Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The problem with electric vehicles....

I remain confused...

My link came from Ford...

https://media.ford.com/content/dam/...tning/pdf/F-150_Lightning_Tech_Specs.pdf

Your link came for a source outside of Ford...

https://insideevs.com/news/555338/ford-f150-lightning-battery-capacity/

So does this one...



https://www.forbes.com/wheels/cars/ford/f-150-lightning/

Interesting that Ford does not make that easy to find.

Actually had to build a truck to find specs (kinda... STILL NOT CLEAR)... this is their CHEAPEST MODEL with the extended battery.

Base level Ford Lighting with the better battery is only $72,500.



Please teach me more...

Thanks

"Solar in the south is currently the cheapest way to generate electricity"

"Green energy" wouldn't exist in the USA without Federal subsidies. The Federal subsidy for Electricity generated by "green energy" is about $125.00 (I don't remember the unit of power) and the Federal Subside for electricity generated by petroleum products is $0.39.

Because they wouldn't exist without taxpayer's subsidies.

If your a fan of history, battery powered vehicles were on the design floor when autos first came out. Plenty of people knew beyond a shadow of doubt it would be impossible to find gasoline on every street corner. Now the debate has switched to chargers.

Solar and wind take thousands of acres of land and kill birds. Currently those wind turbines and solar panels plus the LI batteries are made in Chyna. How is that environmentally friendly? EV's cannot perform to their expectations, and we have no infrastructure to support them on a large scale. If that's your bag then good for you just don't try and make it mandatory for everyone.

What taxpayers subsidies exist if I buy a Tesla and charge it at my house or commercial charger?

You see a lot of the same mentality here that, at various times in our history, opposed rifled bores because they took longer to ram a ball down and the injuns might get you....those steam engine railroad things will never work because the human body cannot survive sustained speeds of greater than 20 mph...yeah, those new-fangled percussion-cap guns are great until you run out of percussion caps 30 days from the nearest trading post... cartridge firearms???? what happens if they stop making the cartridge you need??? smokeless powder??? blows up shotguns...horseless carriages??? they're not reliable...you can't get fuel everywhere... they're dangerous...they won't go through snow....flat tire every five miles...Get a horse! What do I need a GD computer for?? Electronic ignition? No thanks, I want to be able to replace my points and set the gap and timing myself....fuel injection? give me a good ole carburetor I can adjust and rebuild on the kitchen table if necessary....cell phone? what do I need a cell phone for, there's too many dead spots in my AO...besides, who needs an electronic leash? Smart phone?? all I want to do is make phone calls, I'm not a GD teenager.

EV's aren't perfect, no technology is. They've evolved faster than anything I've ever seen. They're not currently the answer to everybody's vehicle needs, but neither are four-wheel drive pickup trucks. In fact, I'd bet there are a lot of people driving around in four-wheel drive pickups who'd be just as well served with a Tesla. News flash: there are a lot of people out there who don't pull trailers, don't travel in snow and don't go off the road with their vehicles. I would be very surprised if my wife didn't get an EV for her next vehicle and that will work out just fine for us. She seldom goes more than 20 miles from home with her current car. I am just as sure I will go to my grave in a full-sized, four-wheel-drive pickup.

Cash, you're looking at marketing materials created by graphic design majors who probably don't understand the numbers they are given.

The measure for battery capacity is KWH, Kilo-Watt hours. One KW is about 1.34 HP. One KWH is one KW for one hour. 100 KWH is one KW for 100 hours, or 100 KW for one hour, or 1,000 KW for 1/10th of an hour, and so on. All that is limited by the KW limitation that the battery can put out, of course. Similar to the HP capacity of an engine. You can only get out so many HP (KW) at one time. The more HP (KW) you draw, the faster you empty your tank (battery).

The capacity of the standard range battery is 90 kWH, the extended range is 131 kWH (and that sucker weighs over 1,800 lbs!).

Now, the RATE at which these charge is the second number in the ad. The higher the charging rate, the faster you can load up the battery. More amps means more KW going in (think of amps as the size of the nozzle). Like going from a standard diesel nozzle at the pickup fuel isle to a high-flow nozzle at the semi truck isle.

The 19.6 number they are quoting is the MAXIMUM KWH rating of the Ford designed 80 amp circuit for home installation. It'll charge that 131 KWH extended range battery in 131/19.6 = 6.4 hrs. It'll cost a few bucks to put into most houses, because it probably means installing an additional panel.

The range is about 3KW per mile...... so at 80 amps you get about 50 miles per charging hour. That works for almost all people to charge either at work or at home.

The kicker is that a standard 110 outlet to charge this thing will give you about 15 amps.... at most, and that whittles it down to about 2 miles per hour..... better have that beast plugged in all the time!

At a standard 240 circuit (like for your washer / dryer), you get about 200 miles overnight, which also works for a lot of people. Few people run more than 200 miles a day on a regular basis, so the truck would be almost always full when you grab it in the morning. No more stopping for fuel on your way to work.

