The FORD Lounge

[Gary Lewis]

Yes, he's had some problems.  But I, like you, want him to succeed.  He's doing things that will transform the way we live in very good ways.

And while I don't think the truck is going to cut it for what I do, we'll never turn the corner on electric vehicles unless someone makes them and lots of people buy them.

Just look at battery-powered tools.  Ten years ago they were toys.  But today they are serious tools.  And I think electric vehicles will get there.  But, there are lots of things that need to be worked out before they replace everything.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Hi Matthew!
I guess you're slacking from your studies???

Gary, I think the truck squats like that for the ramp.
Specs say 3,200 load capacity.
And the idea of no emissions, little to no regular maintenance, ridiculously cheap cost per mile and 100% torque from a standstill makes me drool.

The early '80 styling reminds me of some high buck Italian prototype/show cars from Guigario or Bertone.
But it seems like a godawful monorail from Logan's Run.
(Farrah Fawcett at her best! 😉)

[Gary Lewis]

You may be right on the squatting, Jim.  Good point.

But I disagree on the lack of emissions.  Don't forget that the vast majority of our electricity is currently generated using fossil fuels.  Granted those plants are more efficient than our little engines are.  And, the percentage of fossil fuel generated power is dwindling as the company my son works for, as well as plenty of other companies, install solar and wind farms rapidly.

On the other hand, the reduced maintenance and gobs of torque are certainly nice.

Some day we'll get there, and we have to have trucks like this one in order to find and turn the corner.  But I'm not ready as this one doesn't fit my needs.

[Dorsai]

Gary Lewis wrote

And I think electric vehicles will get there.  But, there are lots of things that need to be worked out before they replace everything.

Exactly.  And yes, your application for Big Blue would be one of the last things to be taken over by an electric truck.  But, if they're ever able to get the energy density of batteries close to that of gasoline...who knows?  For now I'm sure he's aiming at the middle of the light truck market, which is mostly people who drive around town and never carry more than a few small items home from Lowes in the bed.

ArdWrknTrk wrote

Hi Matthew!
I guess you're slacking from your studies???

You know it!  I've got an exam due on Monday, and I need to finish my capstone project (analyzing pitches for an MLB team, it's really kind of interesting) by Dec 2.  Then a final on Dec 12, and I can graduate on Dec 13.

The early '80 styling reminds me of some high buck Italian prototype/show cars from Guigario or Bertone.
But it seems like a godawful monorail from Logan's Run.
(Farrah Fawcett at her best! 😉)

One of the articles I read said that there's another, more conventional design/style that they've worked on.  I suspect this one is mostly for show, and what actually goes on sale will look a lot more like an actual truck.

[ArdWrknTrk]

I should have said zero tailpipe emissions.

But with coal teetering on the edge of its grave (thankfully), newer -more efficient- NG plants coming online, AND all the new wind and solar being added to the grid, electricity is orders of magnitude cleaner than ICE vehicles could ever hope to be.

There are new banks of Superchargers being installed at all the rest stops in CT, and pads for the Megachargers have been poured.



* punctuation & formatting

[85lebaront2]

Gary, you just hit the head on the nail. Here on Virginia's appendix there is one Tesla running around. My concern is what you referenced, charging stations. The Centre at Salisbury has a row in one of the back corners, problem is, that is 75 miles one way from me. The other direction, to Virginia Beach, roughly 60 miles to VB, but 22 miles of it is the CBBT so if an electric vehicle became discharged there it would need to be towed to a charging station.

Jim, power generation, we have a load of solar "farms" here, put up by Dominion Energy (who does not serve us!) and apparently Amazon buys their entire output. These basically take up what used to be farmland, much of which the produce from was shipped up to New England. So, for clean electricity you will ultimately pay higher food prices do to reduced supply. Wind turbines, sore subject, they want to stick a bunch of them off-shore. Not only is the Navy against it so is the tourist industry in VB. Look at the cost in energy to build one, maintain it through it's (relatively) short life span and then either replace it or scrap it. Not every area has (a) good prevailing winds (b) open areas to site one or more and (c) how many birds are killed by them?

Power, here ours comes down form Maryland's Eastern Shore, most likely from a fossil fuel plant, Dominion Energy operates two of the safest Nuclear plants in the country, humerus part, they sell most of it up North and mid-West, and buy electricity from Duke Power, who also operates nuclear plants. Yes, they produce hazardous waste, but are pretty damn reliable and safe. We would have more in this country if it wasn't for fear mongers 40 or so years ago saying how dangerous they are and pointing to Three Mile Island as an example.

