9,000 Miles Of Proof: Electric Trucks Can Tow, But Battery Size Is Everything

4 days ago by Midnight to c/electricvehicles

Support CleanTechnica's work through a Substack subscription or on Stripe. A couple of years ago, I wrote an article titled “We May Have Been Wrong To Mock GM’s Big Battery Approach To Electric Trucks.” Back then, it was incredibly easy to point and laugh at vehicles like the Hummer EV ... [continued]

Steve 19 points 3 days ago

They argue that trucks need massive batteries for towing. And so they should include them.

I'd offer a counter argument that range extenders should a standardized option. A modular box in the bed that you can add a number of 40lb batteries to. That way you can buy and carry however much range as you may need.

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Einskjaldi 10 points 3 days ago

I concur, because the fact is that 80%of tricks arejust glorified minivans and never tow a trailer. But the batteries are the limiting and expensive part so if you put huge batteries in every truck then you can only make half the trucks you could make otherwise.

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reddig33 6 points 3 days ago

The truck featured in the article offers the larger battery pack as an option at the time of purchase. It’s not mandatory. They sell standard, extended, and max range versions.

I wonder if truck manufacturers could standardize on a battery extender connection, so that RV and other trailer manufacturers could put batteries in the RV/Trailer that the car could tap into.

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artyom 8 points 3 days ago

I would argue a better solution is more and faster charging.

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Steve 9 points 3 days ago

Then you're still stopping every hour, or every 60-80 miles. Even if it's for a 2min charge, that gets annoying.

The issue is that towing a brick through the air kills range. It's a fact that can't really be avoided. You just need more storage to over come.

Another option is to put batteries in the trailer. I thought of that for long haul trucks.

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artyom 4 points 3 days ago

60-80 miles!? What kind of vehicle are you talking about? Towing a trailer can vary quite a bit but it's generally ~50% of normal range. So in a 300 mile vehicle, that's 150 miles, or 2.5 hours of driving.

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Steve 8 points 3 days ago

Did you read the article?
You should read the article.

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AlecSadler 5 points 3 days ago

This article is shit. I tow 9,000lbs fine in my EV and get about 1.25mi / kW.

The charging infrastructure does, indeed, suck. 10000%. But that's America. With careful planning I'm not stopping for more than 20-30 minutes which gives me time to get snacks, stretch, and use a bathroom.

In my own use, I'm never towing further than needing to stop 1-2 times so it's fine.

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cravl 1 point 2 days ago

I would argue a better solution is standardizing batteries to enable swapping stations. Much less need for fast charging then. Excess banked batteries could also double as grid storage. It's been done before, but not cross-brand as far as I've seen.

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quick_snail 3 points 3 days ago

When you apply that 60% most-usable window to a 130 kWh battery, you only have 78 kWh to work with. At 0.9 miles/kWh, your leg-to-leg towing range shrinks to exactly 70 miles. If you are driving 65 miles per hour, you are stopping to charge every 65 minutes.

That actually doesn't sound very good, but I guess there's a fuck load of charging stations in the US now?!?

This means that we spent more time driving than charging, often by a ratio of 3:1 (1.5 hours driving for a half hour charging)

Well, it works

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quick_snail 2 points 3 days ago

Wow, the future is now

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