Rivian R1T is the first EV to win the longest off-road competition in the US | Hacker News Reader

Rivian R1T is the first EV to win the longest off-road competition in the US

techcrunch.com

226 pointsdkobia195 comments

Just be careful not to dent quarter panels on a rivian. It’s something like $40k to replace. Normally a $2k-$3k job on any other pick up truck.

These car companies suck when it becomes to repairability.

Edit: I’m not going to argue with naysayers below, this dude was quoted $41k but was able to PDR(https://www.thedrive.com/news/41000-rivian-fender-bender-act...). Tesla repairs with giga casting are also a lot more expensive than similar “regular” cars. This isn’t an issue of unibody design. My family owned a body shop and I painted cars for few years.

I will stick with main stream brands like Toyota.

Yeah, insurance will not pick that up if it was caused while off roading.

I’m guessing taking your Rivian off road will also void the warranty.

If you off road it’s good to know how to repair your rig.

It’s best to off-road in a reasonably built car, like a Land Cruiser or a bronco.

It won’t void your warranty. The Rivian was designed, and is, an incredibly competent off road vehicle.

It literally has an Off-Road drive mode with 4 different setups within it and a built in air compressor in the truck need for adjusting your tire pressure when you take it off road.

> It won’t void your warranty.

Wow, that is truly surprising. I’d be more worried about the driver if I were Rivian? What stops someone from driving through a creek and submerging their truck? Damaging their undercarriage on a rock? Sliding into a tree? etc.

> The Rivian was designed, and is, an incredibly competent off road vehicle.

It looks like it doesn’t have locking differentials but that’s usually overkill.

> It literally has an Off-Road drive mode with 4 different setups within it

I’ll need to read more about the “Off Road” drive modes. It sounds similar to the Tacoma’s “Crawl Control”.

> a built in air compressor in the truck need for adjusting your tire pressure when you take it off road.

An air compressor is nice but you can pick up a Tsunami Air Compressor and a tire deflator for like $130.

Off-road cars have limitations. I'll bet the Rivian just like other 4wds will have a maximum wading depth for water crossings.

If the door seals are good there's not a maximum wading depth, rather a maximum time paddle boating in water before seals give way | river current moves the 4x4 too far.

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC5ld79joIA

Note that the Land Cruiser is bouyant in the water and not touching ground.

How did the driver turn??

Back wheels spinning in water create weak driving force forward.

Front wheels can turn and provide rudimentary front rudder effect wrt force from rear wheels pushing forward.

If 4xwheel drive was engaged the front wheels wouls also be driven and provide a "clawing forwards" directional force.

It's not the ideal boat, but it floats and works up to a point (as seen).

With the engine weight forward it's entirely possible the front wheels were occassionally touching down when over the pan of the crossing.

When the vehichle went to the left of the crossing it's unlikely the front wheels had any contact as the crossing (unflooded) is typically higher than the river bed on either side.

Looks to me like mostly momentum and current carried him to a spot where his front tires touched bottom at which point he was able to spin around. He was pretty adrift until he hit that spot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T21njN2HJgY

It doesn't have differentials at all ...

Each wheel has it's own motor.

I see so slips are impossible to prevent, this seems like a big limitation for serious off roading.

https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/quad-motor-vs-loc...

The Tacoma Off Road Crawl Control is somewhat similar but uses ABS to prevent slips. It does come with a rear locker though.

I'm not an expert here, but what stops four wheels from all rotating at the same speed with independent motors?

From the link:

> If the axles are not physically tied, there is no way for any of the four wheels to know how much traction it actually has until it breaks free. Then, of course, it knows "too much" torque and it can apply traction control. But the damage is done. It has broken free, and any negative consequences have already happened prior to the computer being able to make any further calculations.

> Again, if physically locked together with large gears and drive shafts, there is no possible way for one wheel to break free in that manner, unless of course something is broken.

All four wheels rotating at the same speed is the normal case: straight line driving on good pavement.

The real question is can all the wheels go to zero traction at the same moment and thus the computer thinks all is well. I think the odds of that are low enough to not worry about.

Traction control systems also use accelerometers and gyroscopes, so the scenario you describe is not possible.

Well, yes, but you can also sense which ones are turning slower and just increase the torque to those. Locking diffs simply provide torque to the wheels with grip, which is exactly what one motor per wheel can do too. There’s no difference in the real world, and in fact performance is even better because there’s no turning circle penalty from having a locked diff.

> Well, yes, but you can also sense which ones are turning slower and just increase the torque to those.

From the link:

> Again, if physically locked together with large gears and drive shafts, there is no possible way for one wheel to break free in that manner, unless of course something is broken.

Some other interesting tests by an R1T owner.

https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/quad-motor-vs-loc...

I mean, doesn't the set of computer controlled individual motors completely and totally contain all scenarios presented by a locked differential?

Specifically, wouldn't one line of code that says "never ever ever turn this wheel faster than this other wheel" be totally and completely indistinguishable from having the wheels on the same axle, as far as the physical world is concerned?

That's not how electric motors work.

You can measure the speed and adjust the power going to the motor if you go over or under that speed. The lower latency that this cycle has, the better, but it can never go to zero like with physically connected wheels.

Pedantry: The speed of sound in steel is about 5100m/s, so a solid 2m axel will still take about 4µs for interactions to propagate from one end to the other.

Maybe so but what does that have to do with anything?

A physical axle can have both wheels break free too can't it?

Comparing apples to apples the only scenario you're concerned with is where one wheel breaks traction and the other doesn't. Why is a logically driven exact speed match between wheels inferior to a physically linked speed match between the wheels. Explain the difference practically speaking.

You said "totally and completely indistinguishable".

