Tesla Pickup Unveil

As far as batteries overheating, it’s something engineers are beginning to deal with.

In my Clarity PHEV, the battery is watercooled with its own cooling system:

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I don’t know how Tesla does or will deal with it, but I’m pretty sure they will one way or another.
 
1RTK1 said:
What percent of total car sales are pure EV? What ever that is this truck will be a fraction of it.
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I can just imagine folks in the early 20th century asking, “What percent of total buggy sales will be horseless?Maybe in another 20-50 years, just not in the near future...”.

The switch to EVs is pretty inevitable. My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that it will happen in a much shorter timeframe than you imagine. Let’s revive this thread in 20 years and see how it played out!

As an aside, my right index finger starts twitching whenever I go to this page:

49115853326_31d38b286a.jpg
 
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Mtns2Skies said:
Aren't windows supposed to shatter for emergency rescue? Not sure where it stands on road legality.
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Many modern cars have laminated glass for the side windows. It is part of the overall protection system and required for some side-impact airbags. If you have the right tools (Halligan Bar, Axe and a Sawzall), they are not much of a barrier.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
So clearly you've never actually gone offroading. The cybertruck will not be remotely capable because of a few things you've neglected:

Break over angle
Weight.

This is going to be wildly heavier than any ICE truck and it's sooooo long you're going to get high centered with the wheels that far out. It'll get stuck in just a hint of soft terrain.

Well it doesn't really matter because it's only ever going to see LA streets anyways. It can probably take a pothole like a champ.
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Some points you make are fair, but the implication that I’ve “never actually been off-roading” is insulting and unnecessary, and I’d like to think we could discuss the product without essentially calling those we disagree with uninformed boobs. Particularly since I like most of you virtually and would love a beer with most any of you.

(I raced recreational off-road age 6-16, and spent ages 16-25 doing plenty of off-road driving. I do little of it now)

Wheelbase is 150” on cybertruck

F150 crew cab short bed is 145”
F350 cc sb is 159”


Care to try again on break over angle? Seems like 150 would put it right there with the top selling trucks on the road.

Yeah, compared to a wrangler, you’ve got a point, but compared to a truck, where does the product excel or fall short?

Weight? You’ve probably got it for sure there vs a gas rig, but maybe not vs diesel. My truck is 8,200 going down the road with typical “empty” load


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
1RTK1 said:
What percent of total car sales are pure EV? What ever that is this truck will be a fraction of it. Maybe in another 20-50 years, just not in the near future...
I live in one of the largest farming areas in America, ain’t gonna happen here and I bet we buy more trucks than most other areas. They “really” use trucks daily....
I Have my doubts about the level of abuse the cybertruck can sustain
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You might have a point on abuse, I can’t say there. Also, the exoskeleton does make bed access tough for quite a few scenarios and I wish it had lower bed sides for sure.

The styling is hideous as well imho


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
FastEddieB said:
I can just imagine folks in the early 20th century asking, “What percent of total buggy sales will be horseless?Maybe in another 20-50 years, just not in the near future...”.

The switch to EVs is pretty inevitable. My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that it will happen in a much shorter timeframe than you imagine. Let’s revive this thread in 20 years and see how it played out!

As an aside, my right index finger starts twitching whenever I go to this page:

49115853326_31d38b286a.jpg
Click to expand...

Big differences between a horse and buggy and a car. The pure EV is still a car with 4 wheels nothing extraordinary about it except the cost to operate. Wait until Big brother puts a mileage tax on them, people won’t be so happy then and that will have to happen.
I don’t have anything against EV I just don’t believe it is the end all be all. In the future I will have one for my wife because she rarely leaves town by herself, currently none fit “my” mission.
 
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FastEddieB said:
Well, at least we should have plenty of time to save up!
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I live in Southern California. The ability to (hopefully) withstand a 9mm round has merit.

I'm not so interested now, but for $100, I can throw my hat into the ring and see if it appeals to me any more as the 2021 date approaches for the dual motor, AWD build. If it doesn't appeal then, I can just get my $100 back.
 
