Usually the brakes are more important when it comes to stopping, though engine braking can play a part.
EV trucks have no problem at all with high loads. They have excellent torque, and very fine control over the motors. The brakes are as good or better as what you’d find elsewhere. Multi-motor models can even use torque vectoring (controlling the wheels independently) to prevent fishtailing and other problems.
It really is just about the range, not the hauling capability. And if you’re in a very rural area and need to drive 150 miles with a horse trailer to get to the vet hospital, an EV truck isn’t for you right now. But not all truck use is rural, and even someone in a rural area might want both, in the same way that 2-car suburban households can find it convenient to have one EV and one ICE.
EV trucks are great at all aspects of towing except range. Regenerative braking replaces engine braking, and EVs can easily have as much or more torque than the largest gas and diesel trucks. Weight can also add to stability. Reviews I’ve watched for all of the electric trucks pretty much say that it is a joy to tow with them, up to about 80 miles (I think the Silverado with its huge battery can do maybe twice that).
There’s also the expense, but these days even a work truck can be $50,000, and $80,000 trucks are common.
There’s this weird starting assumption that some people are making that the Cybertruck is totally impractical and the only reason to drive it is because you want something deliberately weird looking.
In reality, it’s exactly the opposite: it’s an extremely practical truck (aside from the range limits, which are common to all EV trucks right now), and the weird look arises from taking a clean-sheet approach.
Really, you should just watch the Hagerty video or or one of the others. But a few of the key features:
6-foot bed, which is more than the 5.5’ F-150 Lightning or 4.5’ Rivian, and more than typical ICE crew cabs
But actually a tad smaller than an F-150 overall (though still big)
Roll-down, lockable tonneau cover. Probably more lockable storage than anything but a van.
High-power outlets for welders and similar use. Can also charge another EV.
4-wheel steering, with a tighter turn radius than most sedans
Variable turn rate steering, so even at low speeds it’s easy to drive (340 degrees lock to lock)
Tough body panels. Bulletproof is a gimmick. But rock-proof isn’t.
Typical Tesla safety (i.e., very high passive safety)
The Supercharger charge network. Ford and Rivian have signed on for support, but it’ll probably take a couple of years. Cybertruck has it out of the gate.
Typical Tesla software quality (i.e., very high compared to the others).
Full airbag suspension with 12" of adjustment. 17" of ground clearance at max, and there’s no differential or otherwise to interfere. Just a clean flat plate at the bottom.
Amazing performance. Like it or not, but people want their trucks to be zippy as well. And the Cybertruck is the fastest production truck on the planet.
All you have to do is ignore the way it looks, and who owns the company that makes it. Sorry, but both/either of those are going to be dealbreakers for who knows how many people.
Seriously, it looks like a child’s crayon drawing.
Plenty of people like or are indifferent to the way it looks, and plenty of people like or are indifferent to the way the owner behaves. It’s not going to outsell the F-150, but it doesn’t need to.
It is kinda funny, though. How many Nissan Leaf owners got worked up over Nissan’s CEO literally smuggling himself in a box from Japan to Lebanon to escape criminal charges? Not to mention numerous other examples of poor behavior from other leaders. I’d suggest that most people don’t really care, in the end.
From what I’ve seen, there are a lot of bed racks, storage boxes, service cabinets, etc. designed to fit in the back of standard pickups with horizontal side walls. I don’t think this stuff will work on the Cybertruck given the sloped side walls.
I will say that Ghosn wasn’t even close to the mouthpiece that Elmo is. Piece of shit? Yes. Going to change things about the vehicles on a whim? Probably not.
Off the shelf stuff won’t work. But the Cybertruck has two rails in the bed for mounting things. For example, they offer these MOLLE panels for the interior (you can see the rails on the bottom):
The upper sloped part does support a rack for kayaks and the like. Whatever you’re mounting will be on a slope of course, but that’s probably ok.
