Driving an EV pickup
- Thread starter sly_karma
- Start date
ziggy
Well-Known Member
Well to be honest we’re taking our time. The more reports we read the tougher the decision. Actually looked at the RAV PHEV today and The BZ4X. No rush.
sly_karma
Crew Member
Check specs on BZ4x, and actual owner comments. Charge speed is pretty slow, 120 kW I think.
If you're not in a hurry and you like Toyota, maybe wait til their fully purpose built EV platform launches. BZ4x is a parts bin job just to keep their foot in the door while R&D builds a real one.
Irishwolf
Crew Member
I was at the Toyota dealership in Victoria a couple of weeks ago. My wife was out of town so I let my kids loose in the 16 car showroom so I could drool over an already sold solar orange coloured Tacoma TDR Pro.
These were my findings:
1. All the cars in the showroom were sold except 1 of 2 BZX4’s. And here I thought wallets were closed.
2. The only new car in stock on the lot was the BZX4
3. The car my kids wanted to get out of all the tundras, tacomas, rav4, etc etc was the BZX4!
4. So I took a look. Didn't overly like it. Looked sharp from the outside but seemed like a lot of unnecessary exterior plastic parts. And the interior was very small. The drivers seat felt like I was sitting in a single seat race car. Big high center console with a weird elongated dash.
With a price tag that of a Model 3 AWD, I can see why not many are selling.
kaelc
Crew Member
Some nice discounts on Tesla model Y test drive models right now. So close to enough range to get up mount Washington and back from Victoria on one charge, not that I can afford to ski this year anyway and will always want to have dinner/stay overnight or at least visit family in Courtenay I don't need 500km of range anyways.
zurk
Well-Known Member
looks like the EV pitchforks are out :
thetyee.ca
Poof Goes the Electric Car Dream | The Tyee
Sputtering EV promises, in 13 scenes. And the true road to surviving the climate crisis.
kaelc
Crew Member
Dam lefties! I do agree, subsidize transit, bikes, small electric cars and ebikes makes the most sense. Love my truck but do I need it or a lightening? I’m not in construction so no, I could rent a truck for the few times a year I need.
I always say the best thing we can do is buy used, fix stuff rather than throw it away. So keep on pumping the lightening so I can buy an f350 lightening used in 5 years!
I always say the best thing we can do is buy used, fix stuff rather than throw it away. So keep on pumping the lightening so I can buy an f350 lightening used in 5 years!
Alex_c
Well-Known Member
It’s a pretty well-reasoned take. I think that some of the major issues addressed in the article can be solved by technological advancements, but there is something to be said about an economic model that relies on infinite growth being incongruous with solutions to problems that are a result of over-consumption.looks like the EV pitchforks are out :
Poof Goes the Electric Car Dream | The Tyee
Sputtering EV promises, in 13 scenes. And the true road to surviving the climate crisis.
I also think over-relying on technology to solve climate problems is a bit of an issue too: people feel that tech will be their saviour and therefore don’t need to make any actual lifestyle changes now, but later. Now, I don’t agree that the solution to climate change is wholly the responsibility of individuals, but the same idea applies to how society does business and the systems in place that facilitate that. We can just keep doing what we’re doing and one day some super smart people will find a way to let us have our cake and eat it too!! It’s like saying you’re going to stop using your drug of choice as soon “they” develop a surrogate that has all the positive effects but none of the negatives. Problem is you might not be around if and when that happens.
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ziggy
Well-Known Member
I agree with your comments on the BZ4x. I liked the look and Interior but range and charging seemed to be the shortcoming. Did some reading on the charging and it’s claimed Toyota wanted to limit fast charging to protect the battery life. .??
Would stick with Hyundai but the Service Department in Victoria has completely put us off and the fact you are forced to finance a new car is BS.
sly_karma
Crew Member
Lazy, foregone-conclusion writing. I originally typed 'journalism', but there's none of that here. The writer just regurgitated the notorious EV haters bingo card:looks like the EV pitchforks are out :
Poof Goes the Electric Car Dream | The Tyee
Sputtering EV promises, in 13 scenes. And the true road to surviving the climate crisis.
The premise that we need fewer cars and trucks of all kinds is true, but it's a flip suggestion dealt with in a couple of sentences, and doesn't suggest how we will back ourselves out of the global system depending on a billion-plus vehicles over a century. And then quickly it moves on to digging up all the hoary old anti EV myths.
Annual lithium mined worldwide: 150,000 tons
Annual coal: 8,000,000,000 tons
Annual oil: 6,000,000,000 tons
Rare earth metals are mined in the thousands of tons annually, not the billions as with FF. Picking on mining for EV and renewables storage materials is just ridiculous, FF moves several orders of magnitude more rock - and then we BURN it.
Closer to home, look at the Alberta tar sands. 2 tons of material dug up to make a barrel of oil. They produce 1.2 billion barrels a year, so 2.4 billion tons of material dug up.
Lithium hard rock ores in commercial production are in the 15-20% yield range, say about 6 tons ores per ton lithium carbonate. So the entire world production in theory needs a million tons of ore mined (although over half of it comes from evaporated salts, not hard rock mining).