FastEddieB said:
I can just imagine folks in the early 20th century asking, “What percent of total buggy sales will be horseless?Maybe in another 20-50 years, just not in the near future...”.

The switch to EVs is pretty inevitable. My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that it will happen in a much shorter timeframe than you imagine. Let’s revive this thread in 20 years and see how it played out!...
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There's ample case studies as to how new technology is adopted that point the way how this might happen.

Working in favor of a relatively fast adoption rate:
  • Automobile lifespans are relatively short; the turnover is measured in years, not decades (quite different from our ancient airplanes).
  • We continue to become an increasingly urban society; a higher %'age of the population lives in cities than ever before, and that would seem to generally favor EVs.
  • It now doesn't matter if one personally believes in anthropogenic climate change or not; enough of the world's politically influential class now does and in more countries subsidy, taxation and other policy is increasingly reflecting that. Consumers respond to purchase and usage incentives and disincentives (for example, in the wake of the VW/Audi "Dieselgate" fiasco a number of EU nations are considering banning very popular small diesel engine cars for air emission reasons).
  • If fully autonomous vehicles really are the future, and I think the insurance companies will be the real sponsors of moving this technology forward, EV drivetrains seem the only practical platform to accomplish that.
  • More EV products, from more manufacturers, appealing to a broader range of buyer demographics and income range.
Working against EVs?
  • Anything that seems "inevitable" usually isn't.
  • The high cost of entry; it is not just the vehicle cost. One of the main EV selling points is the convenience of "refueling at home", which requires an additional up-front capital cost to purchase and wire in the recharging station.
  • The lack of common standards; standards for gasoline work for any vehicle manufacturer. If you own a Tesla and your spouse desires an EV from another manufacturer, does that mean two different charging station standards at your home?
  • Electrical grid limitations; if everyone on the block eventually adopts 100% EVs what are the implications of charging all of them simultaneously each night. What about high density urban high rise condominium neighborhoods?
  • Range anxiety (every guy's nightmare - not being able to "go the distance" ;) ); the inevitable comparisons with the ICE vehicle being considered for replacement will continue.
  • Battery technology improvements are incremental, not breakthrough. Batteries are chemical devices, and there's a limit to how fast any given chemistry allows energy to be injected or withdrawn. The heat rejection issues demonstrate the lengths to which manufacturers are leaning to deal with that.
The greatest impediment to more rapid adoption is the lack of any obvious tipping point catalyst. Every successful new technology moves from early adopter to mass acceptance phase, with an exponential increase in the number of units being purchased every month/quarter/year, because the perceived value proposition of owning the technology exceeds the cost of entry (some of the other grey hairs here will recall the classic early case study of this phenomenon is the fax machine).

Some think the EV catalyst will be a certain density of available public charging stations. Others think it's going to be massive numbers of shared autonomous vehicles, so nobody needs to own one themselves.

I am sceptical, and don't see an obvious catalyst. And if that is the case the adoption rate will be driven more by vehicle scrappage and EV substitution over time as EVs compete for market share. Anybody here see what might drive the tipping point; I'm curious.
 
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rtk11 said:
I live in Southern California. The ability to (hopefully) withstand a 9mm round has merit.
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Hope it does that better than it withstood the guy tossing a ball at it...
rtk11 said:
I'm not so interested now, but for $100, I can throw my hat into the ring and see if it appeals to me any more as the 2021 date approaches for the dual motor, AWD build. If it doesn't appeal then, I can just get my $100 back.
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Assuming that works out better than the whole bulletproof thing, right?

I'm sure EVs will become more and more mainstream over time, and I'm equally sure the costs will rise dramatically as they do. As has been pointed out before, road maintenance is largely paid for with taxes on gasoline and Diesel fuel, so as EVs become more prevalent there will certainly be additional taxes levied upon them. Still, it's an evolutionary process that will continue.