Practically, electric motors can't generally transfer torque from one wheel to another like you can with locked hubs. (The only exception would be where your battery is underrated to provide sufficient power to both motor to maximize their torque)

It isn't surprising that off road is covered in warranty. They may put limits in, but look at truck ads: most of them are showing people towing a heavy load, hauling big things, or driving off road - often more than one of the above. Sure that isn't how people actually use them (most of the time), but that is how they sell them. I haven't looked at Rivian's ads, but if they show their trucks doing something in an ad, then a lawyer will have no problem convincing the courts that because it was in the ads the warranty fine print was a misprint and that is acceptable use.

Rivian insurance covers off-road use.

Probably closer to 8-14k if you’re not willing to leave the dent. The famed 42k bill was for a rear end collision that caused more damage than it looked like. Cars are much safer today but crumple zones mean minor fender benders result in huge repair bills. However, they are also a major part of the 90+% reduction in vehicle fatalities per mile over the last 100 years.

“They took the R1T to a certified Rivian body shop who said the entire rear quarter panel, as well as some tailgate internals, needed replacing. The total cost of replacing an entire body panel and some tailgate bits was reportedly just over $14,000.” https://www.thedrive.com/news/rivian-r1t-fender-bender-turns...

I was rear ended about 8 years ago. I was in a lane that is parking most of the day (like when I stopped) and no stopping/anti-congestion during rush hour. My Camaro was hit by a person traveling at least at the 45MPH speed limit. They were on their phone and thankfully were so angry they unintentionally confessed it all to the police office taking the report. I ended up not paying a cent to fix the car, but I did get a copy of the bill.

All in all the cost to repair it was in excess of $18,000 from a third party shop that didn’t do a great job on the finish. That was only $5k less than the Kelly Bluebook value for my car at that point in time.

In short, it costs a lot to repair crash damage. That’s something people probably don’t think about too deeply if they have comprehensive coverage and pay just their deductible.

A dent is much different than a 45mph crash. At that speed you have to replace half of the car. We have done those at our shop on an occasion. It’s rare as it’s a pricy repair.

It actually wasn’t far off from the “one panel” as the 5th Gen Camaro has a long panel that stretches from the bumper to the tip of the A Pillar. Otherwise it was a bumper cover, crash structure (which is disposable above 10MPH) and a trunk lid. The biggest cost was the panel.

> In short, it costs a lot to repair crash damage

...and I suspect the car will never be "right" again.

Mine was actually fine. GT3 race cars get straightened on the same rigs after crashes so it apparent works ok for a harder use case than daily driving. The computerized rigs are better than the old days.

In my case I did have a couple trim pieces that didn’t completely match.

The challenge with these repairs is that they only focus on the body part. However, nobody knows the damage to the other systems in the car when hit at 45mph. Imo, it would have been better for the insurance company to total the car and pay you to buy another one.

I had a VW Sirocco back in the 1980s and had to replace a rear taillight assembly; brake, turn, stop lights. I think it cost about $200 at the time which was a shocking amount. I probably only made $200 per a week in my job.

My uncle who knew a lot about cars gave me some advice. He said check how much an alternators costs before you buy a car. VWs seemed to be cheap to people but the parts were astoundingly expensive. But me as a teenage ignored all that. Kind of like people now buying Tesla for the looks, technology but pay dearly for any body damage.

I find it funny that all the Porsche guys try to find interchangeable parts with VW. Makes sense there is probably overlap between the manufacturing. I do the same thing with my old cars.

I drifted into the back of a car on snow and ice. My car was going 10-15mph. $15K of damage repaired at an independent shop... (they did an amazing job and fought the insurance company for OEM over pattern parts). Car was worth under $20K. Maybe $17K?

If I showed you a photo of the damage you would believe me even less...

(The morning I got the car back, someone drove into the front and caused another $12K of almost identical damage. That was a great day)

Vehicle fatalities for people inside the car but not for those outside. We’ve made the average vehicle much more dangerous for anyone not in another large vehicle.

You got a stat for this?

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2020/03/20200302-ghsa.html

It's unsurprising when you think about it: America is full of larger trucks which have to meet o on the laxest of regulations to minimize pedestrian damage in case of a collision. Where before the contact zone might be on the knees, many a modern truck will hit a pedestrian in the chest. Add to that how America sets up situations very unsafe street crossings, often 8 lanes wide without a median, and increased pedestrian deaths are unsurprising.

Note that this is a matter of most security freatures: Good crumple zones don't lead to tall trucks with large hoods. The only one that adds risk is the curtain airbags that have lead to wider A pillars, and with that somewhat lower visibility. But we could make cars safe and also safer for pedestrians: Just not by driving heavier, taller vehicles that look like 18 wheelers and have frontal dead zones that could hide multiple Miatas.

Walkability in the US is indeed dire, but:

> Add to that how America sets up situations very unsafe street crossings, often 8 lanes wide without a median

I don't think I've ever crossed an 8 line highway on foot (US native). I definitely wouldn't call it "often". Maybe in a place like LA or Houston? I do cross 4 lanes pretty frequently, though.

They are everywhere in suburban USA.

Arterial roads, such as those lined with big box stores and shopping plazas, are commonly 3 lanes in each direction at 40mph speed limits (which means cars are driven at 45mph+), plus turning lanes.

Your best case scenario is the crossing being ~56ft, but 70ft+ crossings are normal for busy intersections. Which are ones you would also want to walk across.

Even a two lane in each direction road will commonly have a turning lane or two, making the intersection a 5 to 6 lane wide crossing.

I spent time in a couple of midwestern cities this year and was shocked at how wide the streets were. It was mind-blowing to me, coming from a city in the northeastern US. The typical road was wider than the "highways" we have near me (not interstate, but they are numbered state routes).

