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 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
It looks like even a glancing blow from one could destroy a sedan, killing a family of 4. If the kind of people who drive Teslas upgrade to the cyber truck, the roads will be far deadlier for everyone else.

There's been a number of articles attempting to flesh this idea out. Tesla apparently has claimed that it's made this thing super stiff so that the sheets won't crumple or flex. . . So, they don't have a crumple zone? No pedestrian/cyclist safety features at all?

Like, this thing should probably have been axed by regulators, but they don't have a spine.

The infrastructure is getting better for EVs, but it is still a long ways from the gas station at every corner.

Time to charge is also not horrible with the newer chargers, but still not gas-and-go. A few times a year I drive from New York to Kentucky. It’s about 12 hours of time on the highway, and just about the limit of what can be done in one day. With range limitations and charge times, I think it would push it over the edge to un-doable. Just too much time waiting at rest stops. Which admittedly have a lot more charge ports than they did a few years ago. My needs as a driver are just not met. But I get that’s a very personal metric.

I have a couple people I know with EVs. They work just fine for local puttering around/commuting. And have come a long way. My former BIL was an early adopter, and he had some severe limitations on range, charge times, and locations he could go.

As for the Cyber Truck? It seems like it might not have the bed space that a person who needs a truck would want, but most people who drive trucks probably don’t use the space they have. A lot of people drive trucks for the attitude and appearance, not for the need. Which can also be said for a lot of other people/styles, so is not unique to them. I do worry about the “ruggedness” and safety. The fact that modern cars crumple like accordions is to protect the people inside. Being bulletproof might keep you safe from drive-by shootings, but kill you in an accident where all the force is transferred to the passengers without being absorbed buy the frame.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
It looks like even a glancing blow from one could destroy a sedan, killing a family of 4. If the kind of people who drive Teslas upgrade to the cyber truck, the roads will be far deadlier for everyone else.

Eh, to be fair, all SUVs are complete trash when it comes to road safety, they obliterate smaller cars, pedestrians (doubly so because you can't frakking see anyone short from it!), animals, name it, they should be banned if simply for road safety, never mind the fact have terrible fuel economy (triply so in case of 95% of these disgraces carrying 1 occupant + air) and greatly contribute to global pollution and climate change. They are the problem that already has dozens of solutions, none of which are even remotely as dangerous to society.

The problem with Cybertruck is that it combines the above garbage with completely idiotic idea, namely bulletproof glass and panels. This means you can't kick out windows in emergency (like, oh, battery fire), firefighters can't get you out by breaking windows or prying the doors off, and in case of crash, the car structure doesn't function like crumple zone every car made after 80s has, but instead transfer all the crash energy into the occupant. This can turn even safety belts and steering wheel into a mortal danger instead of something saving your life like it should.

 Jadenim wrote:
The thing people always forget with EVs (whether battery, hydrogen or other) is that you are comparing them with a technology that’s had well over a century of development and refinement, whereas people have only seriously been looking at EVs for road use for maybe 20-years. Now, you can jumpstart things a bit due to general technological development in other areas, but it is going to take time to get equivalence.

Maybe in UK/USA with their ICE fetish, but Europe/Asia had these things called trains/trams/trolleybuses/cars/[insert dozens other vehicle types] which were mass produced 100% electric for close to a century now (you're aware electric cars are nearly 200 years old now, yes?) and they all developed the same technologies other EVs need. They problem with electric vehicles is far more social/legal than technological.

