HamBandit

Hell, finding a working gas station near Big Bend is harder than finding a 50a RV plug sometimes...

1fitty

Let them have EV's.
More fossil fuels for the rest of us!

FordMayne

I don't think I would and I hear many people lamenting about it and the potential disappearance of a Ford v8 option. I'm not sure if the technology is there yet to phase out gas/diesel, who would want to have to charge every so many miles and wait. Could be wrong though as it doesn't exist at the moment and I don't have one. But to answer the question, no I don't think I would buy one.

pioneerlion

All good points.
Right now when filling my 36 gallon tank, my miles to empty is 600+, and is a key feature when towing or just traveling over long distances. F150’s are robust compared to cars for many reasons to satisfy many users, and range is a critical one for most. Batteries have to get a lot more efficient with much greater capacity to even come close to providing that kind of range, and the charging infrastructure needs to much more available and common.

I presume that the auto manufacturers are standardizing the charging mechanical and electrical interfaces. My hope is that when the “big battery breakthrough” occurs that provides 500+ mile range with safe reliable cells, that the company inventing it shares the technology, so that charging across all EV vehicles/trucks is as common as filling a tank with gas or diesel.

One of my peeves with all electric vehicles and charging is that, electricity is generally still a secondary energy source from fossil fuels, especially where solar and wind generation are not widely available and distributed. As others have said in this thread, it’s not “cleaner” and “greener” until the whole electrical generation portion of the grid is non-fossil fuels.

idrive

iTrader: (3)

Yes, In the very near future when the Full on Electric F150 becomes available, I'll be buying one.

FordMayne

I don't have any issue with them making an electric one, I just want to still be able to get a gas v8, or atleast a gas eco boost. If they do away with diesel f250's before I can actually afford one I am gonna be very sad.

Flamingtaco

Well, you didn't say it wouldn't be on par, you said weren't expecting any, which sounds like you doubted the truck would make production schedule, or was vaporware.

Average production for the 13th gen was just under 850xxx. Not that I was shooting for total accuracy, I mean, I did use a very rounded number. As if 48xxx units makes a difference for a product pushing 848,524.16 units per year, that's contracting out multiples of millions of units in parts contracts.

Flamingtaco

No one disputing that EV's are here, but those of us that are realistic about it have grown tired of being told our ICE's are ancient technology that is going to be stolen from us in a few short years. It's just not happening, no matter how much money you throw at it.

Cell Technology was invented in 1973, and took until 1983 for it to be packaged in a portable mechanism. From there, it took until 2007 for it to make it to the familiar design we see today, but we made it into the mid 2010's before we started seeing phone batteries that could absorb a significant charge in a short time frame (akin to 80% EV charge in 30 minutes). That's 30 years of aggressive development, with many phones redesigned on an 18 month or shorter timeframe the past two decades. And for people and organizations that need 100% reliable service at all times, land lines are still a requirement.

EV's will NOT evolve in a similar fashion because we're using well developed battery technology that can no longer offer significant improvements in quick fashion like when we transitioned from SLA to Ni-Cad to Li-Ion. Most new battery tech that hits the media is realistically twenty years out from affordable production.


As was stated, it's never free. Even if you are having solar panels installed as a subsidy, that $20,000 or so installation cost goes against someone's coffers, and eventually the cost makes it's way back to the general population.

The payoff for solar is about 8 years. At that point there will be some free energy from your system, but it's not totally free as there are maintenance costs to keep the system running, and also if you are on-grid and under contract with a utility, they have means to keep you paying them.


The reason we have a ****-ton of corn is because of ethanol. So much corn that we have to import not insignificant percentages of other crops that could be grown here. Roughly 40% of the US corn crop goes to ethanol, 36% to animal feed. In 2013 those numbers were 30% and 49%, with ethanol swapping their positions and requiring we produce 40% more corn than in 2013.


If you think they are working to standardize the interfaces, I've still got waterfront property on the moon for sale! There are numerous articles on how they are doing anything but, and remaining proprietary is a better model for monetizing charging networks.

Burning fossil fuels to charge EV's isn't carbon zero, but it can be quite a bit cleaner than ICE's. Not being small, mobile engines that must vary in rpm and load constantly, power plants can utilize adaptive controlled processes to do a much better job of scrubbing and sequestering unwanted byproducts. Of course, this is dependent upon industry culture and the willingness of states to perform frequent site inspections and hold utilities responsible, for which we don't have many good track records.

US energy production from fossil fuels is 80%. Ouch.

2013OKRubyRed

Why don't these EV's have an alternator that self charges while they run? With all the excellent engineers in the world one would think this was the way to go, but there is more to this move to EV's than meets the eye...

pioneerlion

Good info...ICEs are not dead yet!