All vehicles plummet in range pulling heavy loads at high speed. You notice it more in a vehicle with careful range estimation, and slower refuling. If you need to drive 600 miles a day pulling a heavy trailer, EVs don't work for you right now. Similarly my wife's Toyota Camry does not work for that either.

I'm not trying to take sides, but electric cars seem vastly simpler from a mechanical perspective.

I'm sure they have complicated electronics, but most modern cars do as well and those aren't components people typically work on.

Just consider the electric vehicle has no transmission, no drive train, no oil. It doesn't have most of what cars have under the hood.

EVs have less than 20 moving parts in their drivetrain. Scheduled maintenance is brake fluid every few years (as it absorbs moisture over time), cabin air filter every 2-3 years, and tire rotations (~7k miles) and replacements (as needed). Brake pads and rotors under normal duty cycles should last the life of the vehicle due to aggressive regenerative braking (at least that's what Tesla is seeing).

It's possible that they do last longer, but the track record is not there yet. There are a lot of Toyota vehicles with over 1M miles, you can look up high mileage Toyotas for sale. That does not yet exist with Teslas. I have heard (not first hand) of Tesla having some quality problems, so immediately jumping to the conclusion that they are future proof seems like a mistake.

> but electric cars seem vastly simpler from a mechanical perspective.

The electric motor is simpler than an ICE, yes.

OTOH, a modern (and by modern I mean anything in the last ~30 years) ICE engine is supremely reliable, so it's a wash.

Most repair time isn't from having to fix the engine or motor anyway, it's the whole rest of the car.

We have a a Fiat 500e (EV) now sitting it's fourth week (not continuous) at the dealer to get window regulator problems fixed. Those types of problems have nothing to do with whether the car was an EV model or the ICE model.

Mechanically simpler, but (at least in Tesla's case) can be harder to get replacement parts for. Obviously their repair network isn't going to be as complete as a more established brand, but it doesn't really sound like they're prioritizing repairability at all.

That's true, but it seems to be an issue with Tesla as a company rather than electric vehicles as a product.

Fair point. Unfortunately it's a trend I've already seen over the last decade with battery-operated power tools, and they-re a simplified and scaled-down version of electric car drivetrains.

Pretty much all modern brushless power tools, while mechanically simpler than their brushed cousins, require a full motor and control module replacement when something as simple as the switch fails.

Don't get me wrong, I do believe that electric propulsion is the future for efficient transport and that gas isn't a long-term solution going forward. It just seems to me the marketing and hype have gotten ahead of the current offerings, and I worry the 'scrap it and get a new one' approach employed often by tech companies will end up being applied to cars as well.

It's hard to get replacement parts for Teslas because every single part they make is put into a new car and sold.

There is no extra capacity producing spare parts to sit on shelves.

> The new electric trucks plummet on mileage if they are carrying weight.

Source? Supposedly the F-150 Lightning numbers are including 1000 lbs of cargo. So a full cabin of people still supposedly getting the stated 300 miles on a full charge (For the extended range.)

Just look it up? I think it was part of many press questions regarding the truck, including Car & Driver. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a36481590/ford-f150-lightn...

"Applying these results to the F-150 means that towing a modest trailer would put the highway range at roughly 100 to 125 miles, depending on the pack. Towing anywhere near the 10,000-pound maximum rating on XLT and Lariat models (with the maximum trailer tow package and extended-range battery) at highway speeds, we believe you'd be hard pressed to exceed double-digit miles."

Ohhh there was this YouTube video (from Motortend?) showing a model X in tow that had a drastic reduction in range when towing a trailer.

Now compare that to the LandCruiser that we haul race cars with… the LC always gets 14 mpg, we have filled it with 6 adults going to Tahoe, same MPG. Haul a 2700lbs sports car. Doesn’t change at all.

Honestly an EV would be nice for hauling stuff to the track, hopefully with the race car, and equipment it can make it to Willows on a single charge, at least the track has RV hookup points, can charge while you race.

> Now compare that to the LandCruiser that we haul race cars with… the LC always gets 14 mpg, we have filled it with 6 adults going to Tahoe, same MPG. Haul a 2700lbs sports car. Doesn’t change at all.

This is physically impossible unless the LandCruiser is just throwing energy away when empty.

What's more likely is that this estimate is not very precise.

It is believable. Towing is more about wind resistance than about mass. A car on a trailer is probably sitting mostly in the slipstream of the LC (they are not very aerodynamically shaped) and so not contributing much to the total wind load. Also engines to a point become more efficient under load. All told, there probably isn't a noticeable difference.

Of course we are talking about towing a light sports car here. Tow a different type off trailer, or a very heavy load and the losses will start to catch up.

In addition to wind drag, the additional weight contributes to the acceleration work required by the engine. This acceleration is occurring during cruise speeds as well as starting from rest (you can tell because your car engine is louder during cruise speeds than it is while the car is idling from rest.) Anything towed or carried contributes to the weight of the car which means the car is accelerating more weight. The curve isn’t perfectly linear with additional weight, as you noted, but the reduced MPG is measurable with a number of passengers in the car, let alone a towed car. A reduction of only 10-25% mileage might not be noticeable to a less observant driver but that isn’t to say it’s effectively the same.

Considering the LandCruiser is pretty much a box with maximal air resistance, it might actually get more aerodynamic by adding the trailer to it :p. So the difference while trailing would be much smaller than adding a trailer to an aerodynamic car. Energy consumption when trailing with constant speed is mostly about aerodynamics.

I live and have lived in a "rural" environment for most of my life.