it was non-refundable.

Yea but why would you want to post on Facebook that you actually reserved something so ugly. There are some beautiful EV's out there just like there are some...lots of butt ugly gas cars. If I was going to post a pre order it would be for something beautiful (in my eyes).

 

[2012RAM1500RT]

Yea but why would you want to post on Facebook that you actually reserved something so ugly. There are some beautiful EV's out there just like there are some...lots of butt ugly gas cars. If I was going to post a pre order it would be for something beautiful (in my eyes).

Once again, It's the internet, something none of us can possibly prove is right or wrong. It's what "They" say, whoever "They" are!

 

[Evguy1]

Once again, It's the internet, something none of us can possibly prove is right or wrong. It's what "They" say, whoever "They" are!

If there actually is a "They" ;>)

 

[mcarey]

Yea but why would you want to post on Facebook that you actually reserved something so ugly. There are some beautiful EV's out there just like there are some...lots of butt ugly gas cars. If I was going to post a pre order it would be for something beautiful (in my eyes).

I agree, but there are so many TSLA fanboys. Elon is essentially a martyr who can do no wrong. It's lunacy.

Plus, the reservation was only $100 bucks, and totally refundable, so there was no real risk around publicly showing your undying support for all things Elon.

 

[2012RAM1500RT]

Everything I repeat that I heard I always add, "I heard through the media or read it on the internet". Both I take with a grain of salt cause I can neither prove or disprove.

 

[Evguy1]

Yes there is a whole movement of "fan boys", I'm on some EV forums and those people are fanatical. One thing you can say about Elon (other than bat **** crazy) is that he is willing to go out on a limb and push technology, he has to be one of the bigger resons that EV's are starting to make such a big push in the market. He is pushing so many industries with his money from space travel to underground tunnel boring. The reallity is I wish I had bough stock when it came out. :>)

 

[ICHILLU]

EV's can be programed to charge at any time of the night witch is a benefit to the power grid because they use off peak power to use some of that surplus overnight power. They can also be used as a power source to help take up peak power loads with (V2G) Vehicle to Grid capacity that many of the new EV's have. So you come home and plug your car in, the power company can pull power from your car and thousands of others to help with peak loads. Then as the load gets lower the power company starts to charge your car at the lower nigh rate. I know many of you conspiracy theorists will not like the idea of the power company having control of your car like that.

I can just imagine the conversation about this thought... Gee, we (the Utility) didn't anticipate the high outside air temperatures and the resulting A/C load on the grid - sorry, you will have to wait until later to recharge your dead EV batteries as we needed to use your reserve power to meet our current demand...

 

[tron67j]

Yeah, that was interesting until you said "there is no scaling up currently in progress to meet the theorized future". That's when I realized that you're pulling words out of your kiester. Hahaha

Actually, it is fact that there is no large scale option to determine if batteries get recycled, how to make that happen, how to decide if batteries are capable of in home storage use, what infrastructure for this looks like. There are studies ongoing right now that will lead to solutions, you can look into California's ongoing studies into how to best support the consuming public with this. But with new technology batteries coming with different chemical components, it is difficult to scale to the point that someone in Upstate NY can use the same exact process to recycle as someone in Southern California. Are some companies advertising as a national presence, sure are. But no one company will operate at the scale necessary to do it all. The largest recycling plant in US now is able to recycle approximately 25 metric kilotons of lithium ion batteries, but in a few years the volume needing to be recycled is estimated to be 80. We have seen refuse recycling crash due to a lack of market for the recycled materials and if the technology for batteries shifts from lithium ion, who will want to recycle something they cannot sell? So companies have to be careful to not rush into spending money they may not profit from, and that is impacting scale. Thanks for the response, I keep learning more about this. Better than a Discovery special.

 

[demonram]

That seems to the largest talking point for people against EVs, and it's pretty unfounded. California is currently claiming they will only sell EVs come 2035. So in over a decade from now, one state may have this in place for new vehicles. If I remember correctly, a few other states are considering it, and a few others want Biden to push for it in 2045. And again, this is only for new cars, which I think is also a very important distinction. Newsoms order or whatever, again as far as I can remember, said nothing about existing cars either. So if you're either against EVs for whatever reason, or can't afford them, every car made prior to when (if) this actually starts will still be available to own. At this time, that's another 13 years of production - shortest case, and assuming that every manufacturer also immediately stops all ICE production at that time (lol).

Literally everything, including the hallucinatory issue that the power grid will for some reason see no improvements by the time the entire country is using EVs, that was in demonrams latest post is nothing more than ungrounded fear of change really. And strangely enough, that's the majority of the anti-EV truck crowd sentiment. I wish they'd just say "I like my noisy deleted diesel, and current EVs don't meet my needs", and call it there. Writing off the future due to current capabilities is so shortsighted. Imagine if these guys were in charge when people wanted to fly or go to the moon?

Just to be clear, I am not against change, as there have been many in my 68 years on this rock. A big part of the issue is the government is the most inefficient entity one can imagine. They tax us for a particular idea, the idea never sees reality, then they repackage it under a different name, tax us again, and still, nothing gets done. I have never driven an electric vehicle, so I don't have a qualified position on them, other than it's years in the future, and there are a lot of dynamics involved, and yes, the government is pretty much trying to mandate an all electric fleet down the road. And I haven't pointed you out in my posts, please don't assume to know my positions or assume I have some ungrounded fear. I simply look at the whole picture and try to rationalize whether or not it is feasible at the present time, and what needs to be done for it to be feasible.