Electric Trucks - Lightning reveal

[L92 OLDS]

Yesterday, Ford revealed the new Ford Lightning all electric truck. I think it is going to sell well and with a 300 mile range makes perfect sense for how most people use their light duty trucks.
Things I like about it are 1) It looks like a normal pick up (unlike the hideous cybertruck and Rivian trucks). So many electric plug ins and hybrids look really gay. 2) It's starting price of under $40K 3) It's engineered and built in Detroit by Ford.

Hopefully the new plug in Silverado will look like a normal truck. Time will tell. My next new vehicle purchase will be a plug in.

 

[fleming442]

For some reason, I have a hard time getting excited about a golf cart on steroids. Yeah, the guy kicking street racers' asses in the P100 was cool, but that's about where it ends. Kind of ironic that the Lightning is electric.

 

[rfpowerdude]

I've been into EVs since the early 90s. I guess it goes with the BSEE territory. I looked at this earlier today and thought, "I wonder how much I can get for my 2014 RAM?" LOL

 

[L92 OLDS]

I've been into EVs since the early 90s. I guess it goes with the BSEE territory. I looked at this earlier today and thought, "I wonder how much I can get for my 2014 RAM?" LOL

EV’s are coming regardless of whether you like them or not. Given the current technology though it will be difficult to replace ICE’s for long range. I use my truck for shorter trips so EV Is a good fit.

 

[rfpowerdude]

Right now, you are right, long distance and charging infrastructure leaves just a little bit to be desired at the moment. HOWEVER, that is changing rapidly. Most EVs coming out now have quick charging capabilities with the high power stations that rival the time spent being at a gas station. Once this gets rolled out and becomes ubiquitous, all those concerns go away. Just like long before we were born when the general masses said that the automobile would never catch on for various reasons. The horse was the most reliable and predictable form of transpo at that time. We all know how that went. Same thing now. I do not want to be that old person that says, "oh this is a fad, it will go away once the economics and sense come back into play"...

Ain't gonna happen. Once the world gets past the nuclear FEAR, we will finally move into a new era. Nuclear and renewables are the future. The old guys (me included) on here may not live to see it...

 

[ck80]

Right now, you are right, long distance and charging infrastructure leaves just a little bit to be desired at the moment. HOWEVER, that is changing rapidly. Most EVs coming out now have quick charging capabilities with the high power stations that rival the time spent being at a gas station. Once this gets rolled out and becomes ubiquitous, all those concerns go away. Just like long before we were born when the general masses said that the automobile would never catch on for various reasons. The horse was the most reliable and predictable form of transpo at that time. We all know how that went. Same thing now. I do not want to be that old person that says, "oh this is a fad, it will go away once the economics and sense come back into play"...

Ain't gonna happen. Once the world gets past the nuclear FEAR, we will finally move into a new era. Nuclear and renewables are the future. The old guys (me included) on here may not live to see it...

See, here's the thing. One oil tanker has an accident, or, Deepwater horizon goes you pollute a little bigger area. But life goes on.

One nuclear accident and you **** up 1/4 of the planet for hundreds of years.

Also, nuclear plants don't go up in a year. Or even 5. Here in GA they've been trying to build one, ONE new plant and it's headed for 2 decades to come online with a price tag in BILLIONS.

For all this talk about EVs nobody, NOBODY addresses the trio of gorillas in the room - lack of infrastructure from power generation, to distribution and substations and wires to move the juice for all that extra demand; for all the talk of "renewable sources" the sun don't shine overnight, and wind only goes so far before causing environmental damage of its own; finally, there's shortages of minerals to build those battery packs - not to mention the damage to pull them from the earth.

It's going to literally blow up in people's faces.

 

[olds307 and 403]

Supposedly there has been a break through on Lithium Metal Batteries, it should help with longer range for EV's. I need to see a lot better range and much better infrastructure before I could consider one. The trip we took today to go Fishing was nearly 250 miles one way, we need 500 Mile minimum range. Being we were fishing at a Hydro Electric Dam, you would hope they could put a high rate charge station where we park.