In summary, Alberta oil production alone digs up two thousand times more stuff than all of the lithium mining in the world. and it's 100% consumed. Burnt into the atmosphere, every year. While the lithium operates a vehicle for 15+ years, and can then be recycled into more batteries.
Lazy writer, lazy writing.
sly_karma
Crew Member
Basic specs say you get more for your money with a model Y over a BZ4x: better range, faster charging, integrated software system, more interior space, more efficient, full access to Tesla superchargers.
Toyota gets a few points for fit and finish, quieter/smoother ride, more conventional dash and controls, not an Elon product, bricks amd mortar local dealerships. Those latter items are subjective of course. Up to you how much weight they carry.
Gong Show
Well-Known Member
This author was the writer in residence at Haig Brown House here in Campbell River awhile ago.looks like the EV pitchforks are out :
Poof Goes the Electric Car Dream | The Tyee
Sputtering EV promises, in 13 scenes. And the true road to surviving the climate crisis.
He is hard core anti oil, but I did respect his method. I bought and read a number of his books.
Argue his points, not the headline.
sly_karma
Crew Member
Youre correct, its a badge brother of the Toyota.
sly_karma
Crew Member
I selected one of his points, about mining, and showed the huge reduction in resource consumption that will build up over the EV transition. Battery materials are a flea bite compared to all the FF we dig up and burn. And if this gent is as anti-oil as you say, then surely he knew the numbers, yet chose to go after lithium extraction. Disingenuous as well as lazy.
Moving away from individual motor vehicles and into transit makes total sense, and is actually happening as cities densify, and transit expands amd improves. But human nature is what it is, many people will stick to their cars and trucks for all the reasons, or are living innareas not well serviced by public transport.
Surely the answer is to go after both: increased transit, walking and cycling, plus decarbonized private vehicles. The article's premise is against private vehicles of all types, which is impossible unless you convince everyone to move into the inner cities.
ziggy
Well-Known Member
There is no one silver bullet. His article seems to suggest any single solution has drawbacks, so do nothing. Fact is we have more people, using more energy and while nothing may completely solve the problem,doing something is better than doing nothing. I think criticism of anything that isn’t a 100% solution, unless a better option is offered, is a form of defeatism. Enough of that though, let’s get back on topic. Enjoy you offering your experiences with your truck.
sly_karma
Crew Member
Dammit, last evening's snow turned out to be nothing.
zurk
Well-Known Member
i think his point was that replacing gas powered giant vehicles with EV powered giant vehicles will do squat.
I tend to agree with that. Keep the gas powered giant vehicles sitting in your driveway while switching the infrastructure to e-bikes and e-scooters. We can easily dedicate 1 lane to a separated 2 way bike lane on our 4 lane or more roads everywhere. or even 2 lanes. add secure e-bike/e-scooter parking and there you go. I checked all my trips last week and my EV could have done 90% of them had it been given the infrastructure to do so. of course i dont have an EV car like sly here but here is my EV being transported across for use on bowen. Try doing that with sly's truck.
I tend to agree with that. Keep the gas powered giant vehicles sitting in your driveway while switching the infrastructure to e-bikes and e-scooters. We can easily dedicate 1 lane to a separated 2 way bike lane on our 4 lane or more roads everywhere. or even 2 lanes. add secure e-bike/e-scooter parking and there you go. I checked all my trips last week and my EV could have done 90% of them had it been given the infrastructure to do so. of course i dont have an EV car like sly here but here is my EV being transported across for use on bowen. Try doing that with sly's truck.
zurk
Well-Known Member
and here is a chinese shipyard end of shift with EV scooters. Try doing this with each person driving an EV pickup truck.
The solution is already here. its just that no one likes it (other than some parts of europe). a $4000 carbon fiber EV bike is much better than a $80,000 EV truck. in terms of carbon impact, footprint, density, minerals used to build and any other measure you care to use. and we can build them 100X faster with 200X less materials than a pickup truck (literally, mine weighs 13kg off the factory....probably 20kg with all the junk i added). mine does 30km like most others which is basically vancouver to surrey/richmond/coquitlam or victoria to saanich. would pretty much cover most of the trips people do in the city, assuming the infrastructure was there. which it isnt.
The solution is already here. its just that no one likes it (other than some parts of europe). a $4000 carbon fiber EV bike is much better than a $80,000 EV truck. in terms of carbon impact, footprint, density, minerals used to build and any other measure you care to use. and we can build them 100X faster with 200X less materials than a pickup truck (literally, mine weighs 13kg off the factory....probably 20kg with all the junk i added). mine does 30km like most others which is basically vancouver to surrey/richmond/coquitlam or victoria to saanich. would pretty much cover most of the trips people do in the city, assuming the infrastructure was there. which it isnt.
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This thread has been really good at staying on track, but is starting to wander into the big debate about climate change and other related commentary, which is a no win debate and not what the OP intended this thread to be about. Here is the first post, which acknowledges that.
This thread is going to be about owning, driving and USING an electric truck. No EVangelising, just an honest appraisal of a type of vehicle both new and familiar to most of us. If it does stuff I don't like, I'll say so. Promise.
This thread is going to be about owning, driving and USING an electric truck. No EVangelising, just an honest appraisal of a type of vehicle both new and familiar to most of us. If it does stuff I don't like, I'll say so. Promise.