I'm sure the all electric car works for some segments of the population. For us right now, an EV just doesn't work. We already have enough vehicles in the stable and don't need another. If we were buying, we'd buy slightly used, so there goes the tax credits for buying new. Any vehicle manufactured by Tesla is an absolute non-starter -- period -- due to the total lack of service options. While most of our driving is relatively short range city trips, we do exceed 300 miles in a day numerous of times every year -- we have family gatherings that are often at least half that distance from home, often in winter, and occasionally more than 300 miles one way. Stopping to recharge is simply a deal breaker for trips like that. Hell, even the 4WD F150 or the beastly 500-plus HP Mercedes can make the longest trip (and half the return) on one tank. Back in August my wife and I took a vacation road trip -- 3,000 miles in a week, with the longest run being a 900-plus mile day. It wouldn't have been possible in an EV.

So, even if we had an EV, we'd still need to keep at least one of our "old fashioned" piston powered vehicles around for the trips that the EV can't reasonably do. And, since those trips are the longest, that means keeping the best of the piston-mobiles around... making the EV a very expensive novelty vehicle. I already have one of those, and it has wings.
 
Electricity, at least for a Tesla, runs less than half the cost of gasoline for the same trip. It might be less than one-third depending on your local gasoline and electricity prices. That should be similar on other EVs. Maintenance costs are much less, which combined with the energy savings, produces a lower cost to operate.

Lots of YouTube videos by EV owners addressing range anxiety and real-life long-distance EV road trips. As of today, the Teslas do the best due to their extensive, and still growing, network of Superchargers which provide the fastest charging currently available and the least hassle (Just plug in, no card to swipe or app to activate the charger which both seem to have issues on the Electrify America network). Others are catching up but still lag.

Adapters are available for Teslas to use other charging networks though Tesla's Superchargers are not available to non-Teslas.

Try a few trips on www.ABetterRoutePlanner.com. It will let you plan EV trips while adjusting many parameters. Pay attention to the settings for minimum charge on arrival at destination and each charging station (separate settings). For a Model 3, it'll frequently schedule 15-30 minute charging stops. You can often skip a stop when you're willing to stay and charger longer at the previous station (i.e. when having a meal). This will be even easier as more stations are added. The new 250kW Superchargers, just now being deployed, will cut that time further. Pay attention to the charing cost for the trip as displayed by A Better Route Planner and compare to what gasoline would cost.

The inconvenience of longer charging stops on extended trips is balanced by the elimination of gas fill ups at home on your day to day driving and the lower cost. With Tesla's with the A/P option, you're also getting Navigate On Autopilot which reduces the workload and driver fatigue on the highway. If I owned a Tesla (which I think I probably will at some point), it would be the car I'd take on any road trips.

There certainly are people whose use patterns would not fit into an EVs envelope but we've come a long way from the EV-1 and first generation Leaf. Watch some of the range videos I mentioned above.
 
weilke said:
Many modern cars have laminated glass for the side windows. It is part of the overall protection system and required for some side-impact airbags. If you have the right tools (Halligan Bar, Axe and a Sawzall), they are not much of a barrier.
Click to expand...

Vehicle side windows are tempered, not laminated, glass.
 
DaleB said:
Hope it does that better than it withstood the guy tossing a ball at it...

Assuming that works out better than the whole bulletproof thing, right?
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LOL! Yeah, I'm only throwing in a deposit to see where this all goes. I have a 2002 Ford Explorer with a 4.6 V-8 and it's my urban assault vehicle. I love the thing. Yes, it gets marginal mileage in the city (10-11 mpg?) or highway (20 mpg?) but I've gone through and replaced or rebuilt most everything and she's ultra reliable, and I can park it anywhere and she'll be just fine. I call her Dora (the Explorer)... get it?

In all honesty, if I were to do an EV, it would be a hybrid as the utility of burning gasoline to make more electricity (Chevy Volt) or as a parallel power unit makes it useful. I don't need to stop if battery charge runs out, I just keep driving on ICE power. That said, I am fond of the Hyundai Insight since it offers a lifetime battery warranty. My former Nissan Altima Hybrid was a terrible hybrid as the batteries really did very little. Alternatively, my former Jetta TDI was a fabulous vehicle having traveled 270,000 miles before I sold her back to VW (and pocketing $16K!) and needed absolutely nothing in terms of replacement (outside of normal maintenance) that whole time. I miss that car.
 
