Why?
The thing is that ICE vehicles are so inefficient to begin with, but a towed trailer needs the same amount of energy regardless of what is towing it. Imagine a trailer takes 1 unit of energy to move, and ICE truck takes 5 units to move itself, and EV truck takes 1 unit to move itself.
The ICE truck towing it would go from 5 units to 6 units, reducing the range by 16%.
The EV truck would now go from 1 unit to 2 units, reducing the range by 50%.
So the better your efficiency, the worse you are at towing. Ideally EV trucks would have such a huge battery that even when the range is reduced by 50%, it is still as long as a gas truck's range, but modern battery technology is still too sucky to achieve this.
Once I discovered that the entire EV battery holds only 2 gallons-of-gas-worth of energy (roughly about 65kwh) , all of the range issues made a lot more sense.
With that type of reasoning, let me guess, the competitor you work for is General Motors?
A federal law could easily fix this though, but you would need an administration that cares about climate change or at least about EV
Excellent sleuthing, either way.
That doesn’t change the gist of your comment however - which is correct. (I’m a happy Bay Area Rivian owner who’s made that trip often)
How is your Rivian by the way? Is it in any way comparable to a cybertruck or is it just far and away better?
Ergonomics and ease of use are why people get cars. Ergnomics right now to me are reason why EV's in America don't sell well. Infrastructure. If every apartment complex and shopping mall had chargers or we had a novel way to charge a battery like an ICE engine then yeah it will take off. Culturally though I think we just love gas stations, emissions and pollusion.
An ICE vehicle isn't less efficient because it takes more energy to move, it's less efficient because the engine is inefficient, burning off a high percentage of its energy as waste heat.
But that will be true regardless of what the load is. If the ICE truck takes 5 units of energy to pull itself compared with 1 unit for the electric car, that implies that the the truck only actually requires 1 unit to pull, but the ICE engine burns off 80% of its energy as waste heat. The engine is only 20% efficient.
Now if you start pulling a trailer, you have (in total) 2 units of energy worth of load. But if the ICE engine is still only 20% efficient, then it will take 10 units to pull both, rather than 6.
I can believe that this effect is real (electric cars suffering more range loss when towing), but it seems to require an explanation beyond this one.
There's also that electric cars have a marginally better drag coefficients for a few reasons - ICE vehicles have a bot less incentive and they need to use more air for cooling - so the drag from a trailer will be worse, as a percentage extra, on the average electric vehicle.
Of course an ICE uses more fuel in absolute terms on a higher load than a lower one. But the proportion of fuel wasted compared to fuel turned into propulsion improves as load is increased (at least up to a point, maybe not all the way to absolute maximum load).
Electric systems also have efficiency curves, but they are less drastic within the primary load range.
* cylinder filling is more efficient at maximum output request (on naturally aspirated engines operating in vacuum, due to less simple pumping loss, on turbocharged or supercharged engines, due to less wasted energy producing charge air and generally more optimized air/exhaust exchange). in short, air gets into the cylinder more efficiently in the first place at high torque requests
* combustion is more complete at high cylinder filling; not only does more air get into the cylinder, but it also burns more completely
* friction losses matter less at higher torque, especially on larger engines
Almost every ICE complexity advancement over the years is to hack around these basic properties: VVL and VVT to optimize pumping, direct injection, stratified injection, and dynamic compression hackery to get around cylinder filling efficiency, and cylinder deactivation / variable displacement to avoid friction and pumping loss from unnecessary engine size. but while ICE engines have made huge strides, they're still more efficient when they're loaded.
And note that this is efficiency, not absolute consumption - of course you'll consume more at higher load still, but the ratio is better. Combine this with the aerodynamics of most ICE pickup trucks and you have a scenario where ICE trucks frequently lose very little fuel economy / actual consumption when towing a trailer.
But boy does my model Y tow tiny trailers well.
It takes about 3 minutes to add 350 miles of range to my gas vehicle.
In my little commuter car with a 40l tank the fastest I’ve ever filled up was 6 minutes.
Generally this is only true for ICE with an abundance of extra power to start with, but that is basically every truck and most other cars for the last 25 years.
I frequently tow between Washington and Montana, and I only have to fill up the F-350 once or twice when loaded. You would need to recharge a loaded Cybertruck 5+ times on that same route. My 11 hour drive just turned into a 15 hour drive in ideal conditions. And I don't think there are the latest superchargers available on most of the route, so the time spent charging is likely much higher.
Don't get me wrong, I like EVs and have a Model 3 as my daily driver. But I would never get rid of the gasser given today's battery tech with the number of roadtrips we take.
But... why? Like, at that point it should make more sense shipping whatever freight you want to ship by train?!
Locally farmers built a rail to port system as a grain carriage has more tonnage than a road train.