It also threw me off when walking as I could see I'd have to go a couple of blocks but every road crossing took a few minutes. Invariably I'd have to wait at least one light cycle, perhaps 2 if I was crossing both angles. And those light cycles were long.

The worst part was that it was rare to see much vehicular traffic at all except during some key times. What a waste of space.

The insane part is that there are in many cases NO trees along the road. Lawns everywhere, concrete. Ok, maybe a few trees, think 1 tree every 20m, and barely any bushes. A chance to contain that madness and sound levels, but nah, gotta see the huge billboards clearly from kilometers away...

I had to walk down one of these roads in Denver, let me see if I can find it.

W Alameda Avenue. 7+ lane for a lot of its length. Super sad walk.

9 lane intersections are extremely common in Phoenix. 3 lanes in each direction, 2 lanes for a left turn, and 1 lane for a right turn. Often times there will be a small median where one could wait out a light, but not always. Scottsdale @ McDowell[1] is an example of one without. If you pan around to any of the major intersections (every 1.25 miles in each direction, generally), they are pretty much all this large.

1: https://maps.app.goo.gl/K4Qs5EtTp8Ms6DyC8

Pedestrian Safety: We Just ERASED 40 Years of Progress https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEj-pyjA2oo

I guess thats where AEB technologies come into play

[1]:https://twitter.com/remouherek/status/1716012670262931946

It will be a very long time before all cars will have systems like this (and I mean all cars on the road, not ones being sold).

This is why it’s important that we fix street design to lower speed limits, reduce conflicts at intersections, and improve safety of road users outside of cars.

Subaru had FCW since 1999, AEB since 2008...

To me this seems like a design failure (maybe intentional?)

I'd think a properly designed crumple zone would only crumple at a "fatality" speed and not at fender-bender speeds. I remember asking a friend why you almost never see Lexus in China - and they said they notoriously crumpled at the slightest collision (there are a lot of very low speed fender benders on city streets there). Other Japanese brands seemed to not have this reputation

There’s been an effort to minimize the damage at very low speed (under 5MPH), but it’s harder to optimize for fender benders than you might think. People tend to break before collision so crumple zones are optimized for lower than highway but still deadly speeds ~40 MPH.

New car buyers also have insurance so they rarely care much about collision repair costs. The fact fender benders don’t total the car is just about the only metric car buyers care about.

"just" over $14,000.

You can buy a new car with that amount.

Not in the US, you can't.

A new (used) car, perhaps.

Mitsubishi Mirage is ~$17k and gets incredible gas mileage. Certainly not $14k but not _that_ far off.

This has not been the case for years now.

> The famed 42k bill was for a rear end collision that caused more damage than it looked like.

This is the Paintless Dent Repair (PDR) for that Rivian that got the famously large bill. They go through what all would need to be removed to replace the panel. It seems extensive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKPfy5djvLc

$40k is just incorrect. My buddy did exactly this and he's facing a bill of $14k. Which is still outrageous, but like three times less.

I bought my 20 year old infiniti for 14k, 10 years ago. I think most people will be in serious issues when they suffer a 14k bill for a fender. I think if do a large overhaul including a full repaint on my car it would cost less than 14k

Most people will just suffer the insurance deductible though.

If your vehicle costs that much for a "simple" repair you're going to be suffering from expensive insurance too.

So... pretty much everyone these days?

It's a third of $40k, "three times less" than $40k would be -$80k

"X times less" is actually a technically meaningless statement, but colloquially would mean 1/X. There's nothing to be gained by being pedantic over that

It's just annoying to see, like when people write "less then" or "should of"

Does this mean they are incredibly expensive to insure?

A buddy close to underwriting heaves giant sighs and mutters darkly when anyone in his book of individual policies wants to insure one because yes.

Is that because after barely scraping by $80k or an $800/mth payment, they freak out why there’s another $300/mth?

Well at least the first two are paying for an asset, whereas the insurance payments are paying for something nebulous that you may or may not need. The ideal insurance premium is $0/month.

Er... I own one and it is maybe 10% more to insure than my previous Subaru.

How is that possible, just given the sheer cost difference? Or is most of your insurance policy covering liability (for if you hit other people), as opposed to the risk of damage to your own car?

It’s true. They are surprisingly cheap to insure. The current theory is that they are new and insurance companies don’t have enough data yet. Everyone expects rates to skyrocket as more $40k repair bills come in.

I kind of doubt rates will go up like that. It's not like BMWs, Audis, etc are much cheaper to repair (by "authorized repair shops" at least), and those similarly are not wildly more expensive to insure.

Because the cost of your vehicle is a small fraction of their total liability.

Suppose your insurance cost is 100$/month for a Subaru and 110$ for a R1T but only 90$/month for liability + personal injury. Now your total bill increased by 10% while they are charging you 2x to insure the vehicle itself.

They may also be getting this calculation wrong, but it’s unlikely to change that much.

For a while my new EV was less to insure than my older ICE both with full coverage and same driver listings. This last renewal the EV is now slightly more, by like $50/6mo

Despite claims to the contrary, I haven't really seen evidence of this with Tesla. The giga casts have pretty conventional crush structures ahead and behind them. It seems like the kind of crashes that'd cause massive costs are big enough to be massively costly either way.

The Rivian case is a bit of a head scratcher. They made some truly odd choices that are making fairly simple repairs much harder than necessary. It is obvious they are new to this.

First to market, but with beginner mistakes. I'll wait for a more mature EV truck myself. I want a simple box frame, with a body on frame, nothing fancy. Just pure utilitarian EV truck like a base F150 but with a battery.

