Any GTAM'ers own an electric vehicle? | Page 366 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Any GTAM'ers own an electric vehicle?

About that electricity infrastructure ... It takes electricity to refine and distribute crude oil into gasoline and diesel fuel!

How much, is a little bit difficult to ascertain ...

insideevs.com

Gas Cars Consume Much More Electricity Than People May Realize

Some people fear EVs may eventually crash the electrical grid. There are plenty of details they should know before they let their concerns get the best of them.
insideevs.com insideevs.com

The consensus seems to be somewhere near 5 kWh per gallon of gasoline (presumably US gallon - i.e. about 1.2 kWh per litre).

Well then.

A combustion-engine vehicle the size of a Chevy Bolt would probably use 7 or 8 litres per 100 km - implying about 8 or 9 kWh per 100 km (at the refinery, at the pipelines, etc).

The lifetime-consumption in mine is around 15 kWh per 100 km although that's on the increase lately owing to the cold weather.

If this is the case, then the estimate linked to in the first article above, that electricity consumption to drive a petrol vehicle is about half what it would be to drive an EV the same distance, is in the ballpark. And that's going to be true for all liquid-fuelled transportation - car, truck, airplane, train, whatever.

Which means ... the energy-infrastructure impact of switching to EV isn't as big as one might think, although the electricity distribution needs to be redistributed from refinery to charging stations.
 
PrivatePilot said:
There's a certain segment of the trucking industry that will die sucking diesel smoke...because they are not willing to embrace change.
Personally, if they gave me an electric tractor tomorrow I'd do summersaults in excitement....I wouldn't miss the smell, vibration, long heatup times, volume level...shifting 13 gears all day long, or anything else of the engine anymore.

The only issue I see with large fleet takeup of electric trucks in electrical infrastructure. Our yard for example, one of the medium sized yards in the fleet has about 15 tractors based there. A certain segment of them run 400-1000km/night (can vary wildly), and all of our city tractors can travel as little as 20-30km total in a day to 150-350km depending on the run. Some tractors overlap, so they run city in the day and highway at night.

In short, there would need to be infrastructure at our yard to potentially charge at least 6-10 tractors all at the same time, some of them very rapidly to make the city/highway turnover. Realistically, since there are times when there's only a skeleton crew on at night, *all* of them would need to be plugged in and charging at once as there's nobody to "rotate" tractors through the night on and off chargers.
So, conservatively, 10 tractors fast charging at megawatt speeds would probably require a new substation of some sort be installed at our yard.
Our Toronto terminal has about 100 tractors, so the logistics are even more complicated.

As for long haul, for a solo driver, 1000km range is just fine so long as there's infrastructure to fast charge along the route....which again, is going to be a challenge in the beginning.

There are nuts to be cracked yet, that's for sure.
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For the yard, it may make sense to do something like what Tesla has done at some remote stations. Basically a huge battery bank that can charge over time and then vehicles get high current dumped to them from the bank. You get an efficiency hit but you could take advantage of off-peak rates (may not be available for commercial), peak shaving (may have a huge effect on bill), charging more trucks concurrently than infrastructure would otherwise allow, etc.. Plugging in more trucks than there is capacity for and having a management system fill them as capacity allows with no cable swapping makes sense. This could be as simple as plugs labelled 1 to 10 and chargers fill all up to xx% and then loop back to fill them in numerical order (or alternatively, fast charge in numerical order and as they approach full and slow down, bring the next truck online to suck from the big hose).
 
I am looking at the Ford electric pickup, anyone have one or know someone that has experienced it first hand????
 
cami-brightdrop-ev-tour.JPG

Workers assemble the components of a BrightDrop delivery van at General Motors’s CAMI EV plant, in Ingersoll, Ont., on Nov. 29. Production of the BrightDrop Zevo 600 electric delivery van is set to begin in January. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
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chingo said:
I am looking at the Ford electric pickup, anyone have one or know someone that has experienced it first hand????
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Yes someone on here has one. I dug back a few pages and can’t find it but there is an owner in this thread of an F150 Lightning.
 