Two axle trailer is it? What's that max out at, two tonne?
Yes, clearly there are cases when it makes sense to ship by train, otherwise they wouldn't exist. I can't tell if I'm not getting my point across, or you just want to be pedantic, but the point is that most people who own the capability of transporting something, will transport it themselves.
I did specifically ask about your trailer - not a generic set of trailers, but, okay.
What I'm getting is you don't have a prime mover actual truck with one, two, or three trailers to tow single or in a road train.
> the point is that most people who own the capability of transporting something, will transport it themselves.
to some degree but by no means always, sometimes it makes sense to have others do transport while getting on and doing others things in the same time.
> or you just want to be pedantic
Just familiar with transport, a great deal across a remote state 3x size of Texas, and a fair amount to other parts of the world, by air and sea.
Because the numbers are a bit off. I've towed a lot, gas trucks do not lose 15% when towing. My old F150 went from 18mpg to 10mpg. My super duty went from 16mpg to 8mpg.
The advantage is that gas is so energy dense we just routinely equip trucks with 35+ gallon fuel tanks. There's no battery option equivalent yet.
The efficiency is usually defined as the energy the car can use to move itself over the energy going in (electrical, or chemical for gas). If an ICE is 20% efficient then using 5 units means you get one unit out. Towing a trailer that doubles the load means you need 2 units out, which means you need 10 units in. The engine doesn't get more efficient just because you hook a trailer to it.
“20% efficient” is like an EVs “270km range” - how far you can actually drive an EV depends on temperature, speed, etc.
Is it just that these EV trucks don't have multiple gears to tune themselves for towing? Like how many EV cars are geared for city speeds but suffer on the highway.
By contract in EVs, much more of the energy is going towards moving the vehicle and therefore both weight and air resistance greatly affect the amount of energy use.
Ironically, the private owner/operators are most often the ones installing accessories to make their trucks look cool and sacrificing immensely for it.
2. When optimizing, you want to start with the biggest problem and work your way down. ICEs are so laughably inefficient that imporoving areodynamics just won't have that much of an impact.
In practice, diesel engines can become more efficient under additional load, and it obviously varies between models but it’s not a 16% vs 50% difference like your example.
The reason EVs don’t tow well is they don’t have a high enough range to begin with. Diesels have nearly double the starting range of an equivalent EV, and storing additional fuel on board is an option.
This is highly variable. My Lightning was cheaper than the ICE version I had been shopping for. It has been better for my wallet from day 1. And it has depreciated less. The credits did distort the market for a while, though, that is for certain.
Care to clarify with actual math? We are a technical audience here.
The fuck?
If the charging port were on the front of the vehicle, you could pull straight in, but now your trailer is probably blocking traffic.
Of course you could disconnect and reconnect the trailer, which adds an extra 5-10 extra minutes to your 15-40 minute charge time depending on your battery level.
you lost me here, laughing. Nobody calls them that. You’ve never driven an EV long distance, much less actually towed with one.
I’ve towed 5000+ lbs, including a mid-size SUV on a trailer, cross-country with another EV half of a dozen times. Stopping a lot is bit tedious, but it drives so well. The Rivian and Silverado both have big packs and work well. The Lightning didn’t have enough range for long-distance towing.
Moving a trailer around in town or taking a boat or camper to a lake nearby would be comfortable and the torque makes the drive effortless.
A 3.6L V6 can do that easily and they are dime a dozen.
I did some towing of loaded ~1500lb trailers with a 1.6 liter Corolla twenty years ago and it was sort of OK... Not great, not terrible. Requires some patience and some extra planning ahead.
Why? Doesn’t make any sense to me although there is much speculation as to why Musk wants to merge them.
I could pick nearly any two random companies and come up with equally wild speculative synergies.
The Cybertruck failed because it's an awfully designed vehicle, along with all of the baggage of being associated with Elon Musk's politics (whether you agree with them or not).
Gas/Diesel trucks lose range when towing too, but dealing with a shorter range gas truck isn't too big of a problem on a trip beyond the extra cost. Gas stations are everywhere and it takes 5 minutes to fill up. At most gas stations, filling up while towing a trailer isn't too big of a problem. Even if your truck only had a 150 mile range while towing, it would only be a minor annoyance, and the reality is that you'll probably get at least 250 miles out of a tank.
If you're towing with an electric though, you probably are looking at less than 150 miles. Now every couple of hours you have to stop for probably an hour or so, even with a fast charger, because you're probably going to want to charge the truck to full, not 80%. You're also probably driving somewhat out of your way to hit charging stations that frequently if you're not in a very populated area.
If you have to charge, it can be a pain. It's fine for towing short distance. It can tow up to 11k lbs.
> The truck bed isn't practical for anything but a lawn mower.