And then there will be some custom jobs, like this tent that fits on the bed:
The main question is whether it sells enough to support an ecosystem of third-party equipment. Could go both ways. Simple things like storage boxes will be fine (the Cybertruck has lots of bed mounting points); other things might require some customization. But overall it doesn’t seem like there will be some huge shortage. Tesla themselves will probably have lots more accessories over time; they already have quite a few on their shop…
That’s just it, I guess. Being an actual criminal and international fugitive? Yawn. Murders thousands of people by lying about emissions? Ho-hum. Says something bad on social media? Pitchforks!
I think the point is that most folks have just plain never heard of Nissan’s CEO. Everyone has heard of Musk, though, because Musk has personally made sure that everyone hears of him.
I don’t think it’s damning that people don’t have a negative opinion of folks they’ve never heard of.
Exactly. Which means that people don’t really care about the behavior of the CEOs; otherwise they’d research them before buying any product and probably have to boycott 95% of everything as a result. They only care if they’ve heard of the CEO doing something bad.
Personally, I never understood the whole kerfuffle around Carlos Ghosn. At one point, he was credited with single-handedly turning around the fortunes of Nissan and then later Nissan, Mitsubishi and Renault. And then he was fired, arrested and charged with accounting fraud or some such thing. All of the prior praise evaporated. I’ve never looked into his case in enough detail to know if the charges were warranted. I do know that Nissan vehicles have improved tremendously since he got involved.
Well, Ghosn wasn’t presenting every innovation as his own. For worse, not better, Musk has made himself the figurehead of Tesla and X (not SpaceX, to his betterment). His public statements about products, financial conditions, and the future of the companies are all highly relevant.
Ghosn was dismissed from the board, and of course had never been majority shareholder of Nissan, so it’s really not comparable.
And VW and others lying about emissions resulted in billions in fines in various jurisdictions.
Musk is much more closely identified with Tesla than any single individual has been with a major automaker since probably Henry Ford. Or maybe Ferdinand Porsche. Even Lee Iococca was just an employee at Ford and then Chrysler. And Musk isn’t apologetic about his assholishness, nor does Tesla do anything to distance itself from him.
Not buying a Tesla because of Elon would be much more like not buying a Ford back in the day because Henry was a raging antisemite. Not sure if that was ever a thing, but it’s at least comparable. A CEO doing some fraudulent accounting and then engaging in zany antics to avoid arrest is not comparable.
If you’re going to weigh the good vs. the bad, then you should apply the same principle to Musk. Tesla single-handedly dragged the car industry into the EV era. That’s a massive good that by far outweighs any bad. Perhaps the same could be said of Ghosn relative to Nissan. But if you’re going to say that such-and-such is a dealbreaker, independent of anything else, then being a convicted criminal seems like it should fit the bill.
Yes, but… so what? That’s again just an admission that it’s about optics, not actual behavior.
Imagine that for whatever reason, journalists just didn’t find that putting “Musk” in the headline generated clicks. That every stupid media post was only read by a handful of people and then went into the void. It wouldn’t change the behavior one bit, or the success of Tesla or SpaceX, which is due to their products. But it would mean that people ended up as familiar with Musk as they are with Ghosn (i.e., hardly at all).
Again, if you only care about something because you’ve heard of it–without bothering to look into other cases that you might not know about–then it’s not really the behavior that you care about.
Good thing that Ghosn is no longer in control of Nissan, Renault or Mitsubishi. (But was he actually convicted of anything? I thought he fled before trial?)
Sure, that’s true for the Nissan of today. I just don’t remember anyone being too concerned back in 2019, either.
And VW, although they were fined, undoubtedly still employs many people that participated in Dieselgate. I suppose that their total incompetence in building out the Electrify America network (as part of the Dieselgate punishment) wasn’t exactly morally wrong, though it won’t stop me from criticizing them on that basis.
He purposely puts himself in the narrative. He is a narcissist, and has many other issues. He is pretty unique as a CEO, and I think there are very few CEOs (any?) who could/would make unilateral design changes on an impulse. He can and does.
I think you find that arguing with Musk fans is not very productive. They see him as a genius and victim who is unfairly targeted by the media who is jealous of brilliance.
He’s the Randian hero of their fantasies.
They don’t think Musk is seeking attention with his posts and comments.