Fun fact, communist Poland started electric car program (Melex) in 1971 and it's still being produced with upgrades being continuously added 50 years later. Yes, these don't make good vanity sports cars but they found dozens of uses over the years, despite having short range and heavy lead batteries for most of their production run. I remember seeing them a lot in private hands here deep into 90s when flood of cheap, old, junk used western scrap cars pretty much pushed them out of public space as they weren't glamorous enough to compete and are now being mostly used in commercial roles but again, this is social not technological issue as they were always perfectly fine vehicles:

The main thing preventing the US from really embracing EVs is that range problem. Europeans just don't get how freaking big the US is. US cities are not close in affairs where everything is in walking distance or has public transportation everywhere. The average commute distance in the US is 41 miles(65km). Factor in that you are limited when you want to go longer distances by availability of charging stations, needing to set up a charging station at home(just not an option for some people), and the hassle of waiting for a charge, and its just not worth it. Sure, most of the time its not a big deal, but when that extra time and some areas not having infrastructure hits you its a very big deal.

If you had EVs with massive ranges more people might accept the hassle of longish charge times and be able to make do with not having a station at home. If it took an hour to charge but you got 1000 miles out of it then even I could accept if I had to go to a public charger once every 2 weeks.

Irbis wrote:

 Jadenim wrote:
The thing people always forget with EVs (whether battery, hydrogen or other) is that you are comparing them with a technology that’s had well over a century of development and refinement, whereas people have only seriously been looking at EVs for road use for maybe 20-years. Now, you can jumpstart things a bit due to general technological development in other areas, but it is going to take time to get equivalence.

Maybe in UK/USA with their ICE fetish, but Europe/Asia had these things called trains/trams/trolleybuses/cars/[insert dozens other vehicle types] which were mass produced 100% electric for close to a century now (you're aware electric cars are nearly 200 years old now, yes?) and they all developed the same technologies other EVs need. They problem with electric vehicles is far more social/legal than technological.

Oh, I’m well aware of our disastrous abandonment of electric public transport and the very tepid efforts that have been made to rectify that in the past thirty years or so, but the technologies needed for a 10+tonne vehicle directly connected to an external electrical supply do not directly translate into a 1-2 tonne battery vehicle (and even less so for hydrogen). They help somewhat (which was what I was referring to as “general technological development”), but personal EVs are a unique application that requires specific development, and we are only somewhat into that. I am also aware that EVs were a very real competitor to early ICE vehicles, but their development then got paused for a century when ICEs became dominant in the 1910s. Niche industrial vehicles and eco-fads (go look up the Gee-Whiz) are not the same as mass market consumer vehicles.

Grey Templar wrote:The main thing preventing the US from really embracing EVs is that range problem. Europeans just don't get how freaking big the US is. US cities are not close in affairs where everything is in walking distance or has public transportation everywhere. The average commute distance in the US is 41 miles(65km). Factor in that you are limited when you want to go longer distances by availability of charging stations, needing to set up a charging station at home(just not an option for some people), and the hassle of waiting for a charge, and its just not worth it. Sure, most of the time its not a big deal, but when that extra time and some areas not having infrastructure hits you its a very big deal.

If you had EVs with massive ranges more people might accept the hassle of longish charge times and be able to make do with not having a station at home. If it took an hour to charge but you got 1000 miles out of it then even I could accept if I had to go to a public charger once every 2 weeks.

The better thing would actually be to fix North American city design and stop subdividing rural areas and creating the associated suburban sprawl; encourage more compact cities where public transit (and healthy cycling and walking!) can work and you don’t need to drive everywhere. I think it was “not just bikes” who recently did an episode about the fact that “traditional” NA urban sprawl is also why a lot of cities struggle financially, as it doesn’t have the population density to be economically viable at acceptable tax rates, and is generally subsidised by the more European style dense urban areas in the centre. Unfortunately, that’s probably not going to happen (or is several decades off), so I agree with you that manufacturers will have to take the world as it is, not as it should be.

Signed: A British engineer who spends a lot of time in the US and hates inefficiency…

Addendum: ironically, the US is in the best position for home charging, given the prevalence of large garages/drives and I believe even a lot of apartments have associated parking structures (which is certainly not the norm here in the UK). Range is not so much of an issue if you can charge every night

 Haighus wrote:

 Waaagh_Gonads wrote:


I see a place for EVs as a small city/daily short commute vehicle, and nothing more.