[ArdWrknTrk]

I'm 100% behind nuclear, but not the messed up way it's getting done now.

You only have to look at the Westinghouse bankruptcy and Summer plant to see that

Meanwhile. If it's more profitable for farmers to lease their fields to a solar farm, they don't have a chance of crop failure or any multi-million equipment lease, nor CropCo's like Bayer (nee Monsanto) ADM or Cargill bleeding them every rotation, I say MORE POWER TO THEM.

I hope to see the day that we (like Britain already has) have weeks where all needs were met by renewables, and NO fossil fuels were burned.
It took billions of years of the sun's energy to be concentrated by phytoplankton and algae to create the oil we have now, and hundreds of millions of years of plants to create the coal.

Do you really think we can burn all that in a couple of hundred years and get away with it?

[ArdWrknTrk]

Matthew,
Delivery trucks are the ideal EV.
Lots of stopping for ReGen, no need for high speed, and they return to a Depot every night where they can recharge.

Companies like UPS micromanage drivers to where three rights make a left, if it wastes less gas and improves the number of delivery's they can make.
The USPS is also ideal.
Neither have routes of 200 miles, and shorter range batteries will save big on the purchase price.
Both would literally save hundreds of millions each year on fuel and maintenance.

It's really a no brainer.

[Danny G]

Rembrant wrote

I had to swallow hard at the pumps yesterday...ugh.

1.37/L for diesel. That's about $5.25 per gallon (CDN dollars of course). Converted to USD, that's about $4 bucks. Thank goodness the car gets 40 mpg...but still.



One of the reasons my Bullnose has a 5spd and the 3.08 gears are staying right where they are...lol.

Man that sucks hard... its $2.17 USD / Gallon by me.

[Nothing Special]

A guy I work with has had a Nissan Leaf for a while, and now bought a Tesla (I don't know the model).  The Leaf had enough range for him to commute ~25 miles each way 3 seasons of the year, but he couldn't run his heater in the Minnesota winters unless he could recharge at work.  Now the Tesla will let him run the heater and still make it home, plus it will let him drive it from the Twin Cities to his cabin in northern Wisconsin (150 ~ 200 miles).  In use like that just being able to plug it in at home (or at the cabin) lets him charge it up overnight so "refueling" essentially takes him no time at all.

However on a cross-country trip (especially if towing another truck on a trailer!) you need to stop driving just to "refuel".  And so far that happens more often and takes longer with electric than it does with gas or diesel.  So for cross-country use electric cars are still mostly going to be owned by people who want the novelty of it (not that there aren't really good reasons to want that novelty).

And for what it's worth, another friend told me that he heard that if all passenger car usage switched over to all-electric cars we'd need to increase the capacity of our electric grid by 25%.  I don't know if that's accurate, but assuming it is, that's not insignificant, but it's not out of the question either.

[Danny G]

Gary Lewis wrote

Yes, he's had some problems.  But I, like you, want him to succeed.  He's doing things that will transform the way we live in very good ways.

And while I don't think the truck is going to cut it for what I do, we'll never turn the corner on electric vehicles unless someone makes them and lots of people buy them.

Just look at battery-powered tools.  Ten years ago they were toys.  But today they are serious tools.  And I think electric vehicles will get there.  But, there are lots of things that need to be worked out before they replace everything.

Electric is the future, it will get there, the problem is currently you are just trading one form of pollution for another. Until green energy keeps up with electrical demand they can tell themselves they are saving the environment.

Actually, I read an article that said all these people dumping there cars for electric to be more environmentally friendly were actually hurting the environment, that the it was more efficient, and more environmentally friendly to buy an older vehicle and repair it due to the pollution from scrapping and new manufacturing and the supply system of new vehicles.

[Danny G]

Dorsai wrote

You know it!  I've got an exam due on Monday, and I need to finish my capstone project (analyzing pitches for an MLB team, it's really kind of interesting) by Dec 2.  Then a final on Dec 12, and I can graduate on Dec 13.

Oh man I feel you on that, I have a derivative calculus test coming up and a research paper as well, and get to work the weekend in between lol.

[Danny G]

We have Dominion now, they bought out our state run utility after they spent billions on a nuclear power plant and never actually built it shafting the consumer with the debt and not a single person went to jail for fraud. Dominion came in offer each customer a $1000 rebate and lower rates to take over, that turned into some people getting $0.12 rebate checks and rates went down only half way back to normal rates.

