It was hilarious. 50% of towing capacity yielded 30% of range. Imagine towing 10,000lbs, it wouldn't make 50 miles...

And 45 minutes just to get back to 75% which was only another 75 miles. It would take me a week just to get to my vacation spot like that pullimg my camper.


fyi: my truck goes about 330miles on a tank pulling my trailer. And takes less than 15 minutes to exit highway, fill and return to highway

Pulling into a charging station would be fun as well with a trailer. They got a long way to go. Then again, I doubt traditional truck buyers doing truck stuff are buying the Lightning at this stage of the game. I think you'll find many of these folks are first time truck buyers.

Exactly my point. EVs are supposed to be for reducing our energy consumption, yet here we are making trucks that can't truck, are heavier than their ICE counterparts, but accelerate really fast...

Good grief what a failure.

The only thing appealing about any of this to me is the at home charging option.

Makes sense for my wife - as a daily, but we use her current daily for long road trips as well. 1000 mile trips sometimes, and her SUV will easily go 650 miles on one tank, loaded with the whole family and all our gear.

Plus there isn't an EV that even compares to it's size and cargo volume, so looks like we are still not candidates for a long time.

Did the Supreme courts decision against the EPA today affect CAFE standards at all?

Good to see a real world test on the Lightning towing. Range absolutely sucked. Curious to see how the Silverado EV does if it does any better.

Video also just helps confirm my view that if your going to be towing heavy loads regularly a diesel in a heavy duty is a much better option.

I think it will do marginally better due to starting with a higher capacity but we shall see. Would be nice if they have a trick up their sleeve. GM is the only one claiming 20,000 lb towing ability in an EV.

It will be interesting to see for sure. I think the idea of electric trucks is great for people that barely ever do truck stuff. But for people that need to tow and haul constantly I think the technology is a long way away still.

Exactly this. Most people who buy pickups (or SUVs for that matter) don’t really need a pickup. Those who use a pickup for towing and hauling will likely be among the last converts to electric.

What makes more sense for people who use trucks as trucks would be hydrogen fuel cell powered trucks. FCEVs are (in my opinion) the diesel of electrification. Range is less sensitive to load and speed conditions. Thing is, if BEVs have an infrastructure problem, FCEVs say “hold my beer”.

It’ll be a long while before FCEV are viable in the US. Meanwhile, expect battery tech to continue to improve.

I always value your opinion, but a guy from the great lakes area and another guy from the Cheasapeake bay - let alone the P-sound, Florida, and all the other boats around the globe...

I hear no real chatter about them.

I messed with high-temperature palladium hydrogen filters -- the kind used to filter "dirty hydrogen" into clean hydrogen in fuel cells -- in my education and career. The hot box full of tubes style palladium H2 filters are too fragile (sensitive to NVH damage) and expensive (palladium is USD$2600/oz) for long term high volume use in cars. FCEVs in their current conception are unicorn play toys for people, governments and NGOs with more money than sense. Hold my beer certainly applies here. EDIT: the new membrane fuel cell technology used in the Mirai is an improvement to the old hot-box-o-tubes in terms of mechanical stability, but it still carries all the other hydrogen energy source baggage. Gas phase energy has a long way to go to overcome liquid phase energy storage.

As a FL resident, I can't see any "regular joe" consciously willing to bury the bum-end of their $100k+ 4WD BEV pickup truck in salt-water at a boat ramp to haul a boat on a trailer. Is <manufacturer> gonna cover that with warranty? It's bad enough that they already put emissions control and fuel pump electronics down into the wet nether regions of modern trucks.

As to BEVs and infrastructure maturity, I can't practically see how a million people will be able to evacuate a hurricane and charge up their 200-300mile range vehicles full of precious cargo all at the same time on I-95 and I-75. This is my test, and presently the charging capacity math is a fail. 200 extra miles of range costs me a pair of 5 gallon jerry cans in the trunk ($150), and I can't do that today with solid state energy at any price. It probably will continue this way for at least 1 or 2 more generations. Doesn't stop people (including me) from considering a BEV in their household, but it will stop me from complete adoption away from liquid hydrocarbons as my preferred vehicle energy source.

Some day yeah solid state storage will overtake liquid hydrocarbons and provide a significant incentive for meaningful long-term changes vehicle energy distribution & infrastructure conversion, but probably not in my lifetime.