While the "Cybertruck" may fail for a number of reasons, the future of EV trucks may be limited.
It has been amusing to watch the cybertruck implode. As one wag put it, it was released four years too late and two years too early. The severe quality problems and limited functionality make the entire project the butt of jokes. But one issue is not unique to the cybertruck, but common to all EVs - energy density.
The vaunted "gold standard" of an EV is having at least a 300-mile range. Most EV manufacturers give optimistic range values, and Tesla seems to be the worst at this. Problem is, even a 300 or 400 or even 500 mile range pales in comparison to most IC vehicles. Our King Ranch has the optional 38 gallon fuel tank, and given its average fuel economy of 22 MPG, it can go over 700 miles between fillups - which take only a few minutes.
Granted, most people rarely travel over 300 miles a day, so for ordinary driving, an EV might fit the bill, if just barely. The problem, of course, is that if you try to extend the range with more battery power, the weight goes up accordingly. The cybertruck tops 7,000 lbs without the promised "range extender" battery pack (which, with the spare tire, would take up the entire bed). The GM "Hummer" EV supposedly top 9,000 lbs, which makes many rural bridges very nervous. Adding more battery adds more weight, which in turn, decreased efficiency, particularly in hill country. There is a law of diminishing returns here - we can't have 20,000-lb EVs crushing the road.
But towing is where the whole concept falls apart. And a surprising number of pickup trucks (including mine) are used for towing. Look around you the next time you are on the highway and you'll see a LOT of trailers being towed by pickups - for camping, for boats, for lawn care, for contractors, for motorcycles - for anything and everything. Towing a 4,000-lb camper, our "Ecoboost" gets an astounding 14 MPG which is considered pretty good in the RV world. With a 38-gallon tank, our "range" is over 400 miles.
With an EV, expect 100 miles, if that. I wrote before about a Canadian friend was towing an 18-foot lightweight camper with a Tesla Model Y dual motor, and he reported that he got 100-150 miles between charges. He had to plan his trip from Canada to Florida in many segments, and of course, map out where charging stations were. On a good day, he could drive 100 miles in the morning, stop for lunch and charging, and then go another hundred miles in the afternoon. Workable, but it required a lot more forethought than my, "hey look, there's a gas station!" technique.
The vaunted "cybertruck" seems crippled with a similarly limited range. A pair of 'influencers' (throw up in mouth a little bit) have attached an advertising trailer to a cybertruck, with large screen televisions on all sides (ironically, powered by a gasoline generator) with the idea of flinging advertisements (animated, no less) on the rest of us as they go down the road. New York outlawed these kind of rolling billboards in the early 20th Century and indeed, it was a first amendment legal case in our casebooks in Constitutional Law in law school. Since then, I have noticed a few trucks with rolling ads on them. Curses to whoever thought this was a good idea.
But taking aside the shitty business plan of these influencers (power-vomiting), they reported that their "cybertruck" would go barely 100 miles between charges and require and hour to charge. Truly, the cybertruck is incapable of doing "truck things" like towing a trailer. And I suspect the Ford F150 EV as well as the Rivian, would suffer from the same problem. There is no "special sauce" in EVs that make one better than another - just battery capacity and weight, which in turn determines range. No maker has much of an edge over another.
So despite all the hue and cry from the far-right that Democrats will "force" then to drive EVs is nonsense. EVs will make good commuter vehicles which can occasionally be used for long trips. And the carbon credits and equivalent EPA mileage will offset the gas burned by larger vehicles like pickup trucks.
In that regard, it is my humble opinion that the major carmakers are approaching the EV issue all wrong. EVs are being sold as high-end expensive toys, which worked for Tesla when selling the model-S. But the rest of us might need or want only a simpler, smaller vehicle which might need a much smaller range and thus be well-suited for commuting and city driving. Few such vehicles have been offered and often the ones that were offered (such as Mitsubishi's tiny i-MiEV) were eviscerated as cheap tinny boxes.
But perhaps this will change in the future. All I know is, a 7,000-lb plus SUV or pickup isn't the answer, other than for people who buy pickups and SUVs and drive them to work, alone. EVs are not going to make good off-road or towing vehicles, at least not in their current form.
As such, the cybertruck is doomed to fail, other than as an expensive piece of automotive jewelry that falls apart faster than a Yugo.
