- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@derp.foo
- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@derp.foo
Tesla Cybertruck Owners Who Drove 10,000 Miles Say Range Is 164 To 206 Miles::Also, the charging speeds are below par, but on the flip side, the sound system is awesome and the car is “a dream to drive.”
Sigh. Not this again. Look, I personally really don’t like the Cybertruck. I think it’s ugly and pointless. But as someone who likes EVs in general I have to call out the usual “the range is so bad lol” BS.
The range you get when not fully charging the battery is meaningless. It’s like partially fueling an ICE and complaining it doesn’t deliver the maximum range. Good for a clickbait headline though.
Driving aggressively, at high speed, in relatively cold weather is the perfect trifecta to make any EV underdeliver in range. Those are real downsides of EVs (and weather and speed are factors with ICE cars, just more so for EVs) but it’s nothing new or specific to this vehicle. And it is not the scenario the EPA uses to come up with range numbers. Perhaps they should, but they don’t.
It’s a truck that’s meant to tow and haul loads. Using it for that purpose is a much larger drain on the battery than aggressive driving, and significantly reduces its useful range. If it’s getting these numbers just being driven, you can expect a sub-100 mile range per charge when towing. Imagine having to stop to recharge for 30+ minutes for every hour and half of towing you do. Woof.
A pickup truck towing and hauling loads? What a bizarre idea. I’m pretty sure it’s only meant to go to the office, and maybe to the maul on weekends, once in a while.
If they marketed it as such, but they heavily marketed it as capable as, if not better, at doing truck things than other trucks. And to be fair, most of us knew it was bullshit, but it’s impressive how absolutely wrong they were. I mean, Elon said it’d tow a Porsche 911 faster in the quarter than the 911 could run the 1/4 mile itself, and they released a video to prove it…except keen eyed folks quickly noticed that the “finish line” they show is actually the 1/8th mile marker on that drag strip, and the 911 is clearly about to pass the CT at that point. Engineering Explained on YT made a great video detailing how it couldn’t beat even the slowest modern 911.
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Now that is a good point. It’s been repeatedly shown how towing drains EV batteries. Then again I’m not sure most buyers of EV trucks plan actually use it as a useful truck… Another reason why I don’t like this whole segment.
I use my F-150 fairly often to haul and tow. If I didn’t need to tow ~5000lbs I’d have just kept my old 97 Tacoma. I was all in on getting a Lightning a few months ago, especially with $15,000 in rebates and tax credits. Then I did the math and realized going from my brother’s shop to my place while towing 5000lbs means I’d have to stop and charge for 30 minutes SIX times on that trip. And sadly, it seems that’s as good as it gets for EV trucks right now. I’m 100% onboard with an EV truck, especially a Lightning with the ability to use it as a generator for your home in an outage, but towing/hauling range has to improve astronomically before they’re practical.
I feel like the towing issues won’t be easily resolved without aerodynamic towing covers. That’s really what’s hurting the range when towing in an EV. Small differences in efficiency make a much bigger impact with EVs. Like let’s say an EV needs 100 watts to maintain speed. Adding 100 watts of aerodynamic drag doubles the energy drain. But since ICEs are less efficient overall, they would say require 500 watts to maintain speed. The extra 100 watts from towing makes less of a difference.
I predict there will be aerodynamic fairings for towing in the future as more EVs hit the road.
Supposedly the Silverado EV does have astronomically better towing range, but GM seems to be slow-rolling that one.
The great news is we have Zac (JerryRigEverything) to test exactly that:
https://youtu.be/yk_u9fbkoKM
Towing at around its maximum rating in the cold, the range was indeed below 100 miles.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/yk_u9fbkoKM
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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According to my Tesla driving neighbor most people do not charge their Tesla to 100% in order to extend the battery lifespan. I don’t understand it but apparently Tesla recommends it.
Your phone does the same thing just without communicating it. Samsung phones let you change the percentage of the battery is “100%” charged.
As mentioned, lithium batteries are happiest charged around 20-80%. No shame in going higher if you need it, but typical day to day I drive less than 50 miles in a day. If I’m using 20% of my battery capacity, I don’t care if that means I go from 100% down to 80% or 80% down to 60%. I’ll plug it in at the end of the day and charge back up to whatever I want by the next morning.
Put another way, how many times have you woken up thinking you need to stop at a gas station because you only have 3/4 of a tank?
I mean, fairly often. But I imagine for neurotypical people it might be way less.😂
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70 is aggressive? In California ppl will be passing you on both sides at that speed.
Aggressive doesn’t mean fast. It means more abrupt changes, more acceleration/deceleration
For example, with the frigid weather I notice I use a lot of brake when regen isn’t effective
I read aggressive as in accelerating aggressively. Possibly to get around people?
The word aggressive is from the article, so I don’t know. Anyways driving 70mph consistently is going to deliver you less than the advertised range with EVs, which I believe is a blend of driving types not just constant highway speed. Consider while ICE cars have awful efficiency in city driving (stop/start) so highway driving is preferred, with EVs it’s actually the other way around thanks to fewer mechanical losses and battery regen braking.
It’s below the recommended average on German roads (stands at 130kph / ~81mph).
Didn’t they just get obligated to report a lower range for many models because they were reporting unrealistic figures?
My understanding of this article is that Tesla’s range estimates were based on assuming they were being driven in it’s range-maximizing, low-performance “chill mode”, while the new EPA rules require reporting the range in the car’s default mode.
Tesla apologist
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Or a shill!
Anyone who supports a corporation is just a big dumb dummy.