The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

[LP]

Adding to the above, if you add that much extra weight via battery to these utes, you have to limit the amount they can carry....which defeats the purpose!

This is what started the whole debate, in the US it appears much of this has slipped past the regulators, as it does technology usually moves faster than the law.

The law makers and officials are just starting to catch up which what the basis of the quote I posted earlier. To drive one of these EV Utes or 4WD equivalents with a large boat or trailer the rules around GVM and road safety are going to need revision.

Also, when you think about battery mass versus charge and range, you can see that some of the claims being made by EV makers must be bullcrap, there seems to be unavoidable physics between battery mass and capacity that put limits on what is possible.

Further more, here in Oz, the grid/network just doesn't exist to allow too many of these big capacity EVs to roam around and be rapidly recharged, they consume so much juice overnight, it's like having a small factory on wheels to set up shop in random overnight locations and suck down the kilowatts. FYI, slow charge is typically 2kW/hr to 3kW/hr, and those big batteries take 30 to 40hrs to slow charge 80% as they hold 80kW or more at full charge. So to travel any major distance for a few days with the usual overnight stays they need fast chargers that suck down 30kW/hr to 50kW/hr of juice to deliver a suitable range the next morning. For reference most peoples home will average in summer with the air-conditioning on somewhere under 6kW/hr, maybe they get to 10kW/hr average if they also have the oven, dishwasher, kettle and dryer running! But over 24hrs the average comes in under 5kW/hr, it's no coincidence that solar panel installs are typically 5kW!

The beautiful thing about EVs, is that the laws of physics for electrical engineering are well known, and motors and transformers are already very efficient. So do not be sucked into some company claiming they found a new way to improve efficiency or range outside of providing bigger batteries, any such claim is bullcrap because there isn't enough scope left in designs to gain anything significant! Work done(kilometers driven or loads towed) have to obey the basic kinetic and potential energy equations. Unfortunately, the car industry is still full of people who grew up on "our car is more efficient" or "more economical", so much of the same spin remains.