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Comment by aresant | Hacker News Reader

One of the most interesting long-term plays here is when Tesla builds a truck.

The #1 and #2 best selling "cars" by volume are trucks and trucks represent ~4 of the top 10 best selling cars overall. (1)

Musk has said that he has "this idea for a really advanced electric truck that has the performance of a sports car but actually more towing power and more carrying capacity than a gasoline or diesel truck of comparable size," Musk said.(2)

While this is probably several years out, as it would likely result in an all new wheel-base, etc I think that would be a hugely compelling product line if it can compete on the same stats w/towing / carrying capacity

(1) http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2013/02/top-10-best-selli...

(2) http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130410/...

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What I really want is some kind of truck which can provide on board power to tools, as well as motive power. This could be something with a big battery bank, or a diesel-electric hybrid (where the diesel can be left running for days at a time and refueled under load...), etc.

It might be hard to convince someone who is a "traditional truck buyer" to accept a slight range penalty or whatever (although fleet managers and business owners would), but if he could plug in his tools and have great work lighting/etc. at the job site, he would probably take it on that basis.

I'm pretty sure the MBTA has some gasoline hybrid trucks that can provide power to tools; I forget who makes them, but it's one of the usual major automakers (but was from a very limited production run).

For independent repairmen in the US, this could be a big win. You could have something in a pickup truck form factor, but with potentially much lower operating and maintenance costs. In the US, lots of people are operating a lot more truck than they actually need just to keep up appearances.

If such trucks were available for good leasing terms, this could be a goldmine.

Since trucks are so popular with small businesses, electric trucks could also be a great type of vehicle for the government to subsidize.

Something tells me they'll find a way to say that electric trucks would be bad for small business.

Frankly, if you have to subsidize it then it wasn't good for business. The government could set the example by moving their fleets to electric, establishing standards for charging and the like.

Get school buses electrified, one county near me puts up some incredible numbers, nearly seventy thousand miles a day. http://www.cobbk12.org/centraloffice/Transportation/

Businesses will move to what works, see how some have moved to natural gas as its more cost efficient. Same will happen with electrics. Don't be so free with money we don't have.

> Frankly, if you have to subsidize it then it wasn't good for business.

Electronic car subsidies attempt to balance out the negative externalities of burning fossil fuels. These subsidies are meant to serve the public interest, which is often inclusive of business interests.

You can subsidize it or stop subsidizing big gasoline trucks. But you can't keep the implicit subsidies for gasoline and cry big government when people ask for subsidies for electric trucks.

Yes you can. These 'implicit' subsidies you are referring to rely on completely made up numbers. It's not the same thing and trying to convince people that it is doesn't work.

It's not just subsidies for gasoline (and oil exploration) to worry about, it's the externalities they carry.

Really? How much do you think the US spends on its military presence in oil producing regions? Made up? I think not.

> Frankly, if you have to subsidize it then it wasn't good for business.

Right now, the government subsidizes small businesses buying big-ass gas guzzling Hummers. Maybe the first step is to get them to stop that. Then again, the rules are so general now, many could get a government subsidy on an electric truck, provided the sticker was > $50k.

Allowing depreciation of purchased vehicles is not a subsidy, besides Hummers are not made anymore. Regardless, the same write off they get for buying any vehicle would apply to electrics.

The point I was making is that there is more than room enough for various level of government to make the first move instead of paying businesses to do so. Move mass transportation to electric first as well as school buses. Both makes lots of starts and stops making them ideal for electric drive trains.

Independent repairmen drive from job to job all day long. They could easily exhaust the range unless there's a breakthrough there. Ditto delivery drivers, etc.

A buddy of mine in Vancouver is a plumber who does service calls, and he'll easily burn through a tank of gas in two days in his van. They'd have to be able to go 300-400 miles without recharging in order for it to make sense. I could easily see his company ditching gas for electric if they got that though, and the far lower operating costs would justify a fairly step increase in lease costs. At around $200/week in gas, they could spend an extra $500/month on the lease and still come out way ahead.

300-400 miles in an urban environment? Surely that's 8 hours of driving right there - how does he find any time to work?

They service the entire GVRD, so it can easily be an hour of highway driving between jobs. Also, 16 hour days aren't unheard of. Bear in mind, too, that he might have an 1600lb boiler in the back of the truck, which isn't friendly from a fuel efficiency standpoint.

The 300-400 mile range isn't to cover the average case, but rather the worst case. The vehicle needs to be able to handle the hardest days that'll get thrown at it without recharging. An algo that's O(log n) in the average case but O(2^n) in the worst won't likely find traction.

> An algo that's O(log n) in the average case but O(2^n) in the worst won't likely find traction.

Yes, that's the case for an algorithm. In the case of a business model, there's a lot of inefficiency that could be turned into profit. (Zipcar)

How about O(n log n) average but O(n^2) worst case?

Seems like if this was a standard, some larger job sites would have it?

Not to mention- let's say you have a truck that does 200 miles on a charge, like the current Teslas. Then you put a 5,000lb boat behind it. What is the range now? How close is the water?

I know a lot of ranchers who keep their own storage tanks on site for gas, because they live so far from a gas station. An electric truck would be awesome, especially considering most ranchers have the capital to install solar panels. Then you will only need diesel for back hoes and the like

granted Tesla is a US company so you are probably right, but on the international market trucks are not relevant. SUVs are though!

Even if pickup trucks aren't, vans and service trucks are (box trucks, etc.), which are essentially built on the same engine as a pickup truck. (big pickup trucks are sold with the ability to put a custom box on on them, too)

Replace 'truck' with 'white van'.

I'm not too sure how directly replaceable those two car types are, since performance matters a hell of a lot more in a truck than in a "white van".

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