The Drive tries to spin Musk on Tesla Pick Up

[101101]

https://www.thedrive.com/news/27169...-puny-while-tweeting-about-tesla-pickup-truck

Musk called the Ram's class leading towing capacity puny or childish. Drive picked up on this and noted that a Twitter user tried to correct Musk on this with suggesting a tow capacity in tweet from a while back suggesting 30,000lbs, but Musk corrected for 300,000lbs tow capacity. Now the Dodge Ram has a tow capacity of 12000lbs. And in the drive article it shows a Model X towing 787 presumably dry which weighs about 300k lbs. But the Model X isn't rated for this breaks tiers etc and it surely wasn't pulling it too fast and men have towed even larger airplanes maybe a few feet.

So then the drive tries to say the last time Musk made references to a would be competitors product as being puny and childish he didn't deliver. WRONG! but the point of the article was to tell this lie. You Musk made references to the Porsche Taycan charger as being comparatively puny and childish and the drive is trying to say he was making a reference to the 3rd super charger which hadn't been announced yet, but he was clearly referencing the Megacharger which is 800kwh-1000kwy vs the Porsche unit of 350kwh, not the Supercharger 3 which is 250kwh but with some advantages the Porsche design presumably may not have- even with a latter launch.

Then the author writes:
but the real questions should surround just how much it will sustainably tow, and at what cost to the overall range and drivetrain wear.

There are no "real" questions about that. 1. Locomotives are now all electric drive as are most earth moves and many tanks- there is a reason- you can channel a lot more force with electrics per unit of cross sectional area then with gas pneumatics which is what ICE amounts to. 2. Musk said 500-600 miles range if I am not mistaken. 3. There is hardly anything touching or rubbing together its not a frictive power train like ICE so no issue with drive train wear.

Then he tries to act like Ford or Rivian will be competition. I don't think so. Ford won't offer anything competitive unless its dropping its ICE line up entirely and it won't so what it will offer will be too little too late. And Rivian isn't competing in the same area and has already tipped its hand- its not offering something competitive on power with what Musk is has laid out spec wise or as I understand it doing a work truck. Its also not Tesla. Rivian has quoted more modest specs relative to current work trucks possibly because of breaks and tires but it also might have not wanted to have tipped its hand or maybe it got some bait and switch or indirect investment from GM in return for not quoting disruptive pull numbers. Musk won't play those stupid games. It will have the towing capacity of 25 top end dodge Ram pickups- because ICE now sucks as is already becoming evident in it sales.

 

[Pushmi-Pullyu]

...men have towed even larger airplanes maybe a few feet.

Right. Towing very large loads with a pickup (or other vehicle, such as the Model X) for a very short distance at a very slow speed is a stunt. It's a stunt when Tesla does it just as much as it's a stunt when pickup makers do it. The relevant question, for those wanting towing capacity in their passenger vehicle, is how much it's tow-rated to pull at highway speeds.

The black-or-white distinction of "truth" and "lie", that strict binary either/or choice, doesn't apply to every statement. Heck, even fact-checking websites generally make shades-of-gray distinctions such as "partly true" or "mostly untrue". So, if Elon has tweeted that the Model X or the forthcoming Tesla Pickup can "tow 300,000 lbs"... The question shouldn't be a binary choice between truth or lie.

Elon's assertion there unquestionably is spin, and it unquestionably does not represent any practical, real-world ability to tow a trailer down the road at highway speed.

The subject which is actually worthy of discussion is just how much real-world towing ability BEVs have or will have, and how much towing impacts range. Unfortunately, it impacts range quite a bit!

Debating whether or not the Model X or the Tesla Pickup can or will be able to tow a Boeing 747, or some other absurdly large object(s), is a pointless waste of time.

​

 

[101101]

As for the man look at the Wired article trying to undermine the hype of showing a Model X tow a 787 where they have a world strong man pull a C-17 or other large military transport.

As for it being some huge difference on pull for endurance, I am not sure. Look at how city driving works on mileage vs highway mileage for EVs where city is actually higher, at first glance it would seem to undermine what I am about to imply but look once you get the mass up to momentum if you have to an accelerative thrust to maintain speed its the kind of things EVs are good at.

Also I don't think there is a question that the truck will be a beast for pulling. I think that comes from the example of locomotives which are all electric drive and you can look up the pull record for a train (string of locomotives) is about 100,000 tons or pulling the weight of a air craft carrier down the tracks. The Tesla pickup up you know is going to simply be 2 of the rear model 3 motors like the semi is 4 of those motors. All it means is the Tesla semi can pull 600,000lbs or 7.5x what ICE semis are rated to pull. Now the biggest road train ICE semis can pull 300,000 lbs across long expanses as they do in Australia, so I guess this is what Musk was saying the semi could pull backwards up a hill in a tug. So 2x the power for the biggest semi with presumably 4-7x the efficiency- that's Seba's 10x multiplier.

I guess you don't think it will have the 10,000nm of the roadster but I am guessing it will have the same battery pack and 7500nm which would utterly destroy a Dodge Ram and I don't think there is any question about batteries sustaining load. Tesla just put in a PowerPak station in Osaka japan that has enough power in it (and its not a big station its small by Tesla standards) to push a passenger train for 30 mins which I think is the reason they built it. Think its like 14 megawatts.

 

[101101]

Now Fred Lambert from Electrek is trying to spread the same miss-information- strategic shill. They obviously don't like the reality of the pull difference going to cancel the orders of ICE trash so out they come pulling the strategic shill.

Turns out Mega charger is more like 1.6 mega watts by some estimates so yes the Porsche 350kwh is puny.

 

[gooki]

V3 super charger may well do 500kw on a double voltage EV (roadster, pickup, s or x refresh), we don't know yet.

 

[Pushmi-Pullyu]

As for the man look at the Wired article trying to undermine the hype of showing a Model X tow a 787 where they have a world strong man pull a C-17 or other large military transport.

As for it being some huge difference on pull for endurance, I am not sure. Look at how city driving works on mileage vs highway mileage for EVs <snippage>
...once you get the mass up to momentum if you have to an accelerative thrust to maintain speed its the kind of things EVs are good at.

The main problem with pulling a trailer at highway speed* isn't the weight, it's the air resistance. Bjørn Nyland's test with a Model X pulling a comparatively small teardrop-shaped camper on a long trip showed the Model X losing fully half its range, despite the fact that it wasn't a very heavy trailer. The increase in air resistance towing even a mid-sized trailer at highway speed, even one with a moderately streamlined shape, is pretty substantial.

*In conditions of level terrain. Towing in a hilly region, or especially towing up a mountain, uses a lot more energy.

Despite Tesla's EV engineering being years ahead of any other auto makers, I don't think there is much if anything they can do about the increased drag from pulling a trailer.