I think they could work well for certain kinds of farm vehicle too (heavily country specific) as some farm vehicles aren't used for long periods of time.

Quite a few farmers near where I grew up would use a quadbike twice a day for some low-intensity work to move a cow herd to the milk palour and back. That would probably be perfect for an EV. Tractors during arable harvest time, not so much (unless you had exchangeable battery packs that could be swapped out when dropping off the load at the farm).

Of course, distances in the UK are pretty short on farms. This probably doesn't work for huge farms in the US or Australia!

JCB already sell electric excavators and telehandlers in the UK, presumably elsewhere too.

The interesting thing with the excavator is that without the noise you don't need a banksman, and you can use them indoors without needing additional ventilation. You can presumably also use them in 'quiet' hours depending on the job.

You can get electric quads too: https://eco-rider.co.uk/quad-bikes/explorer/
And electric tractors: https://www.fwi.co.uk/machinery/tractors/case-ih-and-new-holland-unveil-75hp-electric-tractors


It may be a while before the bigger stuff like harvesters are electric though.


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 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
It looks like even a glancing blow from one could destroy a sedan, killing a family of 4. If the kind of people who drive Teslas upgrade to the cyber truck, the roads will be far deadlier for everyone else.

There's been a number of articles attempting to flesh this idea out. Tesla apparently has claimed that it's made this thing super stiff so that the sheets won't crumple or flex. . . So, they don't have a crumple zone? No pedestrian/cyclist safety features at all?

Like, this thing should probably have been axed by regulators, but they don't have a spine.

I suspect that because it's a truck and not a car, the safety regulations are completely different?

Since there more recent generations of huge trucks are already a liability albeit they aren't *sharp*.

In addition to what Jadenim says, a 41 mile commute is doable for electric vehicles, although I accept that is the average (which average- mean? median? mode?) and therefore a good chunk of people drive further. Especially doable if charging points are available at the work destination.

My dad commutes 2 hours + of driving a day mostly over crappy, winding, variable-speed UK country roads (not an efficient route*) with an EV without issue, and that isn't an extended-range Tesla model but a Peugeot hatchback. There are charging ports at his workplace but he rarely uses them due to availability and doesn't need to. The actual distance is ~48 miles one way. He charges overnight.

Fully agree that the chief solution should be increased public transit with a focus on fixed infrastructure with overhead electrification, but that is a systemic approach that requires proper governmental investment. Basically any city over 100,000 population warrants at least an electrified tram (trolley in the US) though, and it is practical even at most US urban density.


*Rough, poor-quality asphalt and potholes predominate. Also quite a wet area of the country so inclement weather predominates. The route is relatively hilly too. Not a recipe for fuel economy.

 Jadenim wrote:

Addendum: ironically, the US is in the best position for home charging, given the prevalence of large garages/drives and I believe even a lot of apartments have associated parking structures (which is certainly not the norm here in the UK). Range is not so much of an issue if you can charge every night

Aye, in theory it all works. But you'd need to get all EV manufacturers to agree on a standardized plug because otherwise no landlord will bother investing in a charging station, and you'd need every parking space to have a charging station. My sister's old place had a parking lot with around 200 spaces, that would be very expensive to set up and maintain.

Its easier in single family homes, but again its an additional expense to install and its tied to the house itself. Are the residents also the owners or are they tenants? Who owns/is responsible for the charging station...

If only you could charge an EV on a standard 120v plug...

Herzlos wrote:


I suspect that because it's a truck and not a car, the safety regulations are completely different?

Since there more recent generations of huge trucks are already a liability albeit they aren't *sharp*.

Not really. . . in the US the safety aspect is pretty much the same. It's the CAFE standards that are different (but that's a different thread). . . And yeah, the most recent generations of emotional support vehicle are absolutely massive, and we are seeing an increase year on year, in deaths on American roadways. Speed, and vehicle size are two of the larger elements of the issue, things that Teslas do not really help with at all.