With 400 miles of range on $6 of electricity who wouldn't love it! But my old Promaster with a Colorado camper van now must go. Cheap.
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I switched to a Brightdrop Zevo 600 electric van
JohnForde
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A gas fill in the hometown is still 5 minutes. Plugging and unplugging the EV takes 5 SECONDS.
On the road, yes. Gas is a 5 minute fill and EV is 45. But I only have to do it once a day. I have a nice sit-down lunch and eat healthier. In my youth I did a lot 900 mile days. Now spousey and I usually stop at 600.
I am at home 44-46 weeks a year. I bet on average the fill time is about a tie between ICE & BEV.
No but I am planning on developing a fold-out aerodynamic "Whale tail". Hoping for a 20% reduction in drag.
I don't know what you mean by 'confirmed'. It is just the measurement I experienced based on the odometer and the Electrify America charger screen "total energy dispensed".
Awesome !
I have imagined an inflatable tail cone. Maybe something constructed like a stand-up paddleboard, windsurfing inflatable kite, or rubber raft construction. Deflate it and it could push out of the way . . . or maybe swing up and double as an awning ?
Duke energy, in the middle of the night cannot turn off it's nuclear power plants so they PAY OTHER UTILITIES TO TAKE IT.
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...And the rate payers pay fo that. 😁
Hi RJ,All good points.
Even if you didn't care about using your car in such a way as to minimize battery degradation and didn't have to worry about charging infrastructure concerns, I would still be more nervous about running down as low as an ICE vehicle. Running out of gas is a lot more manageable of a problem than running out of charge or to find that the only one you can make it to is super busy or only partially working (though maybe your car app can tell you that). A busy gas station will still get you out of there pretty quickly. A busy charging station will not. I can only imagine getting stuck behind some jerk who insists upon charging all the way to 100%.
Its pretty hard to run out of juice on a Tesla. I can't speak for other brands, but I suspect the same is true.
As soon as you tell the Tesla Nav system a destination it will suggest charging stops along the way. It sets them up and the charge times up to bring you in around 10% to 15% SOC when you arrive. These are not rough estimates - they take into account, elevation gains/losses, wind, your driving habits, speeds, HVAC use, ... It tracks your juice use during the trip and compares it to its projection - if at any point you are getting in trouble, it tells you and suggests alternatives (maybe an earlier charging stop). By the time you actually run out of juice, you are going to receive many of these warnings.
You can also keep track yourself on how you are doing relative to the Tesla projection via the Energy App that displays on the main screen.
A little hard to read, but the dark line is the Tesla projection for the trip, and the orange/green line is how you are actually doing.
The up and down jogs on both lines are things like hills, speed limit changes etc - you can see how detailed the estimate is.
It also tells you where the juice is going: Driving, HVAC, Battery conditioning (for an upcoming charge), Elevation changes.
In the end, you know exactly where your next charging station is and how you are doing in terms of getting there with juice left.
AAA when EV's first started getting popular invested in some generators on wheels to rescue out of juice EV owners. They have dropped these because its so hard to run out of juice in an EV.
I have run out of gas in my van (due to my stupidity), but I don't see this ever happening in my EV.
Gary
The universal code word for thermodynamic energy
I wonder if the BrightDrop battery will allow 800v charging? In theory, you could charge at up to 350KW at the right DC Fast Charger.
This article seems to say that the Hummer (which uses the same pack) might be able to reconfigure at 800v:
GM reveals more technical details of its Ultium battery packs - Charged EVs
GM has big plans to release as many as 30 new EV models by 2025—the company claims that, by 2035, its only ICE vehicles will be heavy-duty trucks. The new Ultium battery system is at the heart of GM’s electrification strategy. GM says the Ultium system delivers a pack-level cost close to the...
chargedevs.com
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Southern California's annual Santa Anna windstorm is here . Our 3rd day without electricity . Power is turned off without warning .
Nightmare scenario .
Power is suddenly turned off .
E.V. is dead .
Can't escape the fire storm heading my way .
Ice operated vehicles have shown resistance to heat and flames .
Not so sure about E.V's .
For now I.C.E. is hands down more dependable than E.V.'s
Today's power outage's .
Los Angeles & Ventura counties .
Potentially 66k E.V.'s D.OA.
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Live map of power outages and potential outage today .
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Nightmare scenario .
Power is suddenly turned off .
E.V. is dead .
Can't escape the fire storm heading my way .
Ice operated vehicles have shown resistance to heat and flames .
Not so sure about E.V's .
For now I.C.E. is hands down more dependable than E.V.'s
Today's power outage's .
Los Angeles & Ventura counties .
Potentially 66k E.V.'s D.OA.
Live map of power outages and potential outage today .
