Battery tech is improving all the time. Even so, older Tesla owners are seeing battery degradation of around 10% after 200,000 miles. The batteries in newer vehicles should do even better.
And don’t forget, this doesn’t do anything to the car other than shorten its maximum range, which is something you rarely, if ever, need. In my realtor example above, after 5 years of driving 40,000 miles/year, the battery capacity will drop from 330 miles to 297 miles, which has no real world impact at all and you’ll still be able to blow the doors off anything powered by a gas engine 0-60.
Yeah, Ford seems to have a plan. Whether they can make it work is yet to be seen. GM is flapping around in the mud saying it’s going to have 30+ all-electric models by 2025 while currently offering [checks notes] none.
The shoe to drop with the F150 Lightning and other electric pick-ups, is the battery size. The Silverado battery has been estimated at something like 500kWh and the F150 is going to have to be similar. Even on a DC fast charger, the 10% to 80% charge time is going to be 90+ minutes.
Worse, a home Level 2 charger will only be able to add about 10% to a 500kWh battery overnight, which is about 30 miles of range, which means they’ll be unusable as a daily driver. If I’m right, as soon as people start getting to drive these in the real world, the game will be up and the orders will be cancelled.
I stand corrected on the Ford battery size. It’s 98kWh or 130kWh.
That’s much more usable, but you’re still not going to be able to add a 50% charge overnight on a Level 2 charger.
The Chevy has a 200kWh battery so, as above but twice as bad.
This is what happens when you simply strip an ICE pick-up of the engine, gearbox, transmission, differential and fuel tank, and shove a bunch of batteries in the holes. EVs have completely different structural and layout needs, and need to be built on completely new platforms to work properly.
Yep, the underlying architecture is so very important. For example, using VAG products, the VW ID.4 SUV or any of the Audi eTron SUV’s will charge their 82 or 90 kWh batteries from 20% to 80% in 40 minutes, no matter how fast the fast charger is. It’ll max out at ~130kW charging rate due to the vehicles underlying 400v architecture. Alternately, the Porsche Taycan family and the Audi eTron GT family will charge their 94kWh batteries from 20-80% in 17 minutes, which is 3 minutes longer than the average gas station stop in Europe and North America. They can ingest electrons at a 270-280kW rate if the charger can deliver that due to their underlying 800v architectures. There’s no difference for at-home 240v chargers, of course but that’s a game changer for those that want to go on road trips or, like in your example, will have specific purpose vehicles like trucks and SUV’s with massive 150-200kWh batteries.
Teslas can draw at 250kW, while the Hyundai/Kia platform has the 800v architecture for up to 350kW charging.
The problem currently, in the US at least, is that non-Tesla charging infrastructure is dogshit. If you get a peak, not average, rate of 150kW at a DC fast charger you’re doing well.
Yep. VAG invested $10B into Electrify America last year and all of their new chargers will be 350kW. They are rolling them out like crazy but, they are having the same quality and usability errors that the Tesla network did in it’s first 3-4 years. Hopefully they (and others) will keep the pedal to the metal implementing AND refining their networks.
Saw a red Kia EV6 parked a couple of spots down from me in the parking garage at work today. We have a row of about 20 level 2 chargers in that garage. Used to have my pick of spots. Lately, the whole row has filled up by 830. And we are just starting to get back to in-person work.
You don’t have to line up for batteries like they’re fuel. They come with the car, and you mostly charge at home meaning you never ever ever have to line up for fuel like in the 1970s.