 

[303'505rollin]

Any one see that K5 blazer retro fitted with an electric motor? If that's the way to keep my olds school rides rollin I'm in.

 

[popeye1978]

One nuclear accident and you **** up 1/4 of the planet for hundreds of years.

How much of that statement is hyperbole? Of the people around Fukushima who were evacuated and today are not back in their homes, what percentage of the area's pre-accident population are prevented from going back due to contamination and what is the ratio of those voluntarily staying-away?

Also, nuclear plants don't go up in a year. Or even 5. Here in GA they've been trying to build one, ONE new plant and it's headed for 2 decades to come online with a price tag in BILLIONS.

Speaking of Vogtle-3 and Vogtle-4, right? "Headed for two decades" is misrepresentation if you don't provide context.

These two power plants use the AP1000 design, which first received Design Certification (intended under law to simplify the license application process for a utility) from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in December 2005. A bunch of utilities considered expanding their nuclear portfolios using this reactor design as the cost of natural gas was then high and yes, Southern started talking about building Vogtle-3 and Vogtle-4 about that time and signed a contract in 2008 ... but surprise! In 2009/2010 the NRC decided to change some criteria for licensing so Westinghouse (the designer) had to re-analyze/rework what was newly-unacceptable and an amended Design Certification was approved January 2012 (that's more than 6 years after the first cert). Once that was done then in February 2012 the NRC could legally issue the Construction-Operation License (COL) for Vogtle-3 and Vogtle-4, first concrete for Vogtle-3 was poured literally days later. Vogtle-3 is now expected to be in commercial operation (ie, making money) early 2022, they started Hot Functional Testing a few weeks ago so fuel load is probably late this year.

... so when Southern signed the contract in 2008, they thought they were buying a design for which construction could start relatively soon, but instead construction could not start until the design met the NRC's changed requirements, and I guess you could say it delayed things for 2 years

When it comes to BILLIONS and the time to construct, yes, a wide difference from a gas or coal plant and there have been cost escalations & schedule delays at Vogtle, but also let's consider:

• Do gas/coal plants have the same amount of regulation as nuclear?
• Who had to suck-up the costs for the amended design certification? It wasn't the NRC and to me it seems then-Chairman Jaszko was trying to delay things as much as he could
• During the delay for the amended design certification, who pays the interest for the down payment? Does the cost of labor go up over time? Do you think there were costs for "putting-off" when you would need to start ramping-up the number of construction laborers?
• Southern has had to suck-up development costs that initially were going to be spread-out among them, SCANA (Summer-2 and Summer-3, construction abandoned 2017), TVA (planned Bellefonte-3 and Bellefonte-4, but idea scrapped to try completing Bellefonte-1), FPL (I think they have COLs for Turkey Point-7 and -8 but they haven't signed a contract to build), Duke, and Progress (I think Duke and Progress were each talking one greenfield site but dropped-out to concentrate on their existing fleets once price of natural gas started to drop due to fracking)
• What was the state of the nuclear construction industry in the US in 2005? How much more robust does your Quality Assurance program have to be when constructing nuclear as compared to gas/coal?
• What other companies have marketed nuclear power plants in the US in the past 20 years, how mature are those designs, and what is their construction status? That'd be helpful for comparison
• To start producing power, a nuclear power plant has to have the first 18-24 months of fuel already on-site (ie, in the core) whereas gas/coal plants don't have the same requirement -- for nuclear, a good chunk of your total cost of ownership is upfront
• Considering the main people at the controls of a nuclear power plant have to be licensed by the NRC, how much additional cost is training and retention at a nuclear power plant compared to a gas or coal plant?

[end hijack]

 

[jiho]

If people can deal with the cost and inconvenience of an EV, more power to them. Pun intended.

There have been rumors about better batteries for years. If any come to fruition, more power to them. Puns intended.



On a more serious note .... It's hard to believe, but fire season is already under way here, and there is no plan in place for PG&G to deal with the risk posed by their grids. They had a "plan" but a judge rejected it and told them to come back with a better one some time next month, IIRC. By the time anything gets done .... ?

When Biden talks about "green jobs," maybe he means trimming around power grids.