The YouTubers I’ll forgive although this is supposed to be their gig, but I thought Dan was an engineer?! Math is hard, it’s 1.12 miles per kWh if you do the math right, which they didn’t, that would be 140 mile range. Dan is not alone in failing to grasp the concept of basic math or steer by wire with variable steering where one does not need to turn the wheel more then halfway. Dan plans to tow a trailer cross country with an EV, his only option I guess is the Silverado EV with the 200+ kWh pack. I would recommend a diesel with a proper payload and range to anyone else seeking to do the same. Honestly the thought of almost 10 tons of machinery in the hands of a retire with no experience towing scares me a little for the other people on the road.

Otherwise he seemed to really like the air suspension leveling out the load, just as comfortable while towing. He likes the 4 wheel steer also, saying both those features should be standard on trucks now like they are on the Tesla. Dan hates it but the reviewer said he enjoyed the noise from the motors when accelerating and that it was a very quiet truck overall. I imagine the noise is from the PF of the motors loaded up while towing, my Y motors are dead silent and it accelerates much faster than a bolt.

 

The TFL "test" results are almost unusable. The distance was short. They had to drive several miles each way on urban boulevards to get to the freeway, and well-below-freeway speeds. It was cold, but it also was at 5,000 feet.

Kyle Connor said he was thinking of getting a Silverado 3WT and doing a bunch of testing at the same time he gets a CT (probably a rental from Hertz), so he can do true side-by-side comparisons, as well as his usual range and charging tests, using his standard protocols. He said he was hoping to get a waiver from Hertz so he can do some towing tests as well.

 

Nothing too shocking. These towing consumption tests all seem to be about the same. Physics is undefeated, and only battery size is changing your range when towing. It is worth noting that that consumption seems to be with mixed conditions of highway and surfaces streets.

Brake control on the steering wheel is handy. Andre mentions it is like the Rivian, with the exception that Rivian you just push the wheel in, not to the side. Maybe that is what Dan means by poor design?

I also like the motor sounds on my Rivian. Definitely more than the synthesized sounds that some automakers use. At least the artificial sounds are generally limited to certain drive modes, so if you want completely silent, you can usually get that. To each their own I suppose.

 

Maybe that is what Dan means by poor design?

Warning highly opinioned discussion of engineering design

The brake controller is there in case of emergency, for decades they've been one design, for safety. Which is on the right side (most people are right handed), easy to reach and have fine grained control to manually apply the brakes on the trailer and takes no thinking to use.

Tesla and Rivian all are borrowing an Apple design philosophy of minimalism, and all three are screwing it up in the end. Because what starts out as a fine idea - minimalism in support of cheap production costs - inevitably is taken to the bitter end. I've never seen a minimalism design that knew where to sensibly stop, they usually end up with silly, unpractical or annoying features. For example, Apple slimmed down the external keyboard and dropped the keys until they became uncomfortable and hard to type on. I have one, the U key is already broken, and also have a bunch of the older ones with normal knife switches which still work fine with all the keys.

Tesla has taken minimalism to it's ridiculous bitter end. No stalks, two dumb little knobs with multi use. So when in an emergency you have to remember which one is the brake controller, whereas a dedicated old style one (probably a $4 part) takes no cognition. You automatically will reach out to that and do what you need. Steering wheel buttons only (minimalism to a fault) means that with the steering wheel flipped in a turn your indicators are backwards, and on the other side. Multi use wheels means not remembering which is what. Oh and you have to dig through a million menus, which for Tesla was a free installation. I asked every Tesla friend if they will buy another and all said no - they hate the new minimalism.

Bad design and bad engineering, I've never seen an engineering design that is it's best when driven to extremes. Its a kind of 'broken symmetry' - take a design philosophy and stop applying it at the 80%-90% point. This is as bad as the 'fin craze' back in the 50's, where every car had these huge shark fins everywhere. At least those look cool, extreme minimalism looks stupid and is unpractical.