  • Wow
Reactions: LBV
SunnY S said:
yes, pony up around 100g, and get ready to wait 12 months....
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If I had the money, and if I had the need for a truck, I would get it.

Hell even as a runaround I'd choose that over a TESLA for 100k. At least I know the manufacturer better.

Apparently some issues with the Mach-E and Consumer Reports are no longer singing it's praises, but I never bothered digging into those reports.

As for my Volt...the CEL came on again. Opened and re-tightened the gas cap and it went off...although this time it didn't come on AFTER I filled up. Got the reader from my buddy so need to wait for it to come back on and keep the thing connected for a few days.
 
Brian P said:
Which means ... the energy-infrastructure impact of switching to EV isn't as big as one might think, although the electricity distribution needs to be redistributed from refinery to charging stations.
Click to expand...

That's a fair assessment so far as the bigger picture, but it doesn't really help when a company is looking at electrifying a fleet of 10-50 city or short/medium range highway tractors and is told they need a multi-million dollar grid upgrade on the property.

GreyGhost said:
For the yard, it may make sense to do something like what Tesla has done at some remote stations. Basically a huge battery bank that can charge over time and then vehicles get high current dumped to them from the bank.
Click to expand...

This is a stumbling block. Fleet managers look at three things:

- The almighty dollar
- Simplicity of service/repairs.
- Simplicity of operation.

Again, coming back to the multi million dollar upgrade needed for charging infrastructure, that's a big stumbling block for many companies.

Simplicity of service....that is a tough one. Right now when a tractor breaks down in our yard we have a nearby shop. If it breaks down on the road, a mobile truck comes and fixes it. But all the current mechanic options know...diesel. Any EV owner knows that probably 90% of service stations look at EV's right now like it's a vehicle from another planet, and having that same sort of result on a tractor that's broken down on the road but nobody can actually fix (even though it might be a simple fix, but the mechanic just has no clue about an electric truck so it needs to go to a specialized service facility) is a potential massive issue. That will scare fleet managers.

Simplicity of operation....I think a lot of companies will wait and see.

As someone who almost certainly knows more about EV's than our fleet manager, I'd be happy to have a sit down with them on the topic, but I think there would be many potentially insurmountable obstacles right now in the short to medium term. Unless they just want to get 1 or 2 per yard where infrastructure is less....but even that gets messy as you still have some of the underlying technical challenges for service/repairs, etc.
 
PrivatePilot said:
That's a fair assessment so far as the bigger picture, but it doesn't really help when a company is looking at electrifying a fleet of 10-50 city or short/medium range highway tractors and is told they need a multi-million dollar grid upgrade on the property.



This is a stumbling block. Fleet managers look at three things:

- The almighty dollar
- Simplicity of service/repairs.
- Simplicity of operation.

Again, coming back to the multi million dollar upgrade needed for charging infrastructure, that's a big stumbling block for many companies.

Simplicity of service....that is a tough one. Right now when a tractor breaks down in our yard we have a nearby shop. If it breaks down on the road, a mobile truck comes and fixes it. But all the current mechanic options know...diesel. Any EV owner knows that probably 90% of service stations look at EV's right now like it's a vehicle from another planet, and having that same sort of result on a tractor that's broken down on the road but nobody can actually fix (even though it might be a simple fix, but the mechanic just has no clue about an electric truck so it needs to go to a specialized service facility) is a potential massive issue. That will scare fleet managers.

Simplicity of operation....I think a lot of companies will wait and see.

As someone who almost certainly knows more about EV's than our fleet manager, I'd be happy to have a sit down with them on the topic, but I think there would be many potentially insurmountable obstacles right now in the short to medium term. Unless they just want to get 1 or 2 per yard where infrastructure is less....but even that gets messy as you still have some of the underlying technical challenges for service/repairs, etc.
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Maybe Tesla can get gm to fix the trucks like they do with cars

Sent from the future
 
@brian p has your annual mileage gone down using EV? Or is travel still limited by the pandemic?


