It certainly seems that, when it comes to electric vehicles such as pickup trucks, there’s a ways to go before they become practical for multi-useful purposes. What I have in mind with that statement is the possibility to put a slide-in camper on a long bed pickup truck.
I’ve looked at Rivian, Ford and Tesla. All appear to emphasize camping trailers for pickup usage. At the same time the emphasis is on horsepower and hauling capacity. That implies that efforts to reduce weight in the frames is at work in order to highlight range as a sales pitch.
I notice that the Ford F150 Lightning’s batteries are Nickel Manganese. I’m not sure how Ford gets around the charge degradation using a NI based battery. Having worked at the Space Center near Webster, TX, I was told during a briefing of the Moon Rover that the NI based batteries had to be kept fully charged to avoid battery degradation. But that was in 1971.
So here we go, back to diesel or high capacity gas models to get adequate frame capacity.
This post IS NOT MEANT to advertise any particular brand of truck. What is meant is to highlight range statistics across the expanding range of available manufacturers, including Rivian, that are purposefully avoiding one of the more common usages of pickup trucks; that being the capability to accommodate slide-in campers. Obviously such capability could be engineered into a structurally sound pickup truck, except for the fact that range estimates would be severely impacted (without the camper). So it looks like something akin to long bed gas or diesel pickup trucks will be the only viable option into the foreseeable future.
I also notice that avoidance of the inclusion of air conditioning is absent from electric pickup truck descriptions; an obvious additional effort to pad range statistics. So it’s doubtful anyone would take mortal risks driving any of these on a hot summers day in Death Valley.
I’ve looked at Rivian, Ford and Tesla. All appear to emphasize camping trailers for pickup usage. At the same time the emphasis is on horsepower and hauling capacity. That implies that efforts to reduce weight in the frames is at work in order to highlight range as a sales pitch.
I notice that the Ford F150 Lightning’s batteries are Nickel Manganese. I’m not sure how Ford gets around the charge degradation using a NI based battery. Having worked at the Space Center near Webster, TX, I was told during a briefing of the Moon Rover that the NI based batteries had to be kept fully charged to avoid battery degradation. But that was in 1971.
So here we go, back to diesel or high capacity gas models to get adequate frame capacity.
This post IS NOT MEANT to advertise any particular brand of truck. What is meant is to highlight range statistics across the expanding range of available manufacturers, including Rivian, that are purposefully avoiding one of the more common usages of pickup trucks; that being the capability to accommodate slide-in campers. Obviously such capability could be engineered into a structurally sound pickup truck, except for the fact that range estimates would be severely impacted (without the camper). So it looks like something akin to long bed gas or diesel pickup trucks will be the only viable option into the foreseeable future.
I also notice that avoidance of the inclusion of air conditioning is absent from electric pickup truck descriptions; an obvious additional effort to pad range statistics. So it’s doubtful anyone would take mortal risks driving any of these on a hot summers day in Death Valley.