Ok, so first off, hardly anyone tows 14K with a half ton. I’ve towed 10K with a modern half ton once and I wouldn’t want to do it for any appreciable distance. I seriously doubt the Tesla will do any better, despite some “Tesla approved spec”. FYI, there are models of current Big 3 trucks that claim above 13K lbs, so the Tesla isn’t exactly blowing them out of the water.

Any contractor towing on a regular basis is going to want a 3/4-1ton for daily work. Not “hot shotting” work, but just towing that 10K lbs skid loader or landscape trailer. It’s not about getting the kid moving (200HP small block v8s have been moving 20Klbs loads for decades), it’s about controlling and stopping the loads. Getting the tail wagging the dog is a big problem, and it happens when people start pushing the limits of a trucks’ capability (stared in the spec sheet or otherwise).

I don’t have anything against EVs, but the Tesla CyberTruck is flat out hideous and I can’t even say it is because “form follows function”.

As for the ramp tailgate, that’s just not going to be much of a selling point for me personally because I load something via ramp about once a year. It’s a feature even less useful than Fords tailgate step or GMs multi-pro tailgate. I think Tesla would have been better off pushing the bar a bit on the specs (as they did) but staying relatively conservative on the truck design. It’s fine to make an edgy design, but if you’re trying to convert existing truck owners, the angular eyesore isn’t going to start off on the right foot. I’m sure the Tesla fanboys will jump on board without a second thought, but they don’t likely drive trucks right now so they have no basis for comparison, nor any toys to tow with a CyberTruck.

Time will tell, but I think this was a misstep by Musk, and I seriously doubt that truck comes in anywhere near $40K, much like the unicorn $35K Model 3. Hell, Ford barely sells any new F-150s for $40K with cloth seats, and I doubt Tesla can build a truck in a more cost-efficient manner.
 
3393RP said:
Vehicle side windows are tempered, not laminated, glass.
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Until about 2000, that statement would be correct. Since then,many cars have switched to laminated glazing . Reduces the chance of ejection.
 
FastEddieB said:
Is it just a matter of time?

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It’s hard to imagine that the police car in Robocop seemed futuristic at the time, but it did:

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The Robo Cop car was just a modified Ford Taurus. Not very futuristic.

The Tesla truck looks like they had some left over sheet metal lying around and decided to build a truck out of it. It’s different but bland. Like the in the first drive vid, they designed it that way for function but also to save money. I’d rather not drive a vehicle that sacrificed looks to save money. Function interferes with practically sometimes as well, as in this case requiring a video rear view mirror because the visibility out the back is so poor.

Everyone makes the Delorean comparison but that car actually had a combination of futuristic stainless steel angles with rounded lines and complimentary trim / highlights. It is pleasing to the eye. While it stood out, it wasn’t a complete departure from a typical sports car. In fact, it looked like a Lotus Esprit. Probably has something to do with the designer and later on, the engineer, all coming from Lotus. This Tesla truck is a complete departure from any mass produced truck today. As Musk stated in the presentation, truck design hasn’t changed much through the years. The artist renderings were a nice styling upgrade from typical designs without getting too radical. Why he didn’t go with something similar is mind boggling.

This is styling that I could get behind.

https://2020truck.com/2017-chevy-colorado-zh2/
 
That betteroruteplanner adds 75% time and distance on a common trip for our family if going Tesla vs ICE
 
Velocity173 said:
The Robo Cop car was just a modified Ford Taurus. Not very futuristic.
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When the movie came out, we were all driving squarish Crown Victorias and LeBarons. I can testify the new, bulbous Taurus was quite distinctive, and I think it was chosen for the movie for that reason. At least that was my impression at the time.
 
1RTK1 said:
Bet you a dollar to a doughnut that people who really use their trucks will never buy this contraption.
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And I'll make you the same bet that people that really want a compact car (think smart car) won't buy this either. Nobody ever said this truck was for everybody. Name one vehicle ever produced in history that could make that claim. This truck would check just about every box on my list of requirements, except that it is about a foot longer than I would prefer.
 
FastEddieB said:
When the movie came out, we were all driving squarish Crown Victorias and LeBarons. I can testify the new, bulbous Taurus was quite distinctive, and I think it was chosen for the movie for that reason. At least that was my impression at the time.
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But everyone really wanted the 6000 SUX.
 