I've heard that EV trucks are mostly unibodies given the structure they need to protect and support the battery underneath. But I think the F-150 lightning is simple body on frame (as you said, although I think you are confused that this doesn't exist yet?), and the new Silverado EV will be neither unibody nor body on frame, whatever that means.

Unibody and body on frame have different pros and cons. Most people buying a truck want a unibody. The F150 lightening is only available in the crew cab version - you can get cars with as much cargo space. If you are actually hauling heavy things, or towing a trailer then a frame is strong and better able to handle that. However if you are only hauling people with some light luggage then a unibody is plenty strong and betters resists twisting forces making for a nicer ride.

I think F-150 Lightning is the closest to what you are looking for. But it has its own type of beginner's mistakes with the batteries. The charge curve isn't great, if that matters to you.

I'm in the same boat with you. I want a truck or SUV to replace my 2003 LX470 (Land Cruiser) but aside from the body on frame construction, I really need a 500 mile battery. The 320 mile EPA extended range lightning loses about 64 miles of range from the recommended battery boundaries (don't charge above 90% or below 10%) and probably at least another 10%-20% loss from the high torque required offroading and the fact you'd probably never use regenerative braking since there's a lot more technique involved leaves you with about 200 miles of actual range. Throw on a roof top tent and some camping gear in the back and you probably have less and you have to account for the lack of jerry cans that can help you in a pinch if your planned mileage is increased from a bridge that's out or closed trail. I really want an electric SUV or truck to replace my main rig but some of the locations I go to are just too dangerous to run out of juice with. I think in about 5 years a dream rig of mine will be on the horizon

I wanted a B2 bollinger, and still love the concept. As a work truck, this has some features that would save me hassle. Also like the simplicity. But last I checked the cost was over 100k, which blew me away.

It is fairly expensive to fix a Tesla panel too. I received a small dent on our trunk thanks to a driver nudging it while parked and it cost $8,800 to fix just that panel.

What does this have to do with them winning a contest? It comes across as argument baiting.

Good thing to keep in mind imo.

If car bumpers are made immune to parking lot speed hits, will they necessarily be worse at crash safety? Looking at how 4m cars have more complex bodies than older Porsches and pack lights at each corner of the bumpers.

It's s truck, leave the dents alone : - )

I’m a Rivian reservation holder, since June 2021. Likely going to pass on my reservation.

But, make no mistake, I’m pro-Rivian, and am on the Rivian subreddit.

Rivian owners and fans are quick to jump on any valid criticism of their beloved Rivian and downvote contrary thought into oblivion.

Not surprised you’re getting hate for valid feedback.

> These car companies suck when it becomes to repairability. > I will stick with main stream brands like Toyota.

Even if this is true (which is unlikely, the first reply says 8K - 12K, the truth is a lot more nuanced), the question we must ask is why do cars crash into each other? We must require all manufacturers to have Vehicle to Vehicle communication (beacons with chips and smarts are incredibly cheap) so they never crash into each other.

Car accidents are the biggest cause of death until late 50s (then cardio vascular, etc become the biggest cause). Modern emergency medicine is incredibly good, there are a huge number of people disabled and injured (but alive!) from car accidents. IN 2021, 42,939 deaths[1]. If we just add up this decade (2020 - 2030), we are looking at 400K preventable deaths.

Consider the injured and damaged vehicles. In 2019: 36,500 people, injured 4.5 million, and damaged 23 million vehicles[2]. In a decade (2020 - 2030), we are looking at 400K deaths, 45 million injuries and 230 million car repairs. And, this is just in US. Worldwide numbers are probably 10x! Body shop repairs are the costliest repairs even for minor scratches and dents.

A car is a machine, the safe operation and liability should be on the manufacturers. Legacy car manufacturers are criminally negligent, they don't know how to do software or electronics. New electric companies, they have a lot of young talent in software+electronics, can build the V2V capabilities to make a car safer.

[1] https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state...

[2] https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/traffic-crashes-cost-am...

Toyota are also looking into switching to single casting bodies, so your comment both includes a fallacy and misinformation.

I'm curious how they hold up. Because, IRL, the Rivian is a beautiful vehicle, but the body has always struck me as 'precious' and for the kind of things I want a truck for, I'd be really hesitant to mess it up. By contrast, and old mid-90s pickup has the kinda body that a ding or two or ten isn't going to look all that terrible on.

Kind of odd that it highlighted the need for chargers and the lengths they needed to go to (relying on hydrogen?) to complete the challenge.

I'm all for EVs showing their strengths (and own several) but tethering to a mobile charging trailer that virtually nobody has access to kind of puts a huge asterisk on the entire thing.

I'd love to see an EV-only rally that allows competitors to go faster or slower to optimize charge (faster = higher risk, more discharge) and, in that, force manufacturers and teams to actually innovate on the vehicle to make up for it. Put huge batteries and make it too heavy? It'll struggle in the mud and will likely blow tires. The function of motorsport (and ally, specifically) is to act as a proving ground for vehicles at the extreme end.

They also set up fuel depots for gas trucks. Doesn’t seem that different.

Exactly. It's a 2100km race... no ICE vehicle has that range on one tank of gas either.

Something like Audi's E-tron Dakar truck is super interesting: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a37114849/audi-rs-q-e-tron...

2 motor EV drive train with a tiny diesel engine to charge the batteries. The engine can be hyper optimized for a small RPM band, making it very fuel efficient, and able to be refueled in the middle of the desert.

Been following that car for a bit, something I would love to see in person. It sounds absolutely crazy too.

The Mazda MX-30 is a production car that does this, and with a rotary engine! It was panned by reviewers for other reasons, but it's still interesting.

