[HawaiiEV]

The batteries and necessary environmental destruction is terrible, not to mention becoming dependent on other countries for the resources worst of all China. Full adoption will require better batteries for range and better use of our limited global resources, that’s what Toyota is waiting for with solid state. I think the heavy duty end of motor vehicles will likely end up with hydrogen fuel cell. We have much more proven fossil fuel reserves then ever, it would be wise to continue obtaining from our own country and not become dependent on begging the Saudis again in the mean time. Nothing beats the energy density and ease of transportation of petroleum yet, though it might be possible to transition to EV for some autos. We have to remember clean grid energy is biased towards daytime and summertime. I don’t think giant batteries of the aforementioned limited resources are the solution. Homes can run entirely off solar with batteries at night, but cars use many times more energy. Heating in the north is entirely dependent on fossil fuels. Maybe someone will figure out the summer to winter storage problem, and I hear fusion is making promising advances, nuclear is the only clean option going forward for the type of wholesale changes people are expecting from the grid. Almost none of the common political troupes and typical layman’s discourse is possible or sustainable with the technology they promote.

 

[JRT]

Fun thread, I'm pretty much positive $40k truck is not happening. I've been shopping trucks, hybrids of F150 and Ram 1500. Mid level trims, XLT and Big Horn respectively, in 4x4 crew cabs are msrp of $62k and $59k respectively too. I have a 2014 Ram 1500, long bed, crew cab, v8, 4x4 I custom ordered and paided $35k with discounts. Why am I posting this is I think we are pretty much fooling ourselves on low price EV.

 

[Holeydonut]

Fun thread, I'm pretty much positive $40k truck is not happening. I've been shopping trucks, hybrids of F150 and Ram 1500. Mid level trims, XLT and Big Horn respectively, in 4x4 crew cabs are msrp of $62k and $59k respectively too. I have a 2014 Ram 1500, long bed, crew cab, v8, 4x4 I custom ordered and paided $35k with discounts. Why am I posting this is I think we are pretty much fooling ourselves on low price EV.

Yeah while GM could surprise us; the latest comms from them seems to defy what was touted at the time the Silverado EV reservations opened.
https://www.motortrend.com/news/2024-chevrolet-silverado-ev-work-truck-first-look/
"Chevrolet promises the WT will arrive in spring 2023 with a base price of $39,990 plus a destination charge of $1,695."

Versus what we're seeing lately.
https://gmauthority.com/blog/2022/11/here-are-the-2024-chevy-silverado-ev-3wt-and-4wt-feature-lists/
"The 2024 Chevy Silverado EV 3WT starts at $72,905, and includes a destination freight charge (DFC) of $1,895, while the Chevy Silverado EV 4WT starts at $77,905, and also includes a DFC of $1,895... more base WT trims will be introduced at a later date, and we expect it to carry a lower base price."

This over-promising and under-delivering is not the desired experience prospective customers should have. I can only imagine some people out there are actually deferring purchasing a vehicle now expecting such a low-cost EV truck to materialize in a few months. I still think it makes more sense to expect a moderately equipped Silverado EV to cost around $80-$90k all-in after destination, doc fees, taxes, etc.

 

[HawaiiEV]

Well add actual affordability to the list of ICE benefits. Even charging entirely off solar it won’t offset the cost of fuel enough to overcome that BS. The PHEV seems to make more and more sense. Most of people’s commutes covered with a significantly smaller battery, costing less, using fewer precious resources. Makes a lot of sense to tide us over for the next decade until battery tech can advance. All the established abilities of ICE, with most the benefits of EV. Maybe PHEV is for the peasants like me and EV is for those who can afford to pay double.

 

[JRT]

Yup, that is what I'm considering now, Ram has discounts on the 1500 now and my dealership has several hybrid 1500 coming under 50k, I may make a change to a new Ram and trade in my old Ram and Mach-e with much lower payments and debt.

 

[EVTrucking]

I think PHEV is a good option and hopefully someone will soon manufacture a PHEV truck. I am not seeing the advantages to current Hybred trucks over none.

As I have posted before EVs are in their infancy and I am sure that given 100+ years to mature many of their current shortcomings will be solved and forgotten. The case in point is ICE.

We can debate which is better for the environment until we are blue in face. Our arguments are based on what others have dumped into the media which is biased with hidden agendas.

Availability, affordability and built out infrastructure is coming but is not here yet. EVs are not for everyone! For now they are for folks who can afford and obtain them.

