Pickup Trucks Will Provide The First Glimpse At An All-Electric Future

[Ombligo]

School Buses would be a great market. They go relatively few miles a day, need the power of a truck, and last for years. They are essential oversized urban delivery trucks

An electric school bus would eliminate the constant diesel maintenance and fuel costs to school systems. They could be charged overnight and during the midday down time.

[Dennis S]

It seems like postal delivery "jeeps" would be a good market.

[sekker]

'Nikola has produce exactly 0 production vehicles. Tesla has more vehicles in space than Nikola has even produced.'

I just heard the CEO, he's a modern PT Barnum. His company is outsourcing the entire production line to a company in Germany.

And, in reality, it's the hydrogen trucks that will be Nikola's money-maker.

Just listen to his completely fake reason for calling his company 'Nikola'; it was ALL about being mentally tied to Tesla. [note the intellectual disconnect from being the hydrogen truck company but calling itself after Nikola Tesla.]

Not planning on buying any stock, and I would short it if I believed in such things.

But I want to be wrong - a high visibility failure is bad for the conversion to renewables.

And I like electric vehicles - have a 2005 Honda hybrid (best we could get at the time), a Volt and a new Tesla in our stable. The Tesla is in a class all by itself.

[MrNoBody]

First, there are no electric trucks in mass production currently.

So Bluebird Automotive doesn't count?

:biggrin: They make electric milk floats & other types of 'truckish' vehicles...

[PeterW]

A vehicle with a range of 40 miles and a top speed of 28 mph is far from a practical truck. More like a maxi golf cart.

[macphanatic]

We need to start fixing our electrical infrastructure to accommodate wide scale adoption of electric vehicles. We've mothballed coal and nuclear plants and haven't built many new electrical generation plants. The electric grid in the Northeast is beyond obsolete. Don't think anything has been done in California to reduce the need for rolling brown/blackouts.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

GM had the premiere electric vehicle 24 years ago but decided it was too much of a challenge to corner the world market on battery materials. GM is partnering with Honda, but Honda is dragging their ass on making an electric vehicles. For the Odyssey, they are forcing people that want a hybrid minivan to buy the more expensive Acura version.

BMW doesn't make pickup trucks. They already have one full electric, and PHEV versions of most vehicles they make.

Toyota has hybrid versions of nearly every model (Lexus too) except the pickup trucks.

Infrastructure isn't too critical if EV owners have high power chargers that only run at night. Consumers can help solve the grid problem by investing in community solar projects if their homes are not a good match for solar.

[sekker]

Filliam H. Muffman wrote:
GM had the premiere electric vehicle 24 years ago but decided it was too much of a challenge to corner the world market on battery materials. GM is partnering with Honda, but Honda is dragging their ass on making an electric vehicles. For the Odyssey, they are forcing people that want a hybrid minivan to buy the more expensive Acura version.

BMW doesn't make pickup trucks. They already have one full electric, and PHEV versions of most vehicles they make.

Toyota has hybrid versions of nearly every model (Lexus too) except the pickup trucks.

Infrastructure isn't too critical if EV owners have high power chargers that only run at night. Consumers can help solve the grid problem by investing in community solar projects if their homes are not a good match for solar.

The problem with next generation EVs is that the drive trains should be able to last 1 million miles, and the main new tech is all the self-driving and user features.

Anyone used the M$ version of Android Auto or Car Play? Ford sold them for sure. How terrible that was?

Well, it's what most car manufacturers think owners want. Uh - no.

There is a REASON Car Play and Android Auto are now on the market. But those are really intermediate solutions to be add-ons.

Drive a Tesla, you will see where future cars will be. Not drive train, just how the software works. I think google will get there - if nothing else thanks to their great voice recognition. Apple? No way.

I can see a world where google is the software partner to up to 10 car manufacturers, all competing with Tesla and a few others that make decent DIY software. Have not used BMW, but I think Tesla is years ahead of most everyone (a lead I expect then to lose in the next decade).

[N-OS X-tasy!]

sekker wrote:
'Nikola has produce exactly 0 production vehicles. Tesla has more vehicles in space than Nikola has even produced.'

Oooh.... electric BURN! miley-laughing001:

[jdc]

Wags wrote:
In my company we looked hard at going electric and the biggest problems for us were initial cost, range and charging time between shifts. Perhaps the next iteration of electric vehicles would change that. $20-25K is the upper range for us in per vehicle cost, range has to be a couple hundred miles and charging time needs to be less than a half hour in order to facilitate 2 shifts per day.

Great to have your insight.

What about fuel or maintenance costs? Assuming those were factored into cars initial cost too?

I mean range is covered easy, but I get the charging time. It would have to be some sort of complex rotation schedule.

Any insight as to rider approval? or loyalty? As in more riders would prefer your company over another cause you are using electric cars?