Tesla Cybertruck pickup truck

[dhcomp]

Not unless Tesla has improved their build quality.

Tesla had some build quality issues, especially during early model 3 production ramp.
But they have improved significantly. Lots of “recent” articles online citing this.

https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/a28008116/tesla-model-3-build-quality-bob-lutz/

 

[dhcomp]

Not only that, but it takes too long to recharge.
IMO, this electric stuff won’t really take off untill the batteries can be recharged in the time it takes to fill up a gas tank. I know the technology is there with the flash capacitor type battery stuff but it is small scale like phones and watch size stuff.

Detailed specs are available on charge times for the truck, but I can update this claim based on the cars.
The new v3 Tesla Superchargers are good for 3/4 of a charge in 15 min. On a model 3, that’s 200+ miles in less time that most people stop for coffee and to take a leak.

while these stations aren’t as common as gas stations, the map coverage is changing very quickly. I’ve been driving a model 3 for a year and 30k miles now, and it’s not too big of an inconvenience considering the cost savings vs gas. You also have to remember that it makes sense to charge at home, so you start each day with a full tank. Charge times are only a discussion on days that you drive more than 300 miles.

 

[dhcomp]

That and the replacement of batteries and electronics. The docs I work with are already having their model s worked on all the time. With only a 50k warranty a lot of the docs I work with are shelling out lots of money to keep their cars on the road.


The docs I work with commute about 140 miles a day, so it works for them to get to and from on a single charge while under warranty. But as often as I see the Tesla repair trucks in the parking lot it makes me wonder. One doc had his touch screen go out. He said it was like a 14k repair. Ouch

Always sucks to hear about repair issues like this. While they do happen, I think the corner cases tend to get more press than they deserve. Ex: My brother in law almost got his new chevy bought back under the lemon law, but no one talks much of that

From my personal experience, many mobile service visits are for small items, and it saves the customer the trip to the service center. Tesla is trying to do as much work mobile as they can, as long as it doesn't' require a lift.

The touch screen dying sucks, but last time i looked into it, that should be covered under warranty.


As for batteries and power electronics lifespans, they are getting very good. Design life span for drive units is now 1 million miles. Some fleet car services in CA have old model S's, with the non-tesla made batteries, hitting over 1 million miles on a battery pack.

 

[anwat]

@anwat It has to do with size and weight of the batteries. As companies figure out how to improve the power density of the batteries, the range will increase. I saw a video of the cummins class 7 concept big rig and it had a range of 100 miles, and the battery was the size and weight equivalent to a 12 liter diesel.

Maybe they could use a diesel generator on the rig to produce electricity so they can recharge the batteries while they drive...kind of like a train locomotive!

 

[anwat]

I’ll pick off a few and respond. Just not enough hours in the day to respond to this many posts

edited: you are correct, this is best done here not in PM’s. I’m working through some of the posts.

Don’t worry, I’m not here to justify its appearance.

On the note of real information, then, I'm sure someone has done a comparison between the impact on the environment posed by driving a gas engine car 100,000 miles and then disposing of it vs. the impact of an electric car. Is the difference that great? The electricity has to come from somewhere, and it's usually fossil fuel. Plus the mining of battery materials, and the disposal of those materials seems like it would pretty much be a wash in the end. Anyone with some actual facts, lets hear what they are!

 

[dyeager535]

If the information I found is correct, at todays rate, in my locality, a gallon of gas (36kWh) would cost me $2.88 in electricity. Is there cost savings in the way the vehicle is fueled? That's roughly what I pay for gas.

I don't think the EV model is based on saving money for the consumer. It seems to be based on saving the planet. I'm not saying that is good or bad, I am just confused about the end goal. Making money as a goal is acceptable. lol

If I get 100K out of a $16k car, my last calculation came out to something around $.20/mile. Gas, oil changes, tires, insurance, etc. I would expect in a couple of years, that $16K car will be $18-19K, but getting 50MPG, like the gas VW I drove a couple months back. Granted, from what I understand, even the base model Tesla has things that would raise the price of a base gas car as options.

PERSONALLY the "E" ratings have confused me. My energy bill is in kWh. I know how much a kWh costs me. I know how much a gallon of gas costs me. I know how many miles I can go per gallon of gas. I know how many kWh are in a gallon. Why do I have to go through some ridiculous process to even attempt to figure out how much a mile will cost me in electricity for an EV? If I didn't care about money, and only whether or not I was killing whales by driving a gas car, then none of that matters I suppose.