 

[HawaiiEV]

I don’t need to argue about reality. I’m in the industry, I’m all for solar, but the truth is just that. Agreed that PHEV is the mass market future for the next decade and EV is the elite luxury option, not doing much for the environment like that. Excluding small economy EVs like the bolt, probably the only current EV use case with clear advantages.

 

[EVTrucking]

I don’t need to argue about reality. I’m in the industry, I’m all for solar, but the truth is just that. Agreed that PHEV is the mass market future for the next decade and EV is the elite luxury option, not doing much for the environment like that. Excluding small economy EVs like the bolt, probably the only current EV use case with clear advantages.

Being in the industry probably makes you even more biased and less of an expert. You hear day in day out from folks who’s job depend on oil. Your job depends on oil!

Fraking for example has a much larger negative impact on the environment than lithium mining. BTW most of the lithium comes from South America. Drilling for and transporting of oil is far from clean. A lot of recorded disasters and destruction with more to come.

Being in the industry does not provide you with the ‘skinny’ and provide you with reality. We are both heavily influenced by our so called sphere of reality.

 

[Holeydonut]

I think mild hybrids are pretty much garbage. They get very small efficiency improvement, and IMO, overall not worth the hassle of the parts failing, complexity, and cost.

Toyota seems to be in the camp that as long as there's no clear winner, they'll just play in every field. They seem to just want to shotgun into all energy streams to avoid the risk of putting all their eggs in one basket or royally pissing off a major lobby/group. But the risk there is if you're middling in every field, you're master of none. We'll see how this works out for Toyota.

Toyota Showcases Electric Hilux Concept In Thailand | Carscoops

Toyota has not said if and when the Hilux Revo BEV Concept will hit the market

www.carscoops.com

"And frankly, BEV’s are not the only way to achieve the world’s carbon neutrality goals. At Toyota we believe in creating a full portfolio of carbon reducing choices for our customers from hybrid electric vehicles, plug-in electric vehicles, battery electric cars, and fuel cell vehicles. Also, we are pursuing hydrogen fuel options like these GR-Yaris and GR-Corolla hydrogen powered concept cars. As we work to achieve a sustainable future, I also believe we need to take a holistic approach to carbon neutrality. "

Personally, I think BEV makes sense in the very long run for the majority of simple uses (you know, those uses that "true truck people" look down upon). I dunno why people like to gate-keep who/why needs a BEV truck. Nobody ever gatekeeps old folks who will never track their car from getting a Z06 or competition M3. "Truck people" like their exclusive club I guess.

Anyway, I think PHEVs serve existing segments of the population well - especially if it's just a commuter vehicle that rarely tops 50 miles round-trip. However they feel like a stop-gap solution aimed at a specific use-case that will eventually just become obsolete to BEV once battery densities improve and economies of scale drive down costs per kWh. It's going to be many decades before the heavy use cases get over to BEV or Hydrogen. But at least there's effort in that direction now. ... continuous trying/caring is the important part of any improvement.

 

[HawaiiEV]

I’m a solar engineer who designs and installs solar systems

 

[EVTrucking]

I’m a solar engineer who designs and installs solar systems

I am a retired semiconductor process engineer and I submit that neither of us have the corner on reality. As engineers we both know how important it is to insure the veracity of our data, which neither of us can do!

 

[Holeydonut]

I’m a solar engineer who designs and installs solar systems

Yeah, you're doing the good work for the residential stuff.

If there's anything that is confusing to myself (I dunno about @EVTrucking) is why you kind of went out to explain some rather conservative (anti-clean-energy) sound bites about Batteries. In my experience, Solar + Batteries are like peas and carrots. Normally, people that like solar also like batteries. And I thought this mindset was especially true in Hawaii where homeowners don't get solar NEM any more, and are incentivized to bank energy on-premises instead of exporting to the grid.

So yeah, your comments about batteries being terri-bad and helping China sound kind of out of place from your overall message of advocating for clean energy. EVTrucking seems more willing to try to knock down your "expertise" than try to get to the bottom of what you were trying to say to find a common ground. But I'm curious myself why you're sounding like you're anti-battery.

One area of disconnect may be the mining vs refining vs the assembly of the batteries. Sourcing/mining the battery raws is all over the place. Yes China is #1 in refining because I guess have less environmental restrictions and can just process some nasty stuff all day long. So China takes on the bulk of the overall carbon hit doing the dirtiest of activities in the supply chain. USA still wants in on this BEV trend, but it lacks the raw materials, and the USA doesn't want to get its hands dirty doing refining. Instead the USA wants to increase its own battery manufacturing capacity (see that $2.5Bn DOE loan for the Ultium batteries).

