Any testing info on the CyberTruck? One vendor is testing.

[hridge2020]

Rivian has released a video of the towing testing for its upcoming R1T electric pickup in some insane 118º F heat.

We are seeing a trend lately of companies planning pickup trucks showing the capacity of their trucks as the race to bring the first electric pickup to market heats up.

Yesterday, Ford released testing footage of its F-150 electric pickup prototype and a day before that, GM unveiled footage of its Hummer EV electric pickup testing its ‘Crab Mode’ feature.

These electric vehicles are still a year away, but automakers are working hard to validate them and bring to production.

Now Rivian, who is also trying to bring to market an electric truck on the same timeline, released a new video of its team testing the towing capacity of its R1T electric pickup truck in some insane heat:






R1T electric pickup truck

 

[lqdchkn]

It's cool to see them testing but this info was hardly relevant to what we need to know in the real world.

For example they state that they easily exceeded their (ridiculously low) "maintain 40MPH" up a grade. But they didnt say by how much or what speed they were able to maintain. I'd HOPE they were able to maintain at least 60MPH.

Also it doesnt really say how much range was reduced by towing or under what conditions. They said it was about 50%. But it's really important to know what flat towing vs hill towing does to range. If hill towing crushes a battery by 80% then that's really really bad. Whereas if flat towing only reduces range by 20%, that's hardly a dent. Or did they see that 50% reduced battery range consistently regardless of terrain type? All this scenarios require different evaluations on vehicle capability

 

[Crissa]

If hill towing crushes a battery by 80% then that's really really bad. Whereas if flat towing only reduces range by 20%, that's hardly a dent. Or did they see that 50% reduced battery range consistently regardless of terrain type?

It's really aerodynamics that you'll see the biggest change, because that's the biggest multiplier. So knowing the speed is essential. Weight is really very secondary to drag with modern vehcles.

And with an EV being so efficient normally, bad drag will just be really easy to notice. The big brick of trucks will see less towing drop because they're already so inefficient.

So really you want to ask... "What was the speed, wind, and temperature?" Cold air means 20% more dense which means more drag. Like, 50% more speed can more than double that base aerodynamic drag... Which is then multiplied by how dense the air is. And that's air speed, so going 40mph into a 20mph wind is like driving 60 which means you've doubled your air resistance (sort of, it's a square law).

-Crissa

 

[Dids]

It's really aerodynamics that you'll see the biggest change, because that's the biggest multiplier. So knowing the speed is essential. Weight is really very secondary to drag with modern vehcles.

And with an EV being so efficient normally, bad drag will just be really easy to notice. The big brick of trucks will see less towing drop because they're already so inefficient.

So really you want to ask... "What was the speed, wind, and temperature?" Cold air means 20% more dense which means more drag. Like, 50% more speed can more than double that base aerodynamic drag... Which is then multiplied by how dense the air is. And that's air speed, so going 40mph into a 20mph wind is like driving 60 which means you've doubled your air resistance (sort of, it's a square law).

-Crissa

Hmmm isn't all that true for any vehicle? And I agree somewhat that weight is secondary, especially for the torque monster electric motor....

 

[Crissa]

Hmmm isn't all that true for any vehicle? And I agree somewhat that weight is secondary, especially for the torque monster electric motor....

Yes, but ICE engines are so inefficient and gasoline so energy dense (compared to batteries) that you don't notice it at all.

Like, my motorcycle contains the gasoline-energy equivalent of a quarter gallon of gas. And I go over 80 miles on the thing. That's alot of wind to drag! By comparison, my car would only go about eight miles on that amount of energy. So my bike is seeing 10x the wind drag to energy storage - before you realize it has no streamlining.

-Crissa

 

[Dids]

Range decrease while towing isn't the real thing to worry about, yes the range will decrease with added load be it aerodynamic or mass. The thing to hope for from battery day is increased charge rate. Just a small reduction in battery internal resistance would be fantastic!

 

[ajdelange]

But it's really important to know what flat towing vs hill towing does to range. If hill towing crushes a battery by 80% then that's really really bad. Whereas if flat towing only reduces range by 20%, that's hardly a dent. Or did they see that 50% reduced battery range consistently regardless of terrain type? All this scenarios require different evaluations on vehicle capability

Range reduction depends very much on towing conditions. Higher speed is obviously a destroyer of range because drag goes up as the square of speed but the real destroyer is weight especially accompanied by hilly terrain. It is easy enough to compute the energy you must load into a trailer to take it up a hill. Thats simply m*g*h in which m is the mass, g the acceleration due to gravity and h the height. Thus if you haul a 10000 lb trailer from sea level to an elevation of 5000 feet you will use (10000/2.2)*9.8*(5000*.3048) = 6.78873e+07 joules. A joule is a watt delivered fo 1 second so there are 3600 joules in a watt hour or 360000 in a kWh so that's 18.8 kWh. That's a lot of energy equivalent to about 47 miles of range in an unburdened vehicle (400 Wh/mi). Thus if you pull the trailer to campsite at 5000' elevation that's 95 miles away you will use the equivalent of 47 miles range just to get to 5000'. This is in addition to the 97 miles range equivalent it takes to move the vehicle itself 97 mile plus the extra range equivalent it take to overcome trailer drag which depends on how fast you drove. Now this supposes an even 1% grade from home to the camp site. Suppose now that the terrain is rolling and that there are 20 hills of 250 feet height to surmount each followed by a valley destination. Thus the grade oscillates between 1% and -1% every 4.8 miles. You will use 2.35 miles worth of battery to crest each for a total of 48 more miles of range consumed. Note that you do not get any of this energy back from regeneration as the trailer is braked by its own friction brakes. The same reasoning applies to the towing vehicle except that much of the downhill potential energy (that's what m*g*h is called) is recovered. Thus we have consumed energy (in equivalent of "rated" miles):

