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I wonder what the market is for someone who wants something that GM does well (trucks) but in EV form factor? Don’t get me wrong I like the Tesla Model S and 3

I wonder what the market is for someone who wants something that GM does well (trucks) but in EV form factor? Don’t get me wrong I like the Tesla Model S and 3 but as someone with a family and a large pickup it’d be an adjustment to drive something as small as a Model 3. That doesn’t mean I’m not cognizant of the amount of fuel we’re unnecessarily burning. I’d love to have an EV truck and I suspect many truck owners would be interested in the same. Maybe I’m wrong though.

hwillis 7y ago
Probably quite high- many pickups are utility vehicles for contractors etc. and drive less than a couple hundred miles a day. Electric trucks might need a low range gear for extra payload torque, but they'll be much more torquey than normal trucks regardless and much more fun. The savings will be several times higher than for normal EVs since fuel consumption and driving distance are so much higher. It is a tricky technical problem though. Aerodynamics are not valued in trucks but would be required for an EV. Trucks have low beds and big engines, which is very non-ideal for batteries. Putting the batteries in the front is bad for driveability. Putting them in the normal skateboard spot raises the bed. The huge leftover space where the engine was is a big part of the look, but it's so high up that it would be hard to use as a frunk, very bad for aero, and increase the cost and size of the truck for no good reason. There are good reasons the telsa truck looks like it does- the low nose avoids the problems with normal pickups without making it look like a cabover. The cover in the back allows them to have a deeper bed even though they had to raise it a bunch to put in batteries. There aren't many concepts of what a pickup without a giant, long hood would look like.
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  Face it though: the vast majority of truck consumers never use a truck as a utility vehicle, they use it as a family car with occasional hauling. As much "size comparisons" go on between average Americans and their truck engines, very little of it matters beyond marketing and bragging rights. American car companies seem to have been reluctant to put EV engines in trucks for exactly those same sorts of marketing and bragging rights. "Guys" know how to "compare sizes" when it comes to wacky ICE engine numbers and descriptors like V8 and "ultra boosted turbocharged", but no one is actually really paying attention to physics or day-to-day commute reality. To announce that they were finally going to build an electric F-150, Ford pulled a marketing stunt of "towing a train" with it, because they felt they needed some way to brag about how powerful it was that looked interesting for ads. Meanwhile Rivian is the interesting EV truck company not enough people are currently paying attention to. Tesla's truck looks as ridiculous as it does for its own reasons of wanting to look futuristic and gather PR attention. They could have picked a more "traditional" form factor if they wanted (look at Rivian's projects or Ford using a traditional F-150 look), but they as much wanted to do their own version of "we can tow a train with it", albeit in this case it was probably more "we remembered Blade Runner was set in 2019 and were sad there weren't enough dystopian looking futuristic car models on the road like we were all promised".

hwillis 7y ago

Probably quite high- many pickups are utility vehicles for contractors etc. and drive less than a couple hundred miles a day. Electric trucks might need a low range gear for extra payload torque, but they'll be much more torquey than normal trucks regardless and much more fun. The savings will be several times higher than for normal EVs since fuel consumption and driving distance are so much higher. It is a tricky technical problem though. Aerodynamics are not valued in trucks but would be required for an EV. Trucks have low beds and big engines, which is very non-ideal for batteries. Putting the batteries in the front is bad for driveability. Putting them in the normal skateboard spot raises the bed. The huge leftover space where the engine was is a big part of the look, but it's so high up that it would be hard to use as a frunk, very bad for aero, and increase the cost and size of the truck for no good reason. There are good reasons the telsa truck looks like it does- the low nose avoids the problems with normal pickups without making it look like a cabover. The cover in the back allows them to have a deeper bed even though they had to raise it a bunch to put in batteries. There aren't many concepts of what a pickup without a giant, long hood would look like.

WorldMaker 7y ago
Face it though: the vast majority of truck consumers never use a truck as a utility vehicle, they use it as a family car with occasional hauling. As much "size comparisons" go on between average Americans and their truck engines, very little of it matters beyond marketing and bragging rights. American car companies seem to have been reluctant to put EV engines in trucks for exactly those same sorts of marketing and bragging rights. "Guys" know how to "compare sizes" when it comes to wacky ICE engine numbers and descriptors like V8 and "ultra boosted turbocharged", but no one is actually really paying attention to physics or day-to-day commute reality. To announce that they were finally going to build an electric F-150, Ford pulled a marketing stunt of "towing a train" with it, because they felt they needed some way to brag about how powerful it was that looked interesting for ads. Meanwhile Rivian is the interesting EV truck company not enough people are currently paying attention to. Tesla's truck looks as ridiculous as it does for its own reasons of wanting to look futuristic and gather PR attention. They could have picked a more "traditional" form factor if they wanted (look at Rivian's projects or Ford using a traditional F-150 look), but they as much wanted to do their own version of "we can tow a train with it", albeit in this case it was probably more "we remembered Blade Runner was set in 2019 and were sad there weren't enough dystopian looking futuristic car models on the road like we were all promised".