15 minute charges to go 200 miles would be acceptable to me, for the distances I regularly drive.

I'm under no illusion that the range will improve as long as they are selling EV's. At this point though, it still seems like a small number of people would be well served by an EV, the rest see negatives in term of range, charging speed, locations of chargers, and ultimately, cost.

 

[dhcomp]

On the note of real information, then, I'm sure someone has done a comparison between the impact on the environment posed by driving a gas engine car 100,000 miles and then disposing of it vs. the impact of an electric car. Is the difference that great? The electricity has to come from somewhere, and it's usually fossil fuel. Plus the mining of battery materials, and the disposal of those materials seems like it would pretty much be a wash in the end. Anyone with some actual facts, lets hear what they are!

there are some good reports out there, for sure.

2 things I can comment on:
While much of our electrical grid power is coming from renewable sources, what we do know is that the generation of that power is getting cleaner every day. Each day, more sustainable generation is coming online. Therefore, when powered off these sources, an electric vehicle gets “cleaner” over time. Versus a gasoline car that stays the same ( or gets worse as it gets older).

Battery cell recycling: these cells are highly recyclable, and contain a lot of valuable materials. Most of which can be recovered and reused through proper processes.
Partial explanation here:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cn...dwood-materials-recycling-expands-nevada.html

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/06/0...ent-batteries-wants-to-do-more-in-the-future/

 

[dhcomp]

If the information I found is correct, at todays rate, in my locality, a gallon of gas (36kWh) would cost me $2.88 in electricity. Is there cost savings in the way the vehicle is fueled? That's roughly what I pay for gas.

I don't think the EV model is based on saving money for the consumer. It seems to be based on saving the planet. I'm not saying that is good or bad, I am just confused about the end goal. Making money as a goal is acceptable. lol

If I get 100K out of a $16k car, my last calculation came out to something around $.20/mile. Gas, oil changes, tires, insurance, etc. I would expect in a couple of years, that $16K car will be $18-19K, but getting 50MPG, like the gas VW I drove a couple months back. Granted, from what I understand, even the base model Tesla has things that would raise the price of a base gas car as options.

PERSONALLY the "E" ratings have confused me. My energy bill is in kWh. I know how much a kWh costs me. I know how much a gallon of gas costs me. I know how many miles I can go per gallon of gas. I know how many kWh are in a gallon. Why do I have to go through some ridiculous process to even attempt to figure out how much a mile will cost me in electricity for an EV? If I didn't care about money, and only whether or not I was killing whales by driving a gas car, then none of that matters I suppose.

15 minute charges to go 200 miles would be acceptable to me, for the distances I regularly drive.

I'm under no illusion that the range will improve as long as they are selling EV's. At this point though, it still seems like a small number of people would be well served by an EV, the rest see negatives in term of range, charging speed, locations of chargers, and ultimately, cost.

I REALLY like where you are going with this, but I think you are making some incorrect assumptions.

You are assuming that a gas car and an electric car go the same distance on a kWh of power. This is incorrect. The ev is vastly more efficient, with way less losses to friction (less moving parts) and heat (combustion/result of friction)

What you calculated was the cost to purchase a kWh of energy in electricity vs gasoline. What you want to calculate is cost per mile of using that energy for transportation.

To run numbers, you need a cost per kwh assumption, cost per gallon, a MPG assumption, and a wh/mile assumption.
In my rough calcs, i just used $4/gal, $0.15/kwh, 28mpg (my last commuter), and 281wh/mi (lifetime consumption average on my car, which is HIGH. I drive this thing like i stole it)

That roughly shows $0.042/mile for the model 3, and $0.142/mile for the bmw. The bmw being more than 3x the cost per mile.

This is a difficult place to do these calcs, but its possible.

Another topic is the $16k car above. The reasonable comparison of Model 3 is the $30-60k car. Yes, a $16k car is going to be pretty cheap per mile, but that isn't necessarily the relevant comparison.

I'm also super confused by the MPGe numbers, i never look at them.

Glad to hear this conversation going into the numbers!

 

[ktmoutfront]

My head hurts.

 

[dhcomp]

My head hurts.

Meeee toooo. Exactly why I kept quiet on this thread until now. But i failed to keep my mouth closed. haha

 

[campfire]

Meeee toooo. Exactly why I kept quiet on this thread until now. But i failed to keep my mouth closed. haha

Yes you did!

I'm a numbers guy. I've run the cost numbers on every vehicle I've owned, and I wouldn't buy a vehicle without tabulating the TOTAL cost of ownership, counting maintenance, insurance, tax, and depreciation. In that vein, the cheapest car I've ever owned, per mile, was...