[Danny G]

Nothing Special wrote

A guy I work with has had a Nissan Leaf for a while, and now bought a Tesla (I don't know the model).  The Leaf had enough range for him to commute ~25 miles each way 3 seasons of the year, but he couldn't run his heater in the Minnesota winters unless he could recharge at work.  Now the Tesla will let him run the heater and still make it home, plus it will let him drive it from the Twin Cities to his cabin in northern Wisconsin (150 ~ 200 miles).  In use like that just being able to plug it in at home (or at the cabin) lets him charge it up overnight so "refueling" essentially takes him no time at all.

However on a cross-country trip (especially if towing another truck on a trailer!) you need to stop driving just to "refuel".  And so far that happens more often and takes longer with electric than it does with gas or diesel.  So for cross-country use electric cars are still mostly going to be owned by people who want the novelty of it (not that there aren't really good reasons to want that novelty).

And for what it's worth, another friend told me that he heard that if all passenger car usage switched over to all-electric cars we'd need to increase the capacity of our electric grid by 25%.  I don't know if that's accurate, but assuming it is, that's not insignificant, but it's not out of the question either.

Absolutely our electrical infrastructure is pretty bad, hell look at California, they have to shut power off to prevent wild fires when it gets windy. Spend 20 minutes on google/youtube and you will see how pitifully vulnerable and outdated it is. Lots of money needs to be put into it.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Nothing Special wrote

... for what it's worth, another friend told me that he heard that if all passenger car usage switched over to all-electric cars we'd need to increase the capacity of our electric grid by 25%.  I don't know if that's accurate, but assuming it is, that's not insignificant, but it's not out of the question either.

The Tesla semis hauling batteries down from Nevada to the Fremont factory actually GAIN charge because of ReGen and the fact they go back empty.....

And we could probably do away with half of the stinking refineries spewing "stuff" into the air we breathe. And half of the tankers hauling dangerous, flammable liquids on our highways (sorry Dave)

IMO, investment in infrastructure is very rarely a bad thing (unless you're a lobbied Senator from AK building a bridge to nowhere)

I see DOZENS of Tesla's every day.
It is a statement that many people who don't have to struggle want to make.
If you want to call that 'virtue siginaling' be my guest.

[ArdWrknTrk]

TheScatch wrote

I read an article that said all these people dumping there cars for electric to be more environmentally friendly were actually hurting the environment, that the it was more efficient, and more environmentally friendly to buy an older vehicle and repair it due to the pollution from scrapping and new manufacturing and the supply system of new vehicles.

As with everything there are 50 shades of grey between that black and white.

I, for example, have held onto my truck for 32 years. It's a gross polluter and barely makes double digit fuel mileage.
Its cost of production and delivery were ameliorated years ago, and if I went out and bought a new $50k truck it would be a net positive for the planet.
But, then I'd be saddled with the banks vig every month, pay much more in taxes and insurance, and take less pleasure in fixing simple things.

Buying a lightly used car that's off lease and three years old with under 40k on the clock is a good thing, but I don't see myself doing that either...

[ArdWrknTrk]

Anyone want to discuss the unmentioned 800# gorilla?

Fuel cells.

Why burn fossil fuel, to create heat, to create steam, to spin a turbine, to drive a generator, to produce electricity?

Ion exchange and electron pumping can do that without any moving parts, nor many of the steps (which EACH consume energy).
Using methane as feedstock will leave you with heat, electricity, hydrogen and concentrated CO2.
Hydrogen can go into another fuel cell creating more heat and electricity, with only pure water as waste.
Heat can be used for industrial processes, utility heating (like steam is in Manhattan) even air conditioning.

The technology is a hundred years old, but now it's getting attention.
If we're going to use fossil fuels why not get the most out of it?
I can't wait.

***Back on topic***

[Ray Cecil]

ArdWrknTrk wrote

.......I see DOZENS of Tesla's every day.
It is a statement that many people who don't have to struggle want to make.
If you want to call that 'virtue siginaling' be my guest.

I see dozens here as well. A lot of engineers drive them. These are guys who do work really hard. Engineering is a difficult task, and it is for sure a stuggle. Just because a stuggle isnt physical, doesnt make it any less painful.

I just spend a week in a building with hundreds of engineers. Trust me, its a whole different world of struggle than a guy in the field getting his hands dirty. Honestly, I prefer to get my hands dirty.

[ArdWrknTrk]

So, are you calling it virtue signalng'

Or, are you saying these engineers recognize the advantages, and are willing to pay the price for them?

[Dorsai]

You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a Tesla around here.  They're mostly driven by 30/40-something tech nerds.