I know some day our grand children will be missing the sound of V-8 gas engines and I doubt if diesels will be going away soon. Electric trucks have a long way to go for towing. Yes they say they will tow, but most can only go 100-150 miles. Which wouldn’t be as bad it you didn’t have to spend an hour charging every 100 miles. And most charging stations are on Interstates and large cities. Don’t expect to see an EV charging station in Otis or Briggsdale. Many small towns are still waiting for an ATM machine and internet.
Now it’s a race to see who’s first to market. Rivian R1T looks the closest, Ford owns 12% of that company. Next will be GMC Hummer SUT and Ford Lightning. Tesla announced first and no one knows when the bullet proof stainless truck will be on sale. Bollinger is more practical and you can build it the way you want it. They will have cab-chassis duallies, off-road all-wheel drive and configurable. It’s not attractive, it’s as close to a shoe box ever built. Semi tractor-trailer rigs will some day be EV. Over road trucks will probably need the trailer full of batteries to tackle mountain passes. Deliver trucks in town are working now.
Eventually all truck manufactures will have to sell an electric truck. That’s how the market works. Electric cars make sense as with a 300 mile range for going to work, getting grocery’s and if you drive the interstates, you could go to grandma’s house for Christmas.
I’m voting for hybrids. Like trains that have diesel generators that power the electric motors that make them move. Some giant earth excavators in coal mines are also hybrids. Ford sent me a hybrid Maverick to drive to SEMA in Vegas. It was rated by the EPA at 42 MPG in city, I got over 50. And going across Utah at 85 mph, I clocked in at 36 MPG. Had a 300 to 400 mile range to gassing up with a 13.8 gallon tank. But gas stations are everywhere. So the secret sauce of hybrids is there is still a combustion engine when the batteries run out of juice. Like the 2023 only electric Ford Lightning, is powerful, fast and it can run your house in an emergency, but then how do you drive the Lightning away after charging your house?
Hybrids use both gas or diesel engines and electric motors. I hope some day in the heavy duty 3/4 and one ton trucks, will have diesel hybrids like freight trains. Electric motors put out 100 % torque, making them powerful and capable for large loads. But we will need super batteries in the future to last towing trailers 600-800 miles. Lithium Ion batteries may cause a shortage and another supply chain problem. The new Toyota Tundra Hybrid will use Nicole-Metal batteries because of the perceived Lithium Ion shortage. In the late eighteen hundreds, electric cars became available. In the US and Europe, there were cars, trains and taxi’s. Henry Ford and Thomas Edison built a few electric cars. But like now batteries and charging batteries was the limitation.