<wait for it>

My 1986 CUCV. It appreciated in value faster than it consumed money, and my commute was short enough that the higher fuel cost still didn't add up to much.

I'd gladly test-drive your Tesla. The specs look great on paper, if you can get used to the range anxiety. But if I bought their cheapest Model 3, drove it for 200,000 miles, and it NEVER required maintenance, and the batteries never wore out, and it held its value better than most cars...it would still be 2-3 times the overall cost of what I'm driving now. Not even counting the opportunity cost of sinking $39.5k into a car instead of $2k. At 5% the lost interest alone would buy me a new beater car every year.

For someone expecting to spend $60k, it makes some sense. But it's still a lot more expensive than similar-sized gasoline commuter cars. After 200k miles, a Tesla 3 has still cost more than a brand new Cruze, even if it never broke down (and assuming the Cruze does!). And we all know cars don't do that. You can insert your own luxury car of choice, if you don't like that comparison. But setting the bar higher will only make the point more clear: Tesla markets and prices their cars as luxury goods, not as workhorses. Luxury cars are not bought for practical reasons. Crunching the practicality numbers only highlights how Tesla's products don't fit my lifestyle. People wanting cheap cars don't buy brand new ones, and they definitely don't buy new luxury ones.

A used Volt, on the other hand, could be almost as cheap as my old beater...

 

[dhcomp]

Yes you did!

I'm a numbers guy. I've run the cost numbers on every vehicle I've owned, and I wouldn't buy a vehicle without tabulating the TOTAL cost of ownership, counting maintenance, insurance, tax, and depreciation. In that vein, the cheapest car I've ever owned, per mile, was...

<wait for it>

My 1986 CUCV. It appreciated in value faster than it consumed money, and my commute was short enough that the higher fuel cost still didn't add up to much.

I'd gladly test-drive your Tesla. The specs look great on paper, if you can get used to the range anxiety. But if I bought their cheapest Model 3, drove it for 200,000 miles, and it NEVER required maintenance, and the batteries never wore out, and it held its value better than most cars...it would still be 2-3 times the overall cost of what I'm driving now. Not even counting the opportunity cost of sinking $39.5k into a car instead of $2k. At 5% the lost interest alone would buy me a new beater car every year.

For someone expecting to spend $60k, it makes some sense. But it's still a lot more expensive than similar-sized gasoline commuter cars. After 200k miles, a Tesla 3 has still cost more than a brand new Cruze, even if it never broke down (and assuming the Cruze does!). And we all know cars don't do that. You can insert your own luxury car of choice, if you don't like that comparison. But setting the bar higher will only make the point more clear: Tesla markets and prices their cars as luxury goods, not as workhorses. Luxury cars are not bought for practical reasons. Crunching the practicality numbers only highlights how Tesla's products don't fit my lifestyle. People wanting cheap cars don't buy brand new ones, and they definitely don't buy new luxury ones.

A used Volt, on the other hand, could be almost as cheap as my old beater...

You make very valid points. And your choice in vehicles and length of ownership is very different than the average consumer. Add that to your short commute, and I agree, your business case it totally different.


Whether it makes financial sense or not, many people regularly finance 20-40k+. Some of those people hold for 10 yrs, some replace every 3-5. This is a more typical buyer for the Model 3 product, that runs from $39-$60k. When you start to make the comparison between a 30k car and the $39k model 3, or a bmw 3 series vs one of the more expensive ones, the cost of ownership starts getting a lot lower for electric.

I’ve owned 8 bmws from $500 to 30k. Earlier ones I drove to high mileage, later ones Until extended warranties ended. Fuel and maintenance (which I completed 100% myself) was a major cost of ownership. The crazy thing is, when you cut fuel down to electricity rates ( or charge at work ), and remove most regular maintenance, the Tesla numbers start to make a lot of sense. Assuming depreciation is similar, I’m saving money each month driving a 2018 model 3 vs the 2014 bmw. This is where the numbers get interesting.


But, enough about my specific use case. This is a really interesting article on how longevity and low maintenance costs are making fleet owners look into electric.

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/11/23/500000-miles-in-a-tesla-whats-the-result/

 

[centexk5]

I think electric for fleet is a huge market. Mass transit. Trucking. That's where I want to see electric surge and survive first.

 

[campfire]

And your choice in vehicles and length of ownership is very different than the average consumer.

Hahaha. Yes, that is very true.

