Bollinger B2 Electric Pickup Truck
bollingermotors.com
bollingermotors.com
Could see people balking at the $125k price tag, but at that price point there is already a mass market for dated german sedans and artifacts of imagined british nostalgia supported by a hackneyed movie franchise. Something useful and durable would be a relief.
i am curious and kind of skeptical that electric vehicles will ever get the longevity of combustion engine toyotas and such, given the nascent battery technology. am i wrong? will a Model S outlast a Subaru?
Personally, I'd imagine powering a Bollinger from a power wall and generator connected to a biogas digester that runs off the muck pile of a small horse or dairy farm.
If you control the timing of the supply of energy via the burning of the biodigested muck, why go through the Powerwall? The Bollinger's battery is 10x the capacity of the Powerwall. If you charge it directly from your generator, you don't have to pay the round trip charging losses of the Powerwall.
The only reason to use the Powerwall is to exploit solar power by charging the Powerwall during the day, and then drawing upon it at night to charge the truck.
Also note that according to this article [1] from Penn State University, all the reclaimable energy from dairy cow waste in Pennsylvania would only provide for 20% of energy used on Pennsylvania dairy farms. So it's not like there is going to be a surplus of electricity to charge your car. It would make more sense to use the biogas directly for the dairy operation, because you can potentially use both the electricity and heat from burning biogas to, for example, heat and power the cow sheds in winter, vs using that electricity to power a truck. The truck could get its electricity directly from solar, or from the grid.
(assuming passive solar and geothermal + modern wood stove heated house, with option for propane backup)
It's a question of what we're optimizing for. To me the priorities would be, animal waste/muck reuse, power outage risk, then with normal conditions handled by a grid hookup, which is mandatory for code in many jurisdictions anyway.
I figured a powerwall would operate as an electricity storage scheme to use for either household or Bollinger truck use. The cutover from powering one to the other is nothing an Arduino and some relays and other cots equipment couldn't handle. Fun to solution this. If you have the liquid capital to build a new passive solar and geothermal house on land, $125k for a vehicle is about par for the course anyway.
In that case, compressing the biogas I to tanks might be a cheaper and higher capacity energy storage solution than a Powerwall.
The real issue is the software and electronics which all modern cars are suffering from. It's becoming increasingly difficult to own them out of warranty when they're all digital and need complex and proprietary software to keep running.
That is: the vehicle interface needn’t change but for a software upgrade that allows complete firmware upgrades through that interface from an “injection”, so to speak when the vehicle becomes... “outdated” or “obsolete”.
I understand the first problem with this is all kinds of ugly hacks (breaking existing traffic regulations) a malicious attack vector... but it seems like if you had the option to fix a problem by buying an existing patch for a used vehicle that never had it applied before you bought it [and after the vehicle had been discontinued] then you’d have something of a continuance model at least.
I’m sure there are other holes in that thought, but I think it should be workable technologically—my concern would be the business end that decides it’s detrimental to profit margins and whatever exponential growth may have been promised. (Ie: “they should just buy a new car”)
Your comment is the first time I’ve ever heard this very real problem. I’m sure it’s been promoted before and I’m curious to know how you came to it, and how it differs from other modern vehicles that also use systems-critical software.
This issue is widespread in other industries from farm equipment to consumer electronics. Mechanical components are easily reverse engineered and have tons of aftermarket and independent shops, but this is magnitudes harder with digital devices and software, especially without access to any of the original equipment and diagrams. It's like trying to rebuild a computer chip by looking at nothing but the motherboard it's placed on. Practically impossible.
Consumers want a "right to repair" (which is the name for a lot of the legal bills pushing for access) but it's unfortunately not getting much political support due to lobbying. For more info, check out Rich Rebuilds [1] who repairs salvaged Tesla's and is starting his own independent shop. There's also Louis Rossman [2] who repairs Apple devices and has updates on the recent legislation for personal devices.
The simple dashboard (like a lot of custom cars, e.g. http://www.fastlanerodshop.com/George34ford/George34ford_das... ) with an actual analogue speedometer is nice too. I wonder if it's mechanically driven and thus wouldn't even need the truck to be "on" to work. Hopefully the whole vehicle is as serviceable as it looks --- the lack of any huge touchscreen is a good sign that there's probably not a DRM-encrusted computer controlling everything, although I doubt it has "true old-school" analog motor electronics either.
Half tons by the 2021 model year will be pushing 15,000 lbs. towing capacity. The last 5 years have seen almost a 50% increase. The market has responded really well. People want a half ton (ride characteristics and price) that can tow like a 3/4 ton.
Which makes me wonder how much is that Tesla (that at the lowest end is rated for 7,000 lbs) actually safe to tow? I'm going to guess it's a lot less than 7,000 lbs.
And the higher-end models just have more pulling power, and I guess they weigh a bit more due to the battery.
The added weight of the Cyber Truck will actually help it in terms of stability during towing and, in many cases, it will likely tow better than most half ton trucks currently on the market. I'm curious to see how it plays out in reality. And your points help as well - since trucks are naturally higher CG vehicles the batteries are also going to be a competitive advantage in making it more nimble all around. I'd happily trade my current tow vehicle for something that can do 500 miles towing 6k lbs. That would cover 95% of my use cases I have a tow vehicle for in the first place.