Nissan e-POWER also has a gasoline engine that charges the battery. But from reviews it looked like it performs worse than a normal hybrid

Okay, some interesting things about this competition:

It looks like a gimmick rally, not a race. So not racing pace, and you get penalized for going too fast.

The organizers provided a truck to charge the ev cars, nice. Logistics for gas are a lot more accessible, you need a service vehicle with fuel tanks in the bed.

It is a woman only competition.

It’s nice. So it’s a perfect marketing event.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regularity_rally

Regularity trials are about all round competency. The speed element is capped because the relationslip between speed and money is somewhat exponential. You would be amazed how quickly a little navigation error or mechanical issue can snowball and throw your whole rally off. You should not under-estimate the competency required to do well at these events.

I don't underestimate it. I've done stage rally. TSD just isn't the first thing that comes to me and when I read "off-road competition".

Comment one: snark

Comment two: snark

Comment three in the context of the first two comments: …

None were intended as snark. Having participated in off road competitions myself, and having considered the logistics of ev charging, I wanted to know what kind of competition/class that evs would be able to compete in.

When I hear "off-road competition" I imagine something like Baja or Dakar Rally.

Also, the fact that the organizers take care of the charging/fuelling logistics for you is great. I'm used to having a crew to drive my service vehicle to transport my fuel between stages.

Tangent: Are there any rough guides for kilometer per kWh?

I briefly gathered some data, intending to infer the relationship. Model, curb weight, battery size, estimated range. Sadly, I apparently didn't save that notebook.

IIRC the BYD Dolphin is cheapest (~$22k), lightest model in production. Weighs ~1700 kg, has ~30 kWh battery, has ~400 km range.

My conclusion (guesstimate) was: a converted 1980s VW Rabbit/Golf @ 750 kg w/ 10 kHw would likely have a 100-150 km range. More than enough for my casual city driving. (Hardware store, dog park, errands.)

Cheap Li batteries ~$140 per kWh. A running (ugly) Rabbit is ~$3k. So $1.5k for a beater, $2k to fix stuff, $1500 for battery pack, and $??k for the conversion kit (motor, transmission, brakes, BCM, etc).

I'd happily pay < $10k for converted Rabbit. Some kids could make a decent living doing BEV conversions.

(I have a few acquaintances that each specialize in a niche classic car. Saab, Volvo, Fiats, Alfa Romeo, etc. Each of them has a backlog of work. My 17yo nephew is restoring a Jaguar and has already been asked to do work.)

How did the Tesla cyber truck do in this? I think 4 other EVs were there??

I don't think cybertruck is ready for that kind of test. One dying in the middle of the race would be bad for PR.

There were 3-4 Rivians in the rally, second best currently at position 11:

http://www.scoring.rebellerally.com/Display_Results.php?Page...

Cybertruck isn't released yet. I think they announced first deliveries start November 30 (the week after Thanksgiving).

Most impressive is how it was with a stock truck.

I was reading this and imagining a world where the cyber truck had been a proper truck rather than a Mad-Max-Sci-Fi-Truck. There would now be two companies offering a serious alternative to a Fossil Truck...

> There would now be two companies offering a serious alternative to a Fossil Truck...

There are. Ford has been selling the F150 Lightning for a while.

And if you want to be generous, the Hummer EV counts as a pickup, even if it is a bit absurd. The Silverado is rumored to be shipping to fleet customers now, but who knows when we'll see it reaching consumers.

Next challenge is trying not to go bankrupt.

Of course, that's a tougher race. ;)

There are 100's of them parked in a lot by the queensboro bridge in queens, NYC

How do y'all get excited for EVs?

I know my next car will need to be an EV, but I just can't get excited for any of them. They all go fast in a straight line, are heavy and look like overweight SUV style. Otherwise, they seem eeringly similar. Any sort of sound and feel is "generated".

I don't want to get a non-EV vehicle anymore, but the thought of shelling out money for one of these uniform soapboxes... I know I can just get the cheapest one because in terms of motors etc. it's all more or less the same. But then, I'd rather get somehow excited for a product I am going to buy.

This is a substance-less comment. How are the multitude of EVs on the market similar? If you really think so, do you also think all the cars (ICEs included) look eerily similar? If you answer yes to that as well, then I can empathize with you: these days cars do look quite similar[0] and I found that not everyone will notice the differences. But that's more reflective of the person than the car. (For example ask an average person to describe the differences between bicycles on the market and they likely can't either.)

[0]: https://ade3.medium.com/driving-conformity-49ffb2b1ff9f

GP is right, but it's all cars that have become extermely samey. If you're spending Ferrari money your options have never been better, but if you're a "car person" what's for sale right now to the middle class is incredibly depressing, with the exceptions of the 86 and the Z. Several manufacturers don't even make a sedan any more.

> GP is right, but it's all cars that have become extermely samey

If this is the case then I wouldn't call GP "right", because their complaint is very misleading.

I agree with you and this sort of SUV look is precisely the one I don't like. I guess my taste is just cursed.

With all due respect, it’s not like there’s that much creativity in the ICE market, either. At least, stock that is.

>How do y'all get excited for EVs?

For me it's the reaction to input. At normal traffic speeds, most modern EV's will react like when you pop the clutch in a high-revving sports car. It does so silently, in any situation, every time.

If you try to drive as quickly in a fossil car, anyone around you will wonder who the idiot making all the noise is, so in practice you don't do it even if you have a car that could.

Since I basically never drive longer than a battery range I haven't had to stop anywhere to "refuel" in the past couple of years, which is also nice.

That said - I completely agree about the design and visuals. At the moment it's a choice between "big boring" or "bigger boring", but I expect that to change once the market settles. It's a land grab at the moment.