Fast chargers are a whole 'nother level of charging, and draw 200 amps or more. This thing's battery is so big that the current "fast charge" networks will still mean you need to take a nap while filling it up. Not so fast chargers, really.

And in case you are curious, 131 KW for 300 mile range at $0.10 per KW (retail electric price) is $13.1 for a fill up. If you get discounted night rates, you could fill up the truck for under $10.

"EV's aren't perfect, no technology is. They've evolved faster than anything I've ever seen."

Another whole electric grid that will be required for all the electric vehicles the Communist Democrats are mandating won't evolve so fast and the expense will bankrupt all of us. You EV lovers must not realize that the Communist's goal is for all vehicles to be electric. Will trains, ships and airplanes be next?

That's actually a very fair statement, but not in the way you intended it.

The original photo voltaic cells were developed, in large part, to support the space effort, and were mind-numbingly expensive. Tens of thousands of dollars per watt. Development was subsidized, and applications were limited.

Like with computers. The first ones were heavily subsidized for military and government purposes.

Like with computers and "More's law" in computers, which says the cost per computation cuts in half every couple of years, there's an equivalent in solar generation, and costs have CONSISTENTLY dropped by 10% per year over the last three decades. Like with compound interest, 10% per year means doubling very 7 years. So the cost of solar has dropped geometrically, and continues to drop geometrically.

The push for that development came through the availability of subsidies, which created the economies of scale for research and manufacturing needed to create that drop in costs.

Today, photovoltaic generating cost has dropped below the lowest competitor's cost of generating electricity, natural gas. It has passed coal, oil and nuclear years ago. It is competitive in the electric market without any subsidies in any form. Generating costs in the South are as low as 3 c/KW.

There's a similar curve in wind, but it has been far less steep than solar, in the order of 2 to 3% per year.

Combined, that is the reason why just about 20% of the US generating capacity is now wind and solar. It's now pure economics, not anything else.

"You EV lovers..." I'm not an EV lover, I'm just trying to take a rational look at the technology.

"Another whole electric grid...." So far the electric grid seems to be keeping up as well as it ever has. What's the current optimal capacity of the electric grid? How will it need to be improved by how much capacity? How long will that take and what will it cost? Won't that cost be covered by the increased usage?

EVs are by necessity pretty much limited to city dwellers. Since many cities already have power supply problems, that will only get worse and I can see some large cities having to limit car recharging.
Hybrids, however, I think are a great idea for anyone who doesn't have to haul a load. They use far less gas and the technology has come far enough to make them highly reliable.

"I'm just trying to take a rational look at the technology."

The technology of electric vehicles has been improving rapidly but that's not the answer to our energy problems. The problem is that the goal of the "green energy" lovers is to destroy the petroleum industry. If you want to take a rational look at how much more energy it would require for an all electric USA it's easy to find. I don't remember all the figures but it would require twice as much electricity and a new electric grid with double the capacity. My home is all electric and electricity is dirt cheap in the summer when I run the AC (we have HOT summers). In the winter when I have to turn on the heat my electric bill is at least 4 times higher (we have very mild winters).

If all cars in Texas switch to electric, the total energy demand increases by about 30%.

"if virtually all passenger cars in Texas were electrified today, the state would need approximately 110 more terawatt-hours of electricity per year — the average annual electricity consumption of 11 million homes. The added electricity demand would result in a 30 percent increase over current consumption in Texas. " (https://www.inverse.com/article/51486-electric-cars-demand-better-infrastructure).

Given that the vast majority of EV users charge at home, at night (when electric demand is at it's lowest), and that those chargers are exceedingly easy to program to respond to highs and lows in supply, the reality is that very little additional generating capacity would be needed, and there will be a lot of time to add the required capacity.

Now, add trucks to the equation, and the picture changes substantially.

Cold air has a tendency to lay low in a home, hot air rises to the ceiling.
You may consider upgrading you attic insulation, it can be considerably less expensive than paying a high ongoing monthly heating bill.

I thought someone said earlier in this thread that I could full charge a vehicle while I stop to take a piss?

Given the age of most of these guys, they might dribble long enough to still make that true


Fast charging a little Tesla battery and this 1,800 lb hunk are two different things. Add that Ford has limited the charge rate a bit (likely to protect the battery from deterioration or failure) and the "fast charge" rate from 20 to 80% is about 45 minutes. So not fast. Most cars are about a third to half that.

2.5 percent of cars on the road are full EV. Imagine even 25% EV. We will have major major electric shortages. Oil is either consumed at the pump or at the power station making juice. The clean solution would be Nuclear but the green wackos don't want that.

Wind power made a few Chinese billionaires even wealthier. A 1.5 turbine that costs how much can only power 400 houses and a 2.0 megawatt can do 600-800, how much do these things cost and they can[t run in the winter in a lot of places.

Solar does neither.