But every bit of independent research so far has a consensus (edit: if you ignore the hit pieces paid for by the oil lobby) that taken as a whole... the up front carbon for a BEV is less over the life of the vehicle than the equivalent impact of the gasoline supply chain + the burning of the fuel in the vehicle.

So, I'm really not sure how a clean energy guy as yourself seems kind of down on BEV's and batteries. Sure, Hydrogen is another way to go... but I don't quite understand why you want to bag on batteries to push your hydrogen advocacy. Hopefully we can all agree that ICE sucks as a long term "light use" fuel policy

You're Being Lied to About Electric Cars

Sorry, that meme you just retweeted isn't correct.

www.motortrend.com

 

[HawaiiEV]

Comes down to chemistry. EVs use NMC, while homes use Lithium iron except for Tesla power wall and generac pwrcell. NMC is terrible for the environment, unpredictably dangerous and expensive. The problem with the lithium iron is that manufacturing is done exclusively in China and all the batteries have long term reliability and failure rates that people outside the industry don’t know about. Lithium iron for homes and smaller EV packs are a net gain barring the manufacturing and reliability issues which are linked… NMC is the only option for high range EVs like the Silverado and I don’t believe it’s a long term viable option, hence the need for a new chemistry with equivalent density or higher, lower precious resource use, better manufacturing, safety and reliability. Also outside of a few southern states Solar is not really viable once you take all the current factors into play. All renewables suffer from summertime and daytime bias, again not satisfying the need for a long term baseload available when people charge their cars at night. Wind is plagued with issues and hydro is at a stand still, solar is the only truly viable option in certain situations not solving the two big issues. Hence we need nuclear or fusion, unless geothermal is an option.

We also build out large scale commercial and utility installs, peaker plants with natural gas are the transitional fossil fuel tech.

Also to clarify southern homes primary power draw is AC, perfect pairing for solar. Northern homes primary power draw is heating, not a good match. There’s a middle somewhere where the payoff threshold is reached.

 

[Holeydonut]

Comes down to chemistry. EVs use NMC, while homes use Lithium iron except for Tesla power wall and generac pwrcell. NMC is terrible for the environment, unpredictably dangerous and expensive. The problem with the lithium iron is that manufacturing is done exclusively in China and all the batteries have long term reliability and failure rates that people outside the industry don’t know about. Lithium iron for homes and smaller EV packs are a net gain barring the manufacturing and reliability issues which are linked… NMC is the only option for high range EVs like the Silverado and I don’t believe it’s a long term viable option, hence the need for a new chemistry with equivalent density or higher, lower precious resource use, better manufacturing, safety and reliability. Also outside of a few southern states Solar is not really viable once you take all the current factors into play. All renewables suffer from summertime and daytime bias, again not satisfying the need for a long term baseload available when people charge their cars at night. Wind is plagued with issues and hydro is at a stand still, solar is the only truly viable option in certain situations not solving the two big issues. Hence we need nuclear or fusion, unless geothermal is an option.

We also build out large scale commercial and utility installs, peaker plants with natural gas are the transitional fossil fuel tech.

Yeah... NMC is susceptible to thermal runway, but that alone doesn't seem to be a reason to pile on the rhetoric against battery tech. Tesla has already begun to shift to LFP batteries for its lower-range offerings, and there is growth of LFP battery production here in the USA for stationary applications. I feel like you've somehow created an equivalence that Battery = China = Bad that seems a bit misplaced. Do you agree that battery is still better than gasoline?

But back on the NMC topic, to your point GM is using a derivation of NMC that is high-nickel content (what they call Nickel Cobalt Manganese Aluminum: NCMA). So I don't know why you're even considering a Silverado EV if this is a major concern for you.

Regardless of whether NMC, LFP, or NCMA are the perfect solution, I feel like they're still a step in a positive direction compared to simply ramping up on coal, NG, and petroleum energy dependency. I hope we see people try to go into BEV and PHEV and Hydrogen instead of just identifying faults and not advocating for efforts to shift away from fossil fuels. Will mankind ever be 100% removed from fossil fuels? I don't think I'll be alive to care. But I would like to think during this lifetime we start moving toward alternative energy solutions to enable future generations the chance to get things right.

 

[HawaiiEV]

Are you prepared for a balanced rational discussion? you are having a political argument I have no interest in.