I’m back in the saddle for work and travelling by vehicle again. Not as much as before but, still pretty heavy.

If I had an EV, there would be some planning ahead of just jumping in the car and go.

My only reservation for EVs at the moment is winter range anxiety as I travel from St Catharines to London fairly regular and the stops are not near a charging station.

We also travel from St Catharines to Chesterville 8 times a year.

So a secondary vehicle that is EV could work and use the petro vehicle for those specific circumstances.


The other concern is if we use the EV a lot, what is the impact to battery life and range down the road?

Brakes and tires, wheel bearings and other wear bits occur after 3/4 years and 100k. But, the fuel efficiently and range stays relatively the same *for petro vehicles

EV maintenance can be less but, a looming battery pack replacement could be discouraging. Like those that lease vehicles and run way over on their mileage…..

I like the idea of charging at home and have a fairly consistent cost on electricity. Bombing around here and the GTA wouldn’t be a worry.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
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I'm at 10,000 km in a smidge over 3 months, that's on track for the historical average of 40,000 km per year. (Semi-retirement? Hah. People keep wanting me to do stuff.) Thus far, in no way has the EV ever limited my plans. I STILL have yet to DC fast-charge it.

As for EV charging stations, PlugShare is your friend. There are several fast-chargers in Hamilton along the Red Hill. There's one in Brantford along King George just south of the 403, and I've seen that one (but didn't use it because I didn't need it). There's a few more in Woodstock. A generic google-maps of St Cath to London gives 184 km ... in summer, no problem to do it both ways without charging. Right now, mine would probably need a splash at a fast-charger, but no more than that. If you need a coffee or bathroom break along that route, that would be enough.

Chesterville (near Ottawa) is 527 km ... that would need a charging stop or maybe two, but there's plenty of them along that route. If you can charge up at your destination on 240V, it still wouldn't be too bad.

For highway warriors, I'd pick something more aerodynamic and faster-charging than the Bolt. The Hyundai Ioniq 6 (more aero version of Ioniq 5) is probably the best choice if you can get past the droopy-butt styling, and it's either out now or very soon. Ioniq 6 | The new era of EVs | Hyundai Canada

VW has a new ID Aero coming up which looks pretty good but it's not out until sometime in 2024.

I presume a M-B EQS is out of your price range. I refuse to recommend a Tesla just like I refuse to wear a MAGA hat. The rest of the manufacturers seem bent on building electric trucks and SUVs which are the opposite of the aerodynamics that will work best for highway warriors.
 
nakkers said:
@brian p has your annual mileage gone down using EV? Or is travel still limited by the pandemic?


I’m back in the saddle for work and travelling by vehicle again. Not as much as before but, still pretty heavy.

If I had an EV, there would be some planning ahead of just jumping in the car and go.

My only reservation out EVs at the moment is winter range anxiety as I travel from St Catharines to London fairly regular and the stops are not near a charging station.

We also travel from St Catharines to Chesterville 8 times a year.

So a secondary vehicle that is EV could work and use the petro vehicle for those specific circumstances.


The other concern is if we use the EV a lot, what is the impact to battery life and range down the road?

Brakes and tires, wheel bearings and other wear bits occur after 3/4 years and 100k. But, the fuel efficiently and range stays relatively the same.

EV maintenance can be less but, a looming battery pack replacement could be discouraging. Like those that lease vehicles and run way over on their mileage…..

I like the idea of charging at home and have a fairly consistent cost on electricity. Bombing around here and the GTA wouldn’t be a worry.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Unless you buy a steaming turd like a leaf, battery pack replacement will probably never be required. Similar to a blown engine in an ice vehicle, very few people are unlucky enough to have a random failure and design issues causing widespread problems are well known pretty quickly.
 
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