this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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If we're being real, neither truck is for people who do real work.
When it's 40 below out and your truck needs to go all day because you're at a work site and it's the only place to warm up in between getting some critical piece of equipment back up and running, a battery that's so dead it needs a 600V charger for a few hours just to get home isn't going to cut it.
Letting your car run out of battery charge is just as stupid as letting it run out of gas. It's not the car's fault.
Except that generally speaking, your gas tank doesn't really change capacity that much based on the weather -- the fact you have to idle it is obviously a concern, but typically your fuel economy doesn't dramatically change because the weather outside changes. By contrast, I've heard and seen an EV in very cold winter weather basically become a brick until it spends some time in a nice heated space, and then it only wakes up until you bring it back outside and the battery freezes again.
I've done really long road trips in extraordinarily cold weather. I used to live in the far north, and I still work up there occasionally. You're not losing 80% of your travel capacity or anything like that.
If it's 40 below out, the vast majority of outside workers should be not working. The vast majority of work that could use a truck is work that isn't going to frequently (or ever) encounter that kind of temperature range. A 600V DCFC is going to charge either of those trucks quickly in the majority of scenarios.
Most truck owners aren't people doing "truck work" anyway, though. They own a truck as a public facing part of their personality. It's virtue signalling.
I agree with you that most people driving trucks probably don't need to be driving trucks. My home vehicle is a nice little Corolla that gets great gas mileage.
But reality is that for a lot of workers, the show must go on, rain or shine, heat wave or cold snap. I've had to be that guy -- coldest day of the year and some piece of critical infrastructure is broken, the boss says "I don't care, we need it working, get out there". Temperatures that cold you literally start to feel death's caress. It starts to soak into your meat, and it at some point it doesn't matter what you're wearing.
Days like that, even a diesel is pretty scary, but pretty much no vehicle ever turns off. If it's a gas vehicle at least the block heater can let you start the thing.
This past winter, there was a crew building an attraction on the river for the winter festival in Winnipeg. They had a Ford Lightning there. They were using it as a warm-up hut, for charging up their tools and hauling crap around. Temps were in the -20C to -30C range. They were out there for days. Seemed to work just fine.
We'll see.
Everything I keep on hearing says that these things become basically worthless the moment you're not driving under perfect conditions. I've personally witnessed EVs become basically useless in winter, or when there's a few too many hills. I've even heard that you're going to want a heated garage to go with your fancy EV in real winters. I'd also like to know what toll real winters have on the overall lifespan of a battery on a $100,000 truck -- it'd suck if you have to send your expensive vehicle to the junkyard in just a few years because you don't live in an ideal climate. I guess I should also point out that -20 is not -40, and the work doesn't stop because it isn't warm out.
I've been eyeing an EV for running around town, but the risks hold me back.
I’m from a tropical climate. So the inverse applies. Aircon is incredibly efficient. Evs have enough battery to leave the aircon on for 3 days straight. I imagine heating would be similar.
I think you’re pointing out that the batteries don’t work well in the cold. That would be the perfect time to strap a solar panel to the roof connected to a battery heater or a space heater inside the car.
solar doesn't work well in the darkness of winter.