Hard disagree. I've hauled gravel, lumber, furniture, appliances. It can fit a 4x8 sheet of sheetrock with the tailgate down.
> When I ride in one it rides like a car.
It drives like a sports car. Literally the most fun vehicle I've ever driven.
> It doesn't look good dirty.
Disagree, I think it looks better dirty. More dystopian.
> It's also super expensive
The price for the AWD dual motor is comparable to other pickups.
It's also the safest pickup truck you can buy, according to the IIHS and NHTSA.
AWD CT can haul 7500 lbs, air suspension, tonneau cover, premium sound, 240v out, FSD, etc.
His experiments were fun to watch, but few people treat their vehicles like that, so kind of irrelevant.
For passengers maybe but certainly not for pedestrians. In fact, this is the reason you can't drive a Cybertruck in the EU.
Did I miss something big on the stock market or are these actually still two different public companies? How do the shareholders of both of these (ostensibly different, kind of unrelated) large publicly-held companies feel about them being conflated like this? Is there any historical precedent for this situation?
... and to offload a ton of bad luck onto retail bagholders.
Once the AI bubble pops, SPCX will collapse, but everyone in on the game will have gotten much more thanks to selling their stock than they'd ever put in in either SpaceX or Twitter.
“I agree with Elon now”
Meaning now I agree, and
“that SpaceX and Tesla are the 'same' company”
With ‘same’ in quotes meaning they are not literally the same but conceptually they are the same.
FTR I do not agree they are the ‘same’ company and I think the circular relationships between Musk’s companies is kind of like a shell game.
1. Power. He can amass more power by concentrating it in SpaceX. There was a lot of financing needed getting Tesla to mass produce vehicles… where Musk likely conceded more power (and money) than he wanted.
2. SpaceX (sans xAI and Xitter) is the one business he’s got really generating a profit and likely will be able to continue that trend. It lets him paper over financial issues that would show up in the balance sheets of individual companies.
The roadster uses Space X propulsion tech, the cybercab uses starlink, grok is in all Tesla cars, both companies share Terafab. But then Tesla also supplies batteries and cybertrucks to Space X etc.
Everywhere else on the planet, though? Most certainly.
Why? I saw a Cybertruck towing a Porsche 911 racing a Porsche 911 and winning. That seems like decent torque.
How do you not understand the trickle down effect of motorsports, given that you work for a competitor? The tech in the roadster trickles down to normal cars (e.g., its drivetrain advancements), and possibly to off-planet rovers (Earth is the brutal case to test the equipment on, but I don't know enough about the potential to reuse here).
The model Y is still the best selling EV despite the wide choice of other brands. BYD out sell them in aggregate, but Tesla are holding their own pretty well. Of course, all the Tesla cars here are made in the Shanghai Gigafactory, but still, I don't think Chinese brand dominance is a forgone conclusion. I think the real danger is if American protectionism makes Tesla feel like they don't need to innovate any more.
Absolutely sublime. I turned it off _once_ yesterday as I didnt trust the gap it was leaving with a woman who was driving over the lines.
Honestly blew me away.
yeah that's why there's no immigrants in US tech am I rite.
that's also why tiktok is not used by americans at all /s
The dashboard and UX of the car can be tailored to a culture, while the onboard processing remains the same - it's just one software update away. This is sort of a silver lining of removing physical dials and buttons and going all in with touch-screen.
There's no tariffs on Chinese cars in Australia so BYDs and other Chinese brands like Tesla (let's be blunt, the majority of Tesla's globally are made in China) are great value regardless of the fact that the company owners of BYD and Tesla sidle up to authoritarians.
> Towing with an EV is terrible.
What is your opinion on the upcoming Tesla Semi? I expect that it will be successful, useful, and efficient.
The Tesla Semi proves that this is the issue: with an extremely large battery and high-speed charging, the Semi solves these problems.
A regular truck that can TOW 300 miles would certainly not be "terrible for towing."
Agreed. A fairly typical gas half-ton gets 300 miles from a tank. If an EV can get that distance and recharge in like half an hour it would be a pretty great truck.
The first easy number is the sheer amount of energy, diesel has an energy density of 10.7kWh/L, so a 30gal tank holds 1460kWh. By comparison a silverado EV (probably the best currently available EV tower short of a semi) has a 215kWh battery.
The second more complicated number and why diesel is so good at towing (and other high-power applications) is that diesel gets more efficient when loaded, by a factor of 2-ish: an unloaded diesel might only use ~20% of the fuel it burns to actually move stuff, or on a 30gal you get around 300kWh out of your 1460kWh tank, but that will climb to 35~40% as the load increases if kept in the efficiency range, so towing you might have 500~550kWh out of 1460kWh available to actually move your load.