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Shuswap BC said:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cn...ssan-ev-owners-suspected-of-cold-weather.html
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Well, this is a constraint imposed by the laws of physics. And needing to use some electrons to heat the car.

Our Clarity routinely showed 50+ EV miles in the summer. It’s now in the mid 40’s and drops into the high 30’s in the dead of winter. Honda advertises “up to” 48 miles of EV range, so our numbers are not disappointing to us.

The good news is with careful driving, in summer one may very well exceed advertised range numbers on EV’S.
 
GRG55 said:
  • The high cost of entry; it is not just the vehicle cost. One of the main EV selling points is the convenience of "refueling at home", which requires an additional up-front capital cost to purchase and wire in the recharging station.
  • The lack of common standards; standards for gasoline work for any vehicle manufacturer. If you own a Tesla and your spouse desires an EV from another manufacturer, does that mean two different charging station standards at your home?
Click to expand...

Nobody has a car charging station at home. Well, I say nobody, maybe Elon and a few billionaires have them (they cost north of $250k to install).

The rest of us use A/C outlets and a small charger that's built into the vehicle. Could be anything from a 5-15 (household outlet) to a 14-50 (dryer outlet), depending on how fast you want to charge. Can use a J1772 as well if you want to be fancy about it - but it's still just an A/C outlet.

Since A/C outlets are standardized - they'll work on any vehicle. It's the D/C charging standard that's different between vehicles, but like I mentioned - (almost) nobody install those for residential use, so the lack of common standards is not actually an issue there.
 
Add in driving in snow which adds a lot of rolling resistance, and cold temps, a lot of evs will probably have their range cut in half. Add towing something like a snowmobile trailer into the equation, and suddenly you could be down to 1/4 of its predicted range, which I bet is already very optimistic. How useful is that pickup truck actually going to be in the hands of real world consumers? These are my three trailers, I tow the one furthest away, and mostly hidden, frequently, it is long and heavy, and built to hold 4 long track mountain snowmobiles. Not in the picture because I store it indoors, is out 30' Artic Fox travel trailer. Behind that tesla, they would become " range anxiety monsters " when they chop battery life down to incredibly short trips. Fill that dump trailer full of gravel, and I would like to see how that tesla struggles with it on a 16 percent grade hill. 20191124_150320.jpg
 
deonb said:
Nobody has a car charging station at home. Well, I say nobody, maybe Elon and a few billionaires have them (they cost north of $250k to install).

The rest of us use A/C outlets and a small charger that's built into the vehicle. Could be anything from a 5-15 (household outlet) to a 14-50 (dryer outlet), depending on how fast you want to charge. Can use a J1772 as well if you want to be fancy about it - but it's still just an A/C outlet.

Since A/C outlets are standardized - they'll work on any vehicle. It's the D/C charging standard that's different between vehicles, but like I mentioned - (almost) nobody install those for residential use, so the lack of common standards is not actually an issue there.
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Agreed.
The average home has nowhere near the spare electrical capacity to run a charging station anyway. The cost of running in a secondary line from the street, and a new panel is darn expensive as well. Anything electical in the home that someone wants added, gets really expensive in a hurry. My neighbor wanted to add a hot tub, for her to get the power upgrades required for her to install a hot tub, far exceeds the price of the hot tub itself. And a hot tub uses very little power compared to a quick charge station. She would actually have to pay for the transformer upgrade as well she was told, on top of the rest of the costs. She has chosen to not put in a tub after all.
 
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Velocity173 said:
By reading the Tesla FB fanboy comments, I am now convinced that Musk could slap a Tesla sticker on a turd and they’d still buy it. Unbelievable.
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A turd would be an upgrade from that thing he rolled out the other day.
Probably withstand a gentle tap better than those windows did to. Imagine if he had actually put some force into those tosses.
 
EdFred said:
That betteroruteplanner adds 75% time and distance on a common trip for our family if going Tesla vs ICE
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Unless you're going somewhere that isn't accessible by the interstate highway network, that shouldn't be the case. For more remote areas, the Supercharger network is still expanding quickly and, with the use of an adapter, you can add charging at non-Tesla stations when you're not near a Supercharger.