I love Tesla's "Energy/Drive" graph. I wish Brightdrop had one. That graph has given me the confidence to target chargers and get there as low as 5% SOC.
I usually keep the state of charge between 50-90% That is 120 miles of use and keeps 150 miles in reserve. I think that is probably sufficient level of safety.
Are you saying you would rather drive through the flames with a gas tank than with a battery?
Eeek ! I hope you are able to avoid any danger.
On the other hand, some EVs allow you to survive a power outage by running on their battery pack. Although, I am not sure how useful it would be to have home power at the expense of a dead EV :-(
Here is a video talking about a Ford Lightning backup setup:
That is a nightmare . . . . Ms. Baxsie, is that you ?
Typical usage pattern is to charge your EV every evening to some set amount 60% ~ 90% so generally our EV is more "filled up" than a given ICE vehicle, which I only try to keep above 1/4 tank.
If we have an extended outage here, we might be forced to charge the EV from the propane generator. That is neither cheap nor environmentally kind :-(
Back to the @JohnForde's original topic, here is Out of Spec Review's video on the Bright Drop:
Yes - arguably this is Tesla's biggest contribution in making EVs desireable (at least to some). I experienced it a couple times, it does a quite remarkable job in adapting to the different conditions.
Hi RV,
I suppose its true that you never know anything with absolute accuracy - even the acceleration due to gravity has a bit of uncertainty.
I think people don''t appreciate how much work has been done on the subject of climate change. There were 51,000 scientific papers published on climate change in 2020 - each one involving a lot of work on the part of the authors then peer review for good methods then publication.
These are not opinions of politicians or government or industry operatives - they are work done in compliance with the scientific method (which Einstein said is our spices greatest accomplishment).
This is obviously a lot more data than any one of use can review and digest. But, there is an organization whose job it is to do digest all these findings and turn it into likely impacts on our species and to recommend fixes. This is the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ) formed in 1988. It is made up of career scientists from 254 countries. There job is to read and review these roughly 51K papers each year and turn it into what is happening to our climate, what will happen to it under various emission scenarios, and what to do about it.
Every couple years the IPCC publishes updates on the status of climate change for the world - one shortish (42 pages) for policy makers and us, and a long one for all the details. The summary report has to receive unanimous approval of all of the 254 scientists that make up the IPCC - none of whom get paid for this work.
On every prediction they make from the data they also provide a level of uncertainty estimate - over the years, these level of uncertainty estimates have gotten more and more certain.
Even the short report is not the easiest reading. One book that I have found helpful is Dire Predictions, Michael Mann. It basically interprets the IPCC report in pretty readable (not dumbed down) English. It is based on the last IPCC report cycle, so its not right up to date, but things have not changed a ton. The author, Michael Mann is a well known career scientist and shared in the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change.
In the end, you have to choose who you are going to believe in - you can choose to believe in industry or politics folks or media personalities who have have agendas, or you can listen to scientists and engineers (who may also have agendas), but who are required to work within the rigid framework of the Scientific Method - where mistakes are found and lies are punished.
I'd just pass on a small experience I had when I first started working for Boeing. The early 737 was having a problem with the nose gear torque links failing in landing. I was by no means in charge of this investigation, but I did work on it. Everyone had a theory on what the cause was. Bad link design, bad material, vibration damper design, faulty dynamics analysis ... my boss had a pet theory, the airlines had theorys, the pilots had theorys. All very confusing to a young engineer. Luckily the other engineers on the team knew how to tackle the problem and disagreements - you do analysis on the proposed causes, do lab testing, do airplane testing and repeat - eventually it gets nailed down to a cause that all parties can agree to and fix. This has pretty much happened in the case of climate change - its just that we are not listening.
Gary
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sounds like confirmed, i'm just a little surprised it is more efficient than smaller and lighter e-vans. i was worried because i know that if reset the energy meter on my leaf and drive really carefully for a couple of miles it will tell me i have twice the range that it should.
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Not safe to be dependent on electric , it's not reliable .
As far as driving through flames.
Fire department does fine with I.C.E.
Not sure E.V.'s can tolerate as much heat
E.V. 's catching fire is a problem .
Every action . Causes a reaction.
Life is a challenge. Don't need another one .
Peace ✌
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This is a sobering reminder of how automatic and easy our lives have become, so much that I would guesstimate that 50% of the population maybe more would likely parish in an event where the power was out for only a few weeks. Sobering reminder how fragile we are.
There is a You Tube of a Ford e-Transit van going 19 mph and getting 4.1 miles/Wh. Small sample though, just 12.2 miles. My slowest test was at 46 mph for 50 miles. I got 2.51 miles/kWh. That's 444 miles of range.
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