The casual F-150 driver who throws some bikes or a grass pallet in the back doesn't need 15,000 lbs of towing. They like that the truck moves quickly and can haul their 3,500 lb boat.
I think the price/performance of the Tesla kicks the shit out of this vehicle, but there are markets for most things.
I'm trying to figure out who exactly the cybertruck is for - it reminds me of the Pontiac Aztek.
It's for the same people who buy most pickups and SUVs now - i.e. not tradespeople or people on farms. Instead most of these will spend their time sitting in gridlocked traffic on the way to and from the office or shopping mall in places like Dallas, Silicon Valley, New Jersey. Pickup trucks are very versatile vehicles, and we live in a society where people like to carry lots of stuff with them, whether or not they truly need to.
A few weekends a year, the cargo space will be filled with gear to go glamping or skiing (hence the glamping scene on the cybertruck website), or other upper middle class pursuit, but more frequently visiting a winery or other rural tourist attraction. A few other weekends, it will carry bags of mulch from the garden center, or the kids' bikes.
I'm not mocking those use cases. Minus the gridlock traffic to work (I'm lucky - I take a train), that pretty much describes what my family uses our small SUV for now.
* a bed to carry bikes and coolers and bulky shit * the acceleration of a sports car * the ability to go over a curb without messing up the vehicle
It is just a bit too expensive for me (I spent $25k on a car six years ago and I plan to hold on to it for another 4) but if I were in the market for a $40-50k truck, I would look at this and the Ram offroad similarly.
Why do you think towing is so critical? The point of a pickup is that the load carrying is integral - that's what the bed in the back is for. If you're towing you don't need a pickup.
It's perhaps not rational. Only 25% of pickup owners tow more than once a year. But, people buy sports cars based on 0-60 times they'll never hit more than once or twice when they first get the car. People don't buy a Porsche because they drive at 250 mph all the time, they buy it because it can even though they never do, and I think towing capacity is similar for pickups.
Edit: the linked page says it can fit 40 2x4s through the pass-through, and 72 sheets of half-inch plywood when the rear seats are removed. Also, with the tailgate down, it can carry 19' material fully supported.
Major downside of the RAV is I can't fit 4x8 sheets of anything and I don't have a tailgate to drop to make it work. In those cases I just find a friend with a larger vehicle who is available instead, or if I don't need the sheets to be whole I have them ripped at the lumberyard where I bought them.
The moveable wall and full passthrough in this B2 truck looks like a really good deal.
With longer stuff - 14-16ft trim, or 20ft sticks of steel, you're basically stuck with ladder racks anyway, so no big deal.
A ladder rack on a small truck vs having a real, functional rack on an SUV might be good either way.
But to be fair, it is a farm truck not for running kids to school. It has quite a bit more payload capacity (3500 vs 5000 lbs)
But all aluminium body in that squary shape? That seems like asking to be dented. I wonder what aluminium alloy they use (and how thick it is).
Can any real mechanical engineer comment on that?
==== In the Shop ====
Aluminum is the "newbie" metal: cheap, light, soft, weak, easy (to machine, to protect from corrosion).
Steel is the "adult" metal: strong and resilient, but heavy and requires more care to machine, heat treat, and protect from corrosion.
Titanium is the "pro" metal: as strong as steel and as light as aluminum. Expensive and difficult to machine, though.
DISCLAIMER: These are all gigantic simplifications. Alloy, heat treatment, mass/volume denominators, coatings, geometry, and economic considerations can absolutely upset this ordering.
==== In Public ====
Aluminum is the space age advanced metal.
Steel is obsolete.
Titanium is Aluminum.
I thought the public view of titanium was similar to adamantium or unobtanium. It's not an option because it's too expensive to use in a "normal" car. It's something that gets used in 100k+ supercars and formula 1 cars.
Last month's MSRP announcement immediately dashed any desire to buy this vehicle new. Maybe some of these will hit the used market in a decade or so and I'll be able to swap out the aging batteries for whatever the latest-and-greatest is in 2030, but as it stands I ain't willing to take out a fucking mortgage for a pickup.
I've got my eye on the Atlis XT and the Cybertruck (in that order). Both seem to be very reasonably priced, though Altis is probably the bigger unknown. I've also got my eye on the DIY approach of converting an old pickup myself, though that'll have to wait until I've got a decent work space.
I'd slightly prefer a blacked out Tesla truck to that. The main problem with the front/back of the Cybertruck is the it's very flat and plain where even a licence plate or name decal would make it look better. But I have a feeling it will look better in person than online.
I think I agree. I feel like it'd like it better if the headlights were inset as vertical stripes rather than rounded.
There's an awful, awful lot of virtue signalling going on in all of these designs. Extra emphasis on the 'awful'.
And considering it's the electric drivetrain that adds all the main features (performance, tow capacity, torque, electrical outlets, etc), they could easily close the gap with Tesla. It remains to be seen on how much people care about the styling and hardened steel body though.