Is Electro-Overlanding a thing yet?

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The EV overlanding conversation is an interesting one. It does offer quite a few options that are quite useful.. think of all the battery systems we design for our rigs to power fridges, lights, camp equipment and so on.. built right in on an EV. They are quite for the most part, lots of tech to play with—dont really care to much about that myself—they are quick on the road as well.
Intering reading about campgrounds as a good place to charge. See that works well for us. most of our “overlanding” is at lakes pulling the wakeboard boat. Anchoring in a cove campsite. Setting up a basecamp. Access to 30amp and water. So you could plug in, charge and run all your 12v camp gear. Not a bad idea.

i really like the Rivian truck as well as the suv.. very impressive. went to track day over the summer and was able to get into one to check it out.

My buddy is a huge Tesla fan boy— has a model 3 dual motor performance. And is on the list for a Cybertruck since the day it was release. Now, we live 240miles apart. He has to plan his route to charge halfway here, since there isn’t a supercharger close by my house. Nearest one is 16 miles in the opposite direction than we ever travel. In my Cummins, I drive to his house and almost home before I need fuel.

when they come to my place, I drive sine I know where everything is and places you can charge for free if you are a brewery or restaurant etc.

I can only drive his Tesla in short stints. It makes me so car sick even driving… I’m not sure why… the windshield has a weird curve in my eyeline, slways looking at the center stack for any information instead of in front of you. And the seats are super uncomfortable for me. I’m tall with long legs and the fit me wrong.. remind me of older BMW’s with out the sport seat. Not a fan.

the other thing is the biased push to buy an EV— they don’t work for me. My truck is my camp vehicle, my boat towing vehicle, my work truck that tows a dump trailer daily. loaded with 1000-1500lbs of tools in the bed every day. Hauling materials and trash. Last week I weighed in the dump ar 22000lbs. I only need to fill up with diesel once a week. I haven’t found an EV truck that can do what I need to do yet. I know they are coming. But at what cost? I have never paid over $40000.00 for any car. I refuse to finance anything, especially something that decreases in value the minute you drive off the lot. Plus I keep my vehicles for years.

My wife could drive one every day,(she drives the same route to work 4 days a week) but she hates them. She drives a manual transmission A4 daily. 30+ mpg’s in terrible stop and go traffic. Never owned an automatic car in her life. She finds EV’s ugly and boring.

I feel like the government could focus on public transportation to decrease road congestion and emissions. We just got back from Europe. seems like every small village and midevil town had trams, and electric trains to move people. City centers allowed cars on the road from 10pm-10am to allow businesses to restock-clean whatever was needed. Then those areas were foot traffic only.
I drive and tow trailers daily in terrible traffic. I seet the masses all going to the same factory, or same office building every day, driving by themselves in a car, glued to their phones, earbuds in, reading a newspaper, putting on makeup, everything but paying attention to what’s around them. Better suited to be on bus or a commuter train.

but I digress, this is about overlanding an EV- Yes I think that it is going to be a good thing. Especially as they get better, and the infrastructure gets there. I doubt that will be me.

I have invested in an EV company. One that I think will hopefully provide a vehicle that will work for guys like me. Atlis motor vehicles. Looking forward to see if they actually produce
 
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DintDobbs

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@ProjectCleanSlate Interesting observations; on your digression, I think opposing the bid to end private transportation in favor of public transportation (in the name of, uh, let's call it a cleaner environment!) is the driving force for people to buy EV's, in the States. We don't want to give up our own cars, even when it would "make more sense" under certain circumstances, in certain locations - if you've gotta go to the grocery store after work and then pick up your kids because you've got part-time visitation on weekends, and you need to go to the parts store to grab a transmission cooler line that your buddy ordered yesterday and can't pick up himself because he had to work late because his co-worker is staying home to tend her sick kid, then you really don't want to deal with all of that on the bus. We've gotten used to fulfilling the endless demands that rely on our personal convenience, and the only expense is a bit of road space. We'd rather sit in traffic for hours than have to deal with all of the stresses of life while relying on somebody else for transportation.

And...

I've personally driven people to and from my places of employment on countless occasions, and when you spontaneously have to drive an extra 50 miles because somebody's ride's car broke down and he can't carry a 40-pound box of stuff work wants him to deal with 25 miles home in 10-degree weather, you can't just stop on the way for 5 minutes to fill up an EV. He ain't gonna catch no bus at exactly 12:24 in the morning, which makes his problem, my problem. He's not coming home with me.

