Bigger battery pack might not be the answer. I'm not sure what the name of this physical limitation is called but it's like bridges ... there is a limit to how big they can be before they cannot even support their own weight. Point of diminishing returns maybe it's called? Of course lithium batteries are pretty light and the packs would have a way to go before that point I'm sure but then there is the cost and environmental concerns with that much exotic material.

What we need is a better battery technology. There are some on the horizon but they're not here yet.

 

Chevy for example has (on paper again) a truck with 400 miles of range. That works for me, if only there would be some charging points on the way. What you mean is energy density, meaning the amount of energy per weight of battery. That is improving constantly, Tesla is way ahead of everyone else, both in tech and manufacturing capability.

I’d argue that the tech is already here, what we don’t have is production scale. GM is building a battery factory, Tesla has a few with more coming, Ford relies on suppliers. With the cost of packs these days (Tesla is supposedly at the 100$/kWh mark, cost parity with ICE) and the cheaper running costs of electrics, the good old ICE is doomed.

 

Rick - I did a quick search of your reply (Cntl-F) and found "terrain" but not "rain" in your reply. Rain can be very localized. Showers crossing the plains, mountains, etc. So it would cost a lot to include unless it could only look at widespread events. Then it would have to know the inches per hour to calculate the range reduction. When it says weather it probably temperature and maybe wind. Tesla doesn't even do wind for the same reasons as rain. But it will constantly calculate and display your estimated battery % remaining at your destination. If that gets below 10% or so it will advise you to slow down or it may reroute you to a closer charger. If you are paying any attention at all, you will never run out of charge.

 

Electron - People like to hate on the Cybertruck but there is a reason it looks like it does. The reason is efficiency. You don't need a bigger battery, you need a more efficient design. Does an F150 look aerodynamic? My Model Y can go 300 miles on 75 kWh. Not the 130 kWh of the Lightning. Ford chose to make the Lightening as much like the F150 as possible for acceptance and build cost. That sacrifices efficiency. The CT is supposed to have a 500 mile range. We'll see how big the battery is.

 

Totally. I don’t mind the looks of the Cybertruck. I’m ok with the Lightning, Silverado electric, Rivian etc. Ford has the first mover at some scale advantage. One could argue that they know how to build these things to last, where Tesla is more of an unknown by comparison. The Cybertruck is a clean sheet design, stainless steel unibody with a structural battery. The Chevy is somewhat the same, not a separate bed at least.

The biggest advantage Tesla has is integrated, available infrastructure combined with the most efficient electrics. I am on the waiting list of the Cybertruck. I wouldn’t mind a Lightning if it would meet my needs.

 

Not much. All the costs are rolled into the gallon you buy at the pump.

 

I'll believe it when Tesla is able to deliver

 

By market cap, Tesla is worth 10xFord. They can easily tap into that as they have done in the past. There is a lot Tesla can do. They’ll deliver, but later than promised as is their track record.

 

N4HHE - The cost is rolled in no doubt but how many gallons of gasoline are bought each year?
I found a govt report that said 35% of electricity in Tx goes to refining. I'll see if I can find it again.
Texas is not proportionate to the rest of the US in terms of the amount of electricity used in refining because we are about the largest refiner in the US.

Here you go:
https://www.eia.gov/state/print.php?sid=TX
It says Texas produces the most electricity of any state more than twice as much as Fla which is second.
This says that all Texas industry consumes about half of the electricity generated. So refineries consuming 35% is possible.
Total Net Electricity Generation 44,142 thousand MWh 12.7% of the US Sep-21
So 35% of that is 15,449,700 MWh = 15,449,700,000,000 Wh
Vehicle miles traveled 288,227,000,000 miles
Our Tesla 3 and Y lifetime average about 274 Wh/mile so with that rate we could drive 15,449,700,000,000 Wh ÷ (274 Wh/mi) = 56,385,766,423 miles
That's about 20% of the elecrticity needed to power all the miles driven. Some of those miles are trucks I know but for the sake of spitballing.
Check my math here. Could be off by 1,000.

 

Keep in mind, the cd of the Cybertruck, which may hit 0.30 since they downsized it (although there have been no actual tests to date on a production vehicle), is dependent upon the bed cover being closed.

But these comparisons are silly. The Tesla truck is trying to be an efficient car as much as it's trying to be a truck, which means there are compromises that have been made that make it less like a truck. My biggest beef with the design are the huge blind spots. You want the A pillars to be as vertical as possible to provide better visibility, a feature that becomes more important as vehicle size increases. Tesla went the opposite direction, providing a pillar the has more horizontal sweep than vertical. As for the rear, there is zero visibility when the bed cover is down, and when it's not, there is near zero visibility as the rear window has little height and the C pillars sweep all the way to the rear of the truck, presenting a huge blind spot. Yes, it has cameras, no they are not as good as being able to look over your shoulder. This alone kills my interest in the cybertruck as I need to be able to back trailers into tight spots, and can't do it without clear, direct observation. Cameras can add to visibility, but they cannot replace it.

The top of the cab juts out over the bed, not ideal for moving large objects. Will having a large cabinet pushed up against it damage the lip and prevent the cover from sliding out? The feature is cool and all, but once one gets around to using the cybertruck as a truck, I think we are going to find Tesla's first iterations falls quite short of the mark. Or we're going to find the production truck got a lot of revisions, and doesn't look quite as slick as it did when first showed off.