( or charge at work ),

That's cheating!

This is a really interesting article on how longevity and low maintenance costs are making fleet owners look into electric.

This is the most interesting part of EVs for me. If they really do last 500k, the used car market could look quite different in a few years. Most cars are junk after 200k.

 

[dhcomp]

This is the most interesting part of EVs for me. If they really do last 500k, the used car market could look quite different in a few years. Most cars are junk after 200k.

Hopefully the rest of the car holds up. Will be interesting, only time will tell. I haven't kept a commuter past 120k in 3 cars. And when putting 30-35k on a commuter, that could mean a few extra years. Definitely planning to test this one out well past 100k!

 

[dhcomp]

I think electric for fleet is a huge market. Mass transit. Trucking. That's where I want to see electric surge and survive first.

This is definitely a big market. And the Tesla semi is out next year, so it will get proven way before the Cybertruck. With such a large percentage of trucking either within a 200 mile radius (400ish mile round trip), or owned by the same customer on both ends (walmart shipping to walmart store), Electric makes a ton of sense. For those purposes, Tesla doesn't even need to own charging stations for this vehicles. Long haul will require semi superchargers though.

Add in the active safety features, tons of torque, and low maintenance, they start looking really appealing. The unloaded semi outruns the base model 3 in 0-60

 

[dhcomp]

So, back to the truck.

Rather than thinking of us on this forum, who love and drive the hell out of our old trucks, some for work, some for play, think of a "typical" contractor.

Dude, his dog, maybe his buddy. Truck is their life. Drive to/from jobsite. Varied commutes, sometimes far. Wants lockable storage, towing capacity, good mileage. Often runs a generator or compressor for hours on end at a jobsite. All of a sudden, this generator isn't needed. The large capacity battery would get them to the jobsite, act in place of a decent size jobsite generator (120v and 240v outlets onboard), provide some basic air, and then drive home. Could be recharged at home/office/shop off peak, at low night time rates. Not needing to deal with protecting, maintaining, fueling, etc. a generator is huge.

Another big one. Many people like this spend HOURS on end in their trucks on a jobsite. Phone calls, computer time, mobile office, etc. This translates to hours and hours of runtime when A/C or Heat is wanted. Electric is able to maintain cabin comforts all day, charge computer, power a printer, etc. without hardly making a dent in battery usage.

On the current project i'm on, my Model 3 is my office. It's amazing. Hot, cold, I can sit and comfortably work for hours without leaving a fuel burning motor idling.

Payment or cost of truck is easily rolled into business cost, just like the last 5 F150's (or dare i say F250's).

Just more food for thought.

 

[centexk5]

I work in my truck at jobsites so I get the benefit to that. And if the project is running on generators or doesn't have permanent power, my truck charging needs come second to the job schedule so I'd be leary of using all of that fancy built in generator and ac/heat. I also know that out in the boondocks I can fix a Chevy//Ford//dodge with the same tools or parts as the Cat backhoe and excavator. I can also pick up parts for them at the nearest mom and pop shop. There's also the looks of that thing which is just what the *"$#.

For the person that uses a truck as a status symbol or because they haul a bag of mulch in the bed to justify their truck, the Tesla hits the mark (other than looks, just wtf was your CEO thinking). For those of us who expect these things to perform day in and out in some of the harshest environments out there and whose very jobs rely on our trucks, it's safe to say these things are going to have to prove themselves. It had to be done when man invented the ICE and started pushing that instead of the horse and buggy and it's going to have to be done now. Hell I've got an uncle that would rather use a mule than a tractor.

Personally, my eye is on the Rivian.

 

[dhcomp]

The interesting tidbit about reliability is how many fewer moving parts there are. Yes, the power electronics and the like need to prove themselves, but there is so much less to go wrong in the drivetrain. If something does, I get your point, it may be tough to fix. But if your chance of breakdown is so much lower, is it a win? Time will tell.

In regard to the generator, it’s not actually an onboard gen. It’s just an inverter (maybe the charging inverter? I don’t know) using the battery to create ac power.
My comment about heat / ac was just in the cabin. Just like if you sat with your truck idling.

all good discussion.

 

[Blue85]

How big of an air compressor or welder can you run off the built-in inverter? Tesla should capitalize off this by offering some serious AC output. After all, they don't have to start at 12V like a normal car and draw 200A to start a compressor motor, they only need 6A off the 400V battery pack. An 85kWh battery pack could theoretically provide 15A @ 110VAC for 51 hours. Does the warranty allow aftermarket add-ons?