 

[Holeydonut]

Are you prepared for a balanced rational discussion? you are having a political argument I have no interest in.

Dude, I'm literally doing everything I can to make this not-political. I'm trying to keep the discussion on why anybody would even want a BEV or PHEV if their intention is to help the environment. At this point I'm completely confused why you have a PHEV and want a BEV if you're anti-battery.

You're the one that keeps dragging China into this... if you kept that out of the conversation then there would be no politics.

 

[HawaiiEV]

China isn’t politics it’s a reality. I’m approaching this from a business and economics perspective. I’m also speaking generally as we all have. I have a PHEV because of the solar and the independence granted with obtaining my energy for the car and economics. I want the Silverado for much the same reasons, I have been using a truck with the exact use case the Silverado EV is designed for. I would love to save 30 grand over 10 years on gas and I have the ability to charge during the day from solar in two different locations. It’s also good marketing for my business. For me the compromise of NMC and the environmental problems is worth it because of the daytime solar charging, nighttime geothermal baseload and my business case. Also the truck and cells will be built in my country, in the state I lived, so it benefits my countrymen. Generally speaking with the current technology available to most the same benefits don’t exist and that’s not bringing the coming pricing and economic nightmare into account.

 

[Holeydonut]

China isn’t politics it’s a reality. I’m approaching this from a business and economics perspective. I’m also speaking generally as we all have. I have a PHEV because of the solar and the independence granted with obtaining my energy for the car and economics. I want the Silverado for much the same reasons, I have been using a truck with the exact use case the Silverado EV is designed for. I would love to save 30 grand over 10 years on gas and I have the ability to charge during the day from solar in two different locations. It’s also good marketing for my business. For me the compromise of NMC and the environmental problems is worth it because of the daytime solar charging, nighttime geothermal baseload and my business case. Also the truck and cells will be built in my country, in the state I was born so it benefits my countrymen. Generally speaking with the current technology available to most the same benefits don’t exist and that not bringing the coming pricing and economic nightmare into account.

Got it, so you see BEV and PHEV more as an economic benefit and an independence thing (both from outside influence and helping your countrymen). But you don't see the environmental benefit at this time due to the negative externalities of NMC (and related Ultium NCMA) supply chain impact. Based your last sentence it seems that while you have ultra-clean charging potential (solar, geothermal, and a bit of base-load wind), the average person in the USA does not. So the environmental benefit of PHEV or BEV is lessened.

I guess this is why I was surprised. I perceive that batteries are better than fossil-fuel/petroleum in the environmental facets, but batteries are a net negative on the economic benefit. Since the pricing premium on batteries was too great at this time. I also don't really care where the batteries are made today since I believe the landscape will change over time as the USA gains more competency with BEV. So your POV on these facets is literally the inverse of mine right now.

But the irony is we both want clean-energy charging and some energy independence. So to that end, we're both interested in these GM EVs and will act similarly for a product purchase even if our motives are different and our use of the vehicles will be different.

 

[HawaiiEV]

It’s the future, I agree. We cannot be blind to the reality on the ground now, that’s how I have to operate for my living. The petroleum has consequences, mostly I see from a political perspective. The dependence on foreign oil and the wars is terrible, probably worse than the Chinese battery problem. Because of environmental politics for some reason we are as a country headed back to that. Coal has had a killer boom in recent years for these same political reasons…

 

[HawaiiEV]

I guess to sum up our disagreements I’m saying that economic factors will be the primary decider for 99%. This is how our federal government is pushing change now, with money. I want to clean up my footprint and it’s economically viable for me to do so with the PHEV now, the solar on my house, my business and our garden. However there are a lot of considerations and consequences to looking at it from an environmental only perspective, which it seems is inextricably tied to politics. The technology is not there yet environmentally or economically and we need to carefully plot a course through the middle ground. Some of the ideas about green energy will forever be impossible, this I attribute to a failure to understand the realities of how they work and the inevitable economics of it all. I think we are doing a great job and headed in the right direction, but some will never be satisfied and a lot of that comes from a top down perspective of privilege politically anyways. As I worked my way up from the bottom in the rust belt, I cannot help but see the other end. There is a clear social economic perspective on this and all EV message boards, we should be mindful where most GM customers are coming from and not forget about them.

The people who can afford to buy my solar systems and get federal tax benefits are clearly in the upper middle class. Same applies for the people getting full EV tax credits. With more then 60% if the country now living paycheck to paycheck, there is a huge disconnect politically.