So for you it's the way that they can be more dangerous in less obvious ways to other vehicles and pedestrians in shared traffic areas?

Quite the opposite, a car that reacts more quickly to driver input is obviously less dangerous, not more.

If you are driving in such a way that the noise and delayed response from your car increases safety for others you should not be driving anything. ;-)

I don't see the need for this. Obviously a silent car, even if driven well, provides fewer cues to its existence than a car that makes some noise.

And a silent car driven badly provides basically the same lack of cues. At least an ICE car driven badly is loud.

Excluding modified vehicles, I rarely see an EV that is quieter than an ICEV. It's kind of annoying, really -- I was so ready for a quieter world, but the gov't thinks we need more noise.

Well, it's more that tyres make noise, I think.

At speed, that is certainly true. But at neighborhood speeds, I can hear EVs (and hybrids) a block away. Some worse than others (Toyota is especially enthusiastic about making a lot of noise).

Your comment suggests that you've maybe rarely driven in inclement conditions or around large groups of pedestrians, perhaps not long enough to see truly unfortunate accidents occur.

> a car that reacts more quickly to driver input is obviously less dangerous

It's not zero, but the times where acceleration is the safest option in response to a danger are very much in the minority.

That's the only area where EVs react more quickly.

>It's not zero, but the times where acceleration is the safest option in response to a danger are very much in the minority.

It's not the actual acceleration though, it's the time it takes for the acceleration to begin that's the key for me. The car reacts to what I want at once.

It doesn't matter if the car takes 10 seconds to get to 60 mph, what I like about it is that I immediately notice that it starts trying to get to 60.

The safety of it comes perhaps more from the reliability. EV's accelerate the same way every time, while with a fossil car it varies - maybe you're in the wrong gear, maybe you're at the wrong RPM, and suddenly the car reacts half as quickly as you're used to.

I also think it's one of those things you don't notice at first but miss when it's gone. I feel like I have less complete control of the car when I drive a fossil now after a few years in an EV, but I didn't notice it as much in the beginning.

There are other things that contribute to the feeling as well, like how an EV decelerates quickly immediately when you let your foot off the gas pedal, how they start instantly from a button press (or in some models, when you enter the car), how the gear change from forward to reverse is a flick of the wrist and so on. It all adds up to a snappy experience.

I think you make some very valid points. The last Model 3 I spent significant time in did have that general responsiveness to acceleration that you mention, except off the line. I would put my foot to the floor and it would take at least half a second to start moving. I will add the caveat that this was a Hertz rental, so provenance and history unknown.

And I will admit my ICE experience recently is with higher performance cars (my daily driver is an RS 5, which is very much designed to be street and track), where the transmission is absolutely responsive (I think the clutch time was in the 90ms range?). And it seems most ICE CVTs (which I thought would be free from this issue) are optimized for economy rather than response.

> how the gear change from forward to reverse is a flick of the wrist and so on

This is pretty common in performance ICEs. In my car, the gearstick sits in a "neutral" position, and you poke it forward (it returns to neutral) to go into reverse, and pull it momentarily back to go into drive (if you're actually wanting to change gears manually you push it momentarily to the side, and then it functions as a sequential shifter, or of course you have the flappy paddles).

I do appreciate your insights, different perspectives are always good!

Drive a Tesla. That'll make you excited and probably lose all interest in ICE cars. Happened to me!

> Otherwise, they seem eeringly similar. Any sort of sound and feel is "generated".

They all have the same problem. The battery technology isn't particularly great so to get any appreciable range they have to be made with certain materials and with certain concessions. Wind is apparently a big factor in route planning so that also impacts the exterior design criteria as well.

> I don't want to get a non-EV vehicle anymore

For those who use their vehicles to do repair and other types of field or farm work the verdict is not at all clear. I'd also prefer Fire, Ambulance and Police to stay on gasoline and diesel for probably the next 25 to 50 years, given the abysmal rate of infrastructure development that happens in this country.

> But then, I'd rather get somehow excited for a product I am going to buy.

Pretend I made a new magic gasoline that pollutes, but does so "entirely outside the environment." It works with all actual gasoline vehicles without modification. Which one on the market right now would you want to drive?

> a new magic gasoline that pollutes, but does so "entirely outside the environment."

I don't understand what this could possibly mean? Pollution is by definition damage to the environment. I think if you had a magic nonpolluting fuel that would be a massive hit; that's what people are trying to fake with hydrogen and LPG/CNG fuel ideas, which are less polluting but still release some CO2.

It's a reference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM

> Wind is apparently a big factor in route planning so that also impacts the exterior design criteria as well.

Wind is a big factor for all vehicles. The big difference is that combustion engines need a lot of cooling, so there's not that much that can be done in regards to aerodynamics on that front. They still experience the same losses with headwind, arguably even more.

> For those who use their vehicles to do repair and other types of field or farm work the verdict is not at all clear.

Then don't get a battery-electric vehicle? There are plenty of completely reasonable cases where currently battery-electric vehicles isn't the solution. But the vast vast vast majority of trucks on the road has never had anything in their truck bed that wouldn't fit inside a Fiat Punto.

> I'd also prefer Fire, Ambulance and Police to stay on gasoline and diesel for probably the next 25 to 50 years, given the abysmal rate of infrastructure development that happens in this country.

I mean - sure? I imagine the people actually driving these vehicles are more than capable of choosing something that gets the job done. How you're able to look 25-50 years into the future is beyond me.

> They still experience the same losses with headwind, arguably even more.

Which is why having more total energy available in the fuel system is significant and means that EVs are not a "drop in" replacement for ICE. Which is what the assumption in these threads seem to be.

> Then don't get a battery-electric vehicle?

