macindude
Bronze Member
I am not clear about how the cost of EV devices should be calculated. There are too many unanswered questions about ev cars, trucks and tractors. For example.
If you purchase an ev vehicle (or tractor) which has a battery expected to last 8 years, what is it's resale value after 7 or 8 years. What is the value of its resale or does it take a $20K battery investment to sell or trade it.
Find me a single EV that has a battery that's only expected to last 8 years, and I'll tell ya. The idea of a required replacement is largely untrue.
Anyone who has been involved with owning an aircraft understands the cost of aircraft engine overhaul. There is a cost for every hour of operation. Looks like the cost of replacing a battery should be added every year. Then, how much will batteries cost in 8 years? All unanswered questions.
With airplanes, the Time Between Overhauls is published and must be adhered to by commercial operators, but private individuals and companies can run their engines as long as they see fit. Generally, an aircraft valuation assumes a mid-time engine (1000 hours on a 2000 hour TBO) and each hour above or below that is credited on the amount you get when you divide the overhaul cost by the number of hours to TBO ($50,000/2000 hours = $25/hr for example). The overhaul cost used here is generally the cost paid to the overhaul shop, and does not include the costs of removal, reinstallation, transportation, etc.
What you really see is more of an S curve, with planes that have engines in the first quarter of their life being worth close to what a plane with a zero time engine would be, and planes that are approaching TBO being worth what a plane with a fully run-out engine is worth. I would expect that's probably what you would see if there was any expectation at all that batteries would just time out and require a complete replacement.
Is it really equal too or lower operating cost than diesel - After we find that road taxes are added to the electric recharging costs.
Road taxes added to electric costs?!? Where are you getting that? Nobody's gonna vote for anyone that makes them pay road taxes to keep the lights on in their houses. Most states are simply adding EV surcharges to registration fees for electric vehicles to make up for losses in gas tax revenue.
As for operating costs, they will likely be significantly lower even if the fuel cost remains the same due to the large reduction in moving parts count and far less vibration resulting in less normal wear and tear.
Seems to me a commercial operation which can afford several ev tractors and commercial or volume charging rates - and several extra exchange batteries may do well.
Yes. This is the market Mean Green has aimed themselves at. Their stuff can be purchased with 1 onboard battery for simpler homeowner uses, or it can be purchased with 3 onboard batteries and a canopy solar panel for 8+ hour runtime.
But then, I also think Lithium batteries are on their way out and soon will not even be available for evs.
I sure hope so... A solution that would put these replacement tales to rest and be fully rechargeable in a few minutes would be a game changer. But, Lithium is still a very good solution until that magical product comes along. I'm less optimistic than you about that happening any time soon. I've been hearing about "solid state batteries" and supercapacitors and graphite batteries and stuff for years, and none of it has borne any fruit yet.
From the picture it looks like the battery is under the cab, behind the cab steps. With an extra 2,500 of weight I don't think the battery can be swapped. And there is no mention of that on the NH website. Even the small Solis 25HP electric tractor has a large battery that cannot be swapped out.
No battery that contains a useful amount of energy for a tractor is going to be able to be swapped by hand. This isn't your E-Go leaf blower. A quick Google search says that Tesla batteries currently have an energy density of around 269 Wh/kg, so even a SCUT sized tractor that can run at full power for 8 hours would have a battery weighing over 1200 pounds.
That's why I think the answer in a tractor is to make a battery the tractor can pick up. Imagine an electric JD 1025R that has a weight bucket that's really a battery and can be picked up by the JDQA, the quick hitch that they use for snowblowers etc, and the 3 point. Then you can just use it as a counterweight no matter what you're doing so that the weight is useful. You would also have a battery that is part of the tractor that you can use without the "battery bucket".
Anyone see on the news last week where 10 Teslas had to be towed away because it was too cold for the batteries to be able to take a charge? Think what would happen if all ICE's were done away with and replaced with EV's. Snow removal, emergency vehicles, tractors, everything. Can you imagine the chaos when none of this equipment will work because you can't charge a battery? People in the north know this isn't a once in a hundred years event. It happens often. Not trying to hijack a thread here, but just something to think about.
And for some reason in Milwaukee, where it was even colder, we didn't seem to have this problem. I think I addressed this already above.
Like I always used to say, just picture a rush hour traffic jamb in the Lincoln Tunnel or on the GW Bridge. It would only take a couple dead EV’s to cause a horrific traffic jamb.
With heaters in cars not working in the freezing cold…..well….as my dad used to say
”That ain’t good!”
It ain’t like an ICE vehicle where you can walk up and put a couple gallons in the tank and off ya go.
That's one of those things I frequently hear from FUDsters, who don't realize that an EV will last longer than an ICEV in a winter traffic jam scenario, not to mention the EV is much more likely to have a fuller "tank" since we leave the house full every day.
Ive heard some dealers won't even accept them on a trade.
A Bolt with a battery recall, no. A dealer that wouldn't accept a perfectly good EV otherwise is an idiot. They generally ship all of the trades off to auction anyway so I'm not sure why they'd care.
Ford recently announced its production cut of the lightning due to the lack of sales and lets be honest here as well. Performance was an issue when using the truck for its intended purpose
I would guess that the reason the Lightning is experiencing lackluster sales right now is that the Tesla Cybertruck just began shipping and people wanted to wait and see how that would turn out.
The Lightning is actually a great truck, according to a couple of people I know who have them.
When it comes to equipment thats Electric. I remain very skeptical. I think a lot of them claim run times of 4 hours. Which to me isn't all that long. There are days where Ill use mine 8 to 10 hours with a run time of at least 6 hrs. Sometimes even as a homeowner you need to put in a long weekend to get **** done. Not sure I would like short run times. Commercially these dont even make sense. Short run times as they come, that would change the harder you have to work the equipment, frigid temps, and mostly there isn't a place to charge the equipment on a job site.
Yeah, there absolutely needs to be a way to add/swap aux batteries, and the use case for electric needs to be there. Electric for the sake of being electric is dumb.
If these electric tractors only have a 4 hour run time you
would need 2 or 3 of them so you could work 10- - 12
hours a day. With the capacity of the batteries for the
electric tractor it would take a long time to charge???
Yet again... Gotta have a way to add/swap an extra battery and keep running while you have a spare charging up. As a homeowner I wouldn't mind going without, but any sort of commercial operation or farm needs all-day runtime and the ability to continue running when necessary. A surprise end to a day can be extremely bad for a farm!