There's no such thing on an EV, there's some variation but load isn't really a factor, pretty much just the band, so your Silverado gets 205kWh usable at the wheels unloaded and the same loaded. Therefore all the towing losses (rolling resistance and drag) come straight out of your range.
And short of a breakthrough on batteries it's difficult to add more battery capacity, the battery already accounts for a third of a silverado's weight and a significant fraction of its internal volume. Getting a 500kWh battery in a truck is currently impossible: that's the sort of capacity you find on semis (european EV semis cluster around 550~650).
And then of course you have the charge concern, charging a 500kWh battery in half an hour requires a megawatt charger running at more than 1MW, and the ability to ingest that in your pack (on 800V battery tech that's 1250 amps, which is within MCS specs but the vehicle side is pretty damn rough).
A lot or maybe most of its use so far is hauling potato chips, which are mostly air, and port dreyage (empty containers).
Your understanding is not wrong, but quantity of torque is a minor piece of what matters, so that doesn't move the needle.
Towing lowers the range of an EV by so much that it becomes nearly useless. This is much more important with an EV than an ICE, because EV charging is less available and takes much longer.
It's understandable that you might not fully understand the magnitude of the pros and cons from your LLM prompt, those sorts of responses usually assume certain levels of experience and familiarity with the topic. It'll make more sense when you get older!
> quantity of torque is a minor piece of what matters, so that doesn't move the needle
I know of approximately nobody who thinks this, who actually tows anything meaningful. Somethning like a 6.2 naturally aspirated Ford V8 in an F250 is a chore, it's loud, works very hard, goes nowhere with any urgency. This is why people love diesels -- torque. And an EV takes that to the next level. The towing is sublime.
Yes, we need bigger batteries though so people can do long distance road trips with travel trailers. That niche isn't a great use case today.
And towing requires a lot of electricity. How do you bring enough electrons?
My towing-capable gas vehicle sees at worst a 30% decrease in range from towing my camping trailer, and my towing-capable diesel vehicle sees closer to a 10% decrease in range.
A while back, I read a comment on here from someone who lived in a trailer full-time as a digital nomad. They were also dedicated to driving an EV. They towed their small trailer with their Model Y. I grant you, the Model Y is not optimized for towing the way that the Cybertruck (ostensibly) is, but they described the process of travelling between Grand Junction, Colorado, and Moab, Utah, a distance just over 110 miles. With the trailer, they had to drive to Cisco, about halfway in between, drop the trailer, drive back to Grand Junction, recharge fully, drive back again, pick up the trailer, and drive the remaining 60 or so miles to Moab, where they could recharge again. Because without the trailer, they could drive the entire 1-way distance 3 times over without recharging. With the trailer, they could not make the whole trip once.
I remember my family driving long distances in a 1980s VW Diesel, we could barely climb hills but we got 50mpg.
China can produce 7M more vehicles annually than the entire world (including them) needs, so the world has to decide whether to give up all their manufacturing to let china do it, or china has to increase worker’s rights and pay so that they can afford to buy more vehicles (their currency and financing tactics essentially reduce purchasing power at scale to fund their manufacturing infrastructure).
FWIW Rivian has pull through charging stations along I-5, so they do exist. In general, their charging infrastructure is very reliable, uses renewable energy (matching), and is fast (even for my non-Rivian EV) and is not associated with a fascist.
AFAIK outside of trucks GM is mostly a reseller of chinese cars these days.
I think as a car company they're doing alright. They sell two of the most popular vehicles on the road. But the valuation of TSLA is 15-20x what it would be if they were valued at a car company, which is why you get over-the-top demos like the roadster.
The U.S. is being protectionist because of Chinese cars that can spy on U.S. soil-- just do the right thing and stop all the car spying nonsense. Require manufacturers to open the code and let us even develop alternatives.
Tell GM.
Yes you can sort of get there with Siri and HomeKit, bug nowhere close to sophistication.
The Cybertruck I thought was initially kind of neat but when you try to use one as a truck you quickly can see some glaring problems that most people who buy a truck want. Towing with an EV is terrible. I've heard there's power stations with pull throughs but havent' seen them personally. The truck bed isn't practical for anything but a lawn mower. When I ride in one it rides like a car. It doesn't look good dirty. I just think they were going for warthog from Halo and thought the rest would work out. It's also super expensive for all these issues. It's a hobby vehicle. A toy.
I think Tesla is struggling personally. The marketing tactics of showcasing cars we'll never be able to buy just to cause a scene. Don't get me wrong the new Roadster my jaw dropped and I agree with Elon now that SpaceX and Tesla are the 'same' company I think it's great but let's be realistic. Most people want cars that are cheap, dependable and sort of cool. Not everyone can afford multiple cars, and a corvette that isn't feasible. Like I said I work for a competitor (GM) and I fear China is going to eat our lunch.