Sure.. I'll just move to a state where it's not mandated, then. Why are you going out of your way to pretend that there aren't actual impacts to real people when these decisions get made?

> How you're able to look 25-50 years into the future is beyond me.

Oh.. experience and training. You'll notice I used the word "probably" and invoked "abysmal rate of infrastructure development" as part of an effort to avoid this type of mindless bullying.

Some of us are actually trying to navigate reality successfully without prefect information. It requires reasonable compromises that everyone should be plainly familiar with.

Ambulances should be EVs already. They have a lot of equipment on board that needs power, and they spend 99% of their life sitting in a garage plugged in to power all that stuff without running the engine. The worst case for them is they is a rural ambulance needs an urgent transfer of someone to a big city hospital 150 miles away (more than that it either isn't urgent or they need a helicopter to get the required speed). Now this does require extra large batteries as those transfers are done at 90mph (which uses more power), but the total trip distance is limited by the fact that urgent transfers have a time limit and so the ambulance doesn't need to stop for a charge on a long trip.

Police cars are never used for trips that are urgent and long. Everything else is a short chase (many modern police are trained to not get into high speed chases, there are better options so if your local police force does high speed chases you need to get them trained better - it won't make high profile news though which is why they resist) When doing prisoner transfers they can run a relay where they meet some other charged car on the way. Or if the prisoner is not a flight risk stop at any normal charger and let the prisoner get some exercise - which is what they do now.

Fire trucks need to be able to handle the 10 hour fire (this doesn't happen often, but you have to buy for the worst case), so I'm not sure if EVs can handle them or not. We can do a battery swap at the scene, but that is tricky logistics, so I'm willing to agree they shouldn't be EVs yet.

While I expect emergency departments to be cautious about EVs, I think they make a lot of sense and all emergency departments in large cities should have a few already. (in small towns they don't buy new often, but they should already be in planning)

> Ambulances should be EVs already. They have a lot of equipment on board that needs power, and they spend 99% of their life sitting in a garage plugged in to power all that stuff without running the engine. No, they really shouldn't.

I've been a paramedic for 15 years.

Hybrid, perhaps, but not EV. It's not uncommon for our ambulances to put 4-500 miles on them in a shift (911 doesn't factor into this so much but then you have transfers - around Seattle, getting your patient to mental health inpatient can involve a 150 mile round trip to an available bed).

> The worst case for them is they is a rural ambulance needs an urgent transfer of someone to a big city hospital 150 miles away (more than that it either isn't urgent or they need a helicopter to get the required speed). Now this does require extra large batteries as those transfers are done at 90mph (which uses more power), but the total trip distance is limited by the fact that urgent transfers have a time limit and so the ambulance doesn't need to stop for a charge on a long trip.

That just sounds like an accident waiting to happen. If it's not urgent, you don't transfer a patient at 90mph - these rigs are heavy (and EVs would be heavier still) - handling is really not great, and people freak out at sirens and lights, regardless. Doing that trip at 90mph takes 1h40m, lowering your speed to 70mph takes 2h8m. If your patient is stable, that's 28 minutes (and this is at the high end). And if they're not stable, fly them.

(That's leaving aside the fact that, for better or worse, most private ambulance companies are not known for great / proactive vehicle maintenance. I'd be frankly scared for my life in the back of many of the rigs I've been in if we were at 90mph).

I have to imagine that the range of an ambulance at 90mph, entirely non-aerodynamic (even our ambulance vendor describes them as "having the aerodynamics of a brick"), pulling 15,000-20,000lb is going to be garbage.

The thing that makes response faster? Opticom (traffic light pre-emption).

If you're in a city and staying in town but not toooo busy, maybe there's a case for EVs, but I definitely think hybrid would be the better option. Or even similar to Audi's Dakar "EV", that has a small gasoline engine that is not used for driving, but just charging the batteries (IIRC).

> Fire trucks need to be able to handle the 10 hour fire (this doesn't happen often, but you have to buy for the worst case), so I'm not sure if EVs can handle them or not. We can do a battery swap at the scene, but that is tricky logistics, so I'm willing to agree they shouldn't be EVs yet.

Agreed. We will 'hot refuel' engines on large events as needed. But when the pump is engaged, it's typically going to have the engine running at a high RPM (for a large diesel... I want to say like 2, 2.5K?) and doing so for hours. There's no regeneration possible, so it's just a high draw. Plus you add in scene lighting (LEDs make that a lot less painful now) and potentially other tools.

For a while we had some (fire) engines that carried a small generator to enable turning off the (IC) engine while on scene but not needing to pump (emergency lights at an MVA, etc). They were plumbed in to the same fuel source, but ended up being less efficient than just keeping the engine running (however they did have - though questionable - benefits in suburban areas with lower noise - but still, you have lights and other activity).

There are lots of different transfer scenarios. I have a friend who is a EMT for a rural hospital, one day the ER doctors looked him in the eye and said this guy will die in an hour if he remains here, but there is a city hospital 1.5 hours away as the normal person drives who can save his life if you get him there in time (he did it). That is why the 90mph requirement exists. As you say normally you will go slower, but there are urgent trips where arranging air transfer takes too long and normal speeds is too slow. I don't want to take away from your experience.

Generally an ambulance can stop to charge after 150 miles or so. You need fast chargers, but if your are so busy that you can't give the crew a break after that there are bigger problems (and you have to refuel an ambulance in a 400 mile day as well - I don't know the rules, but I suspect they are something like never get below half a tank unless you are in an urgent situation). If you have done a 150 mile trip the crew needs to stop for half an hour to use bathrooms and get a snack before returning.

I absolutely get the myriad of situations, and exceptionalism is one thing, like your example - I can see that.