I find that ABetterRoutePlanner tends to stop too often on its default settings. A few changes to its settings will fix that. You'll have fewer, slightly longer, charging stops. Combine those with meals and bathroom breaks and the time penalty is small.

Shuswap BC said:
The average home has nowhere near the spare electrical capacity to run a charging station anyway.
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Exactly. No need for it. You don't need 45 min recharges at home. A simple 14-50 (i.e. dryer) outlet, with the car's included adapter, is all most of us would need.
 
EdFred said:
That betteroruteplanner adds 75% time and distance on a common trip for our family if going Tesla vs ICE
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I just tried a pathological trip out here in the west, from my house on the coast out to scenic Fields, OR. There was no way to make it with enough battery to get back to a listed charger. Closest it found was twice as long as my pickup. And my pickup would only need one stop. So, yes, there are still plenty of places in the west unreachable by the existing charging networks. Now, if you find a friendly motel or campground to plug in overnight you might be ok.
 
Larry in TN said:
Unless you're going somewhere that isn't accessible by the interstate highway network, that shouldn't be the case. For more remote areas, the Supercharger network is still expanding quickly and, with the use of an adapter, you can add charging at non-Tesla stations when you're not near a Supercharger.

I find that ABetterRoutePlanner tends to stop too often on its default settings. A few changes to its settings will fix that. You'll have fewer, slightly longer, charging stops. Combine those with meals and bathroom breaks and the time penalty is small.


Exactly. No need for it. You don't need 45 min recharges at home. A simple 14-50 (i.e. dryer) outlet, with the car's included adapter, is all most of us would need.
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49961 is the destination from 49512
 
Shawn said:
Current solar panel technology that could fit on the cybertruck is hardly going to make a dent in Tesla battery capacity. You are looking at a few hundred watts of power at best for 6 hours of good sun a day on a fixed panel into a battery of tens of thousand of watt-hours.
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Yeah, but a small rooftop solar array would sell to the folks that don't understand electricity. It's like the old "Ram-Air" intake scoops on 1970s muscle cars that packed so much extra air into the carburetor, like a turbo! Do the math and see that you're gaining about 0.08 psi at 60 MPH, assuming that the ram air intake is in clean air, not suffering from any turbulence or drag ahead of it, an ideal that is never true in any 1970s car. It was a sales gimmick. If it was really useful we'd see it on a lot of cars now. The idea works fine on jet engines at high speed, speeds far above highway speeds.

Similarly, the claim that the suspension air compressor could power air tools is suspect. Suspension compressors tend to be real small affairs. Air tools use a LOT of compressed air. And making 110VAC from batteries using an inverter is also a big drain.
 
FastEddieB said:
One could imagine a variable ratio gearing that would allow “slow” steering with precise control for normal diving, increasing as the wheel angle increased for maneuvering and parking. I have no idea if that’s in the plans, but it seems doable.
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That was tried in the 1970s on some experimental designs, along with thottle and brake pedals that had no movement; they just sensed pressure. It seemed to work. I think a follow-on development was a system that made the steering less sensitive as speed increased. The problem with all this stuff is the multiple failure points. It simply has to work 100% flawlessly and the technology of the day couldn't guarantee it.
 
chartbundle said:
I just tried a pathological trip out here in the west, from my house on the coast out to scenic Fields, OR. There was no way to make it with enough battery to get back to a listed charger. Closest it found was twice as long as my pickup. And my pickup would only need one stop. So, yes, there are still plenty of places in the west unreachable by the existing charging networks. Now, if you find a friendly motel or campground to plug in overnight you might be ok.
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Try coming up to the area I live in, a tow truck could get it to a charger for an owner I'm sure, but on its own power it is basically useless.
 
Ok. I'm, convinced. It won't pull at trailer full of rocks up a 400 mile 16 degree grade in winter with the heater blasting at 100mph, so it is useless and I shouldn't buy one for my limited hauling needs in Florida. I can see where I must have been awe-struck by Elon's charm.
 
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