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Comment by dghughes | Hacker News Reader

EV trucks sound good but you can't haul anything heavy or your range plumments. Unless the battery is huge but that is weight. A truck that can't haul is just for show.

Even gasoline trucks are stupid no low end torque, you need to rev it. I had a 6 cylinder Cummins diesel and at 500rpm idle on a hill it could move the 10,000 pound truck up the hill.

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I feel like this is less true nowadays. Or at least, less of a concern.

I have a Rivian and my 400mi range gets cut significantly (down to 200 or 300, depending on the trip) when I have 7k lbs on the back, but never enough to stop me from towing. And with good charging in the area, it's a non issue. And waaaaayyyyy cheaper than diesel.

Maybe if I was towing daily, I'd feel different. Your mileage may vary. (Couldn't resist the closer!)

Edit: btw instant torque is a game changer. You can't beat an EV on that front

I used to think this way, but it turns out that EV trucks hold up on range better than one would expect thanks to regenerative breaking. The added weight of cargo requires more energy to get up to speed, but you get most of that back when breaking, so it's not lost energy. Meanwhile, a gas or diesel truck's range plummets when hauling since all the energy used to accelerate the load is lost in breaking. I'm not saying that EV hauling is perfect or a solved problem, but that the trades offs aren't as intuitive as they might seem.

I think regen braking only helps if the load is on the bed. If it's on a trailer, the trailer will have normal breaks and a lot is lost. (Edit: spelling)

braking

Trailers may not have regenerative braking today, but that's a chicken-and-egg problem; trailers already have wiring hookups, and once EVs become the default for personal vehicles, it's easy to imagine that regenerative braking will become standard.

It also doesn't help if you have a long freeway trip where you don't brake.

You should watch this video - aero dominates vs weight (factors very little), especially with strong regen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmKf8smvGsA

+1 recommendation for this video. Also the owner of the channel participated in an EV cannonball run several times. I don't think they made it in one go, but still very cool how they had to plan for the trip and modify the vehicle.

> A truck that can't haul is just for show.

I borrow my brother’s truck all the time to transport various DIY supplies. I could probably get a roof rack for my car for things like plywood and drywall, but borrowing the truck is easier.

Are you from 2010?

My EV has 470PS, it can hauul plenty heavy for long range. Weights 2.2 tons.

Even the Ford F-150 Lightning was already able to pull 4.5t and has a range of 300 miles.

I think you’re missing the second half: or your range plummets.

Theres been plenty of F150L towing tests and the results are… bad. Maybe 100mi of range if you’re towing something big?

I might be ignorant here as a german but how often are people towing something big 100 miles and more were they do not have time to just charge? I would have said 2-4 times a year (lakelife location far away twice a year?).

I mean for sure, if you are the person who constantly need this, EVs might need a little bit more advantages, but what does an avg F150 owner would tow 100mi every day / regularly?

For towing, 75% of truck owners claim to use this feature once a year or never.

More than 60% of truck owners use the bed to haul at least once per month; but it's difficult to determine the percentage who could have used a car instead. A small car can fit quite a few bags of soil in the trunk, for example.

I would put it like this: many many truck drivers in the US go years without towing a thing. Even work trucks (eg plumbers rarely need to tow anything). But, for the people that do tow, they tow a lot.

And the US is an incredibly large place. West of the Rockies it's essentially empty until you get to the coastal cities. So if you do anything agricultural, or your business is located in the rural places because of local resources (wood, minerals, whatever) you will be towing heavy things long distances.

Fun example of distance: last month I was in Tonopah, Nevada. My spouse wanted to try McDonald's. No problem, the sign on the billboard says there is one nearby (that exact word). It was in Hawthorne. 150km away. Americans, especially rural Americans in the Western states, have a different view of driving distance than Europeans. Bill Bryson was not really joking when he wrote that Americans will drive 60 miles for a taco.

I have an f150 lightning. Weight isn't a problem for range you barely notice it. Towing though matters mostly about the number of axels and aerodynamics. I have a small trailer I occasionally tow and it knocks the range to just under half which is... Not great but not terrible either. Running around town towing is fine, but if we were doing long distance (hundreds of miles) I'd probably rent a ice vehicle for it.

But I've done a 600 mile each way trip with the bed fully loaded and it's completely fine

I'm looking foward to the arrival later this month of my 280PS ""compact"" EV (Abarth 600E), which will be roughly as much power as every other car I've owned put together.

First, the intended customers of the Cybertruck don’t need to haul anything; it’s a lifestyle vehicle. Second, EVs have solved the torque problem.

A huge fraction of the truck owners barely (if ever) haul anything, so that's not a dealbreaker for an EV truck.

It just has to look manly and rugged, any actual offroad or hauling capabilities are at best a nice-to-have.

How do you define huge? How do you define "barely if ever"? Do you have any evidence to back your claim?

Some gas engines have low end torque, big block V8s and anything turbo. But yeah if hauling uphill is your thing diesel is a no brainer. It would be great if our half ton and midsize trucks had diesel options but as usual other countries have better options.

Personally I'm going hybrid truck next time. The advantages of electric (torque, 240V inverter) with the flexibility of gas. Payload is lower but I'm hoping they fix that by the time I need a new truck

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