> but if your are so busy that you can't give the crew a break after that there are bigger problems

Sadly, there are bigger problems more often than not. Around here you can get as much OT as you like, and it's not uncommon for a crew to come on duty, leave quarters, and run back to back calls until their shift ends 12 hours later. Private EMS is ugly (and a travesty, tbh).

It's a car. It's a box on wheels which gets me from point A to point B. I get about as excited about it as I get about my kitchen table.

Mainstream cars, be it either EV or ICE, haven't been exciting for decades. They all have the same boring SUV / crossover look these days, wasting a ton of space without actually having significant carrying capacity.

I judge modern cars by 1) whether I can physically fit in them, and 2) how badly they screwed up the controls. "Exciting" just isn't a thing these days.

I get about as excited about it as I get about my kitchen table

Do you at least accept that some people do in fact get very excited about kitchen tables and spend a lot of time reading about the latest table designs and finding the perfect table?

I have my own weird things I get excited about that I don't expect you to understand.

Why do you want to get excited about it? It's just a tool that you have to use to get from place to place.

Can't you mod it? You can wrap it for more color options, but if you're someone who likes to travel, then there are pretty cool 3rd party camping options available, notably for Tesla.

> How do y'all get excited for EVs?

Never having to buy gas again? I mean really…

You just have to sit around and buy electricity instead, that's much better?

If you have charging at home, it's faster (in terms of active involvement) and it's cheaper. If you have solar, it's _way_ cheaper. Obviously road trips take longer, but those are a very small portion of my driving.

For me, it's way better.

Electric doesn't go stale. I often go several months without driving my truck (but I've never been able to find a way to rent one - sure you can rent a truck shaped object, but you can't use it for hauling which is the whole reason I own a truck)

There seems to be a lot of innovation around interiors -- massive instrument panels, UI that is cool or bizarre, cameras and safety features.

> I'd rather get somehow excited for a product I am going to buy.

Look beyond marketing for the features that are important.

You will want to have Level 2 charging at home, where most of your charging will be done. Get excited about charging at home and saving a significant amount of money for transportation. Get excited about not being subject to petrol costs and queuing for fuel.

Get excited about not having to worry about all the problems with the combustion system of an ICE.

Apart from the savings and convenience, get excited about excellent acceleration and one-pedal driving (i.e. the vehicle brakes by spinning the electric motor in reverse).

> How do y'all get excited for EVs?

This is where we are headed. We've reached the point where EVs outperform ICEVs in all metrics, and buying an ICEV has to be justified with nostalgia.

> these uniform soapboxes

This is almost all ICEVs as well. And just like you can get a fun ICEV, you can get a fun EV too.

EVs don't outperform in the total cost of ownership yet. Sure if you buy new cars they do, but you can't buy a 7 year old EV for a few thousand and and drive it 100k more miles. I 5-10 years that will change, but right now EVs are mostly for people who can afford a new one.

I'd say that's open to interpretation. To find any half decent ICEV for "a few thousand" you have to go back more than 7 years. Using 2017 as an example, a Bolt is pretty comparable to a similar ICEV in price (both are overpriced IMO, but the market has been a bit insane the last year or so) and it would handily win in TCO as well.

If you can find a used EV at all. Sure if you get lucky enough to find one on the used market they are a great deal. However if like most people you are not willing to wait for one to show up things are more difficult. It doesn't take many people realized the TCO of a EV to dry up what little market there is - or raise prices.

> How do y'all get excited for EVs?

By owning one. Hard not to after you start driving them for a while.

> Any sort of sound and feel is "generated".

The sounds of ICE vehicles are also generally "engineered". Sure, it all comes from the engine, but the sounds you hear have been carefully tailored.

If you drive a few different EVs for a while you'll notice that they have their own sound and feel, even the ones that don't make any artificial sound. It's a lot more subtle than ICE vehicles. But that's a good thing. I'd rather listen to my music than the engine. Still, you generally get enough sound and feel that ... when taken together with the instant response and one-pedal driving ... you can really feel like you're "one" with the vehicle. An ICE feel like you're trying to give kind of suggestions for how the car should drive. Like riding a horse I guess. It goes where you want but also has a bit of a will of its own. An EV feels more like an extension of your body.

EVs will generally have a speaker projecting some sound forward when driving slowly to alert pedestrians. I've never thought of that sound as important to me as a driver.

> for one of these uniform soapboxes

Have you tried the Ioniq 5? Kia EV 6? Honda e?

> I know I can just get the cheapest one because in terms of motors etc. it's all more or less the same.

Not really. Going for AWD on EVs has a huge impact for instance. How the motors are controlled is also important. When done right, you can get the feeling that EVs are absolutely glued to the road no matter how hard you push it. But sure, even the Kia Soul EV 2015 we've had drives better than most ICE vehicles I've driven. Even the cheapest motor will be responsive. Nothing wrong with the cheapest options, and they'll be reliable too. But you can get so much more out of the motors with the right engineering.

The ultimate expression of this is Rimac Nevara. How can you not get excited for that kind of vehicle and what it could mean for the EVs of the future?

> Still, you generally get enough sound and feel that ... when taken together with the instant response and one-pedal driving ... you can really feel like you're "one" with the vehicle. An ICE feel like you're trying to give kind of suggestions for how the car should drive. Like riding a horse I guess. It goes where you want but also has a bit of a will of its own. An EV feels more like an extension of your body.

I definitely get that. But it's also something you see in higher end ICEs. I went with my Audi RS 5 because it felt very much connected to the driving experience. Responsive, feedback, etc.

Not a fair comparison, I realize, but since I've spent a lot more time driving a Tesla 3 than an S, though I have driven both repeatedly, but I'd say I felt more connected to the RS 5 than the TM3.

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