Solutions for traffic problems do not equal solutions for the responsibilities that are put upon us in disregard to our means of handling them. The responsibilities are already here. We cannot get rid of them.

End of digression - I wholeheartedly agree, once EV's exist that serve my needs, and the infrastructure is there, I'll be the first in line to buy a 20-year-old used one! And if it's give up private transportation or give up my ICE's, well, like I said - the responsibilities are already here.
 

rgallant

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@DintDobbs that is the other elephant in the room, the used EV's market will be for 5 to 8 year old vehicles, after that they will be scrapped. The cost of battery replacement will be too high for viable replacement, the current batteries are too dependent on a limited supply or relatively rare materials for prices to drop significantly.

Of course the current issues with battery casing damage will require more under body armor but I see that coming anyway even for road cars with a corresponding drop in range.
 
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roots66

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Someone took their Cyber Truck to Hidden Falls Off-Road Park (Texas Hill Country) and it did just as good as a Subaru. LoL

 

DosTacos

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Someone took their Cyber Truck to Hidden Falls Off-Road Park (Texas Hill Country) and it did just as good as a Subaru. LoL

Thanks for sharing. I had to laugh a little at the hill he got stuck on. I've done that in 2wd in my Tacoma. I have done it in my Rivian without issue too. I was also a little shocked how poor the clearance and break over angle is.
 
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roots66

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Someone took their Cyber Truck to Hidden Falls Off-Road Park (Texas Hill Country) and it did just as good as a Subaru. LoL

Thanks for sharing. I had to laugh a little at the hill he got stuck on. I've done that in 2wd in my Tacoma. I have done it in my Rivian without issue too. I was also a little shocked how poor the clearance and break over angle is.
Will be planning a trip there soon.
 
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Outdoordog

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I think the hybrid only makes sense for driving short distances to work.
I rented one for over a week and was not impressed. It wasn't bad, but my diesel was getting more mpg on 37s than the 4xe on stock 32" tires. Also more torque at the low end is nice.
I've wheeled 3 days, and was averaging 18 mpg.
 

Downs

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We were discussing the current issue of Fire Apparatus at work. Mainly, acquiring new ones. We're being told any Truck or Quint ordered today has an up to 5 year lead time before we get it. And prices are getting incredibly high for new apparatus. A stripped down bare-bones engine from Pierce is reported to cost us about 750-800,000 right now before we outfit it with hoses, lights, radios, ect. Trucks/Quints are running close to 2 million each. We don't have any tillers in our city so not sure what those are running but I"m sure, a lot lol.

Apparently the various apparatus manufacturers are looking at or already actively building Diesel/Electric style hybrids, think modern locomotive. A smaller than currently needed diesel generator runs at continuous speed and supplies mechanical operation of the water pump and hydraulic pumps if your apparatus need hydraulics, and a generator that will supply power to the electric motors and whatever electrical needs are needed on scene. Apparently we can get in on those in a much shorter lead time and that idea is being seriously considered due to the current lead time on "conventional" apparatus.

I know there's been a big uproar about the full electric fire engines a few larger cities are using. The Fire Service is always resistant to change. That's why our PPE is a few generations behind the rest of the world.
 

rgallant

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@Downs that is an interesting idea diesel/electric heavy vehicles for short range heavy gear.
 

Downs

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@Downs that is an interesting idea diesel/electric heavy vehicles for short range heavy gear.
I mean diesel-electric locomotives cover 500–700 miles a day on average with 1000 miles a day on the high end. Not sure what you mean by "short range heavy gear".
 

rgallant

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@Downs Well in a automotive sense you more limited, space and weight really. Although I suppose you could set up an on demand system, run on electric when the battery gets to a certain point the diesel kicks in and starts adding charge to the battery to keep you going. I do not know how viable that is, but it would have a smaller carbon footprint than pure diesel on things like tractor-trailers
 

Downs

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@Downs Well in a automotive sense you more limited, space and weight really. Although I suppose you could set up an on demand system, run on electric when the battery gets to a certain point the diesel kicks in and starts adding charge to the battery to keep you going. I do not know how viable that is, but it would have a smaller carbon footprint than pure diesel on things like tractor-trailers
Edison Motors in Canada is basically building what you described. You could technically run the system straight off the diesel generator, but you wouldn't have that surge capacity he talks about in the video. They also have it seutp for more than just a diesel generator. You could set itup for a CNG generator or a gas generator or cram it full of batteries and go straight EV.

 
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