97 to drive truck 97 miles to the campsite
47 to get the rig from sea level to 5000'
47 for going up the little hills on the way

Thus, considering only the potential energy load of the trailer we have cut range nearly in half in loading nearly as much energy (94 miles worth - 37.6 kWh) into potential energy as we used to move the tractor (97 miles - 38.8 kwh). That's a total of 76.4 kWh to go about 100 miles and we aren't finished yet. The truck also has to be brought to 5000'. Assuming it weighs half what the trailer does that's an additional 23.5 miles worth of juice. For the little hills, however, regen recovers perhaps 80% of the tractor's consumption so we need add only 20% of 47 = 9.4 miles to the budget.

97 to drive truck 97 miles to the campsite
47 to get the rig from sea level to 5000'
47 for going up the little hills on the way
23.5 for getting the tractor to the top of the hill
9.4 for cresting the little hills on the way.

Thus we have 126.9 mile ( 50.8 kWh) budgeted for potential energy demand for this trip. That amounts to 1308 wH/mi for potential energy alone. Potential energy alone will reduce your range to 25% of the rated range of the truck. Note that we still aren't finished. Unless we can accelerate uniformly to some cruising speed and hold it throughout the entire trip we will have to meet an intertial load demand too. Whenever we accelerate from v to v + ∆ we have to add m*v*∆ + 2*m*∆*∆ joules of kinnetic energy to the trailer and if we have to brake that is all lost. Typicall the kinnetic load is, in a normal vehicle, the largest load but as with the potential energy we can recover the lions share of it with regen. But the trailer does not have regen thus the inertial load is going to be very significant when towing too.

Finally there is drag to consider. If you drive fast enough at uniform speed and in flat terrain drag can become dominant but I have always thought there was a reason many states have speed limits for trailers that are less than those for cars and thus expect that the battery depleting heirarchy is going to be

1)Hilly terrain - weight
2)Inertial - weight
3)Drag

But lets go back to the potential for a minute. Suppose now that we still want to go 97 miles but that our grade is 0.5% ± 1% i.e. the campsite is at 2500' and the hillocks only 125' high. Now our potential load is cut in half i.e. is down to 654 Wh/mi. Then our range reduction by the potential is 400/(400 + 654) = 40%. And if the grade were 0.25 ±0.5% we'd have range reduction to 400/(400 + 327) = 58%.

The messages here should be
1)How much range reduction (relative to rated) you experience will depend on how much weight you are towing, what kind of terrain you tow it on and how fast you tow it. Given the number of variables it is impossible to answer the questions posed.
2)As you can't do much about the terrain you are going to travel over to maximize range minimize the trailer weight, drive at as uniform a speed as you possibly can and make that a slow speed. Travel when you have a tail wind.
.

 

[5UBV3T]

Rivian has released a video of the towing testing for its upcoming R1T electric pickup in some insane 118º F heat.

We are seeing a trend lately of companies planning pickup trucks showing the capacity of their trucks as the race to bring the first electric pickup to market heats up.

Yesterday, Ford released testing footage of its F-150 electric pickup prototype and a day before that, GM unveiled footage of its Hummer EV electric pickup testing its ‘Crab Mode’ feature.

These electric vehicles are still a year away, but automakers are working hard to validate them and bring to production.

Now Rivian, who is also trying to bring to market an electric truck on the same timeline, released a new video of its team testing the towing capacity of its R1T electric pickup truck in some insane heat:






R1T electric pickup truck

I saw this video and I immediately thought that I would love to see this kinda stuff regarding the Cybertruck. I know that Rivian is a bit further in development and this really helps their case, but it would be nice to see the CT in videos like this. Unfortunately as we've seen with preorders, Tesla doesn't have to market like this. So I wouldn't hold my breath for a Tesla Cybertruck video like this even though it would totally scramble my eggs...

 

[lqdchkn]

Range reduction depends very much on towing conditions. Higher speed is obviously a destroyer of range because drag goes up as the square of speed but the real destroyer is weight especially accompanied by hilly terrain. It is easy enough to compute the energy you must load into a trailer to take it up a hill. Thats simply m*g*h in which m is the mass, g the acceleration due to gravity and h the height. Thus if you haul a 10000 lb trailer from sea level to an elevation of 5000 feet you will use (10000/2.2)*9.8*(5000*.3048) = 6.78873e+07 joules. A joule is a watt delivered fo 1 second so there are 3600 joules in a watt hour or 360000 in a kWh so that's 18.8 kWh. That's a lot of energy equivalent to about 47 miles of range in an unburdened vehicle (400 Wh/mi). Thus if you pull the trailer to campsite at 5000' elevation that's 95 miles away you will use the equivalent of 47 miles range just to get to 5000'. This is in addition to the 97 miles range equivalent it takes to move the vehicle itself 97 mile plus the extra range equivalent it take to overcome trailer drag which depends on how fast you drove. Now this supposes an even 1% grade from home to the camp site. Suppose now that the terrain is rolling and that there are 20 hills of 250 feet height to surmount each followed by a valley destination. Thus the grade oscillates between 1% and -1% every 4.8 miles. You will use 2.35 miles worth of battery to crest each for a total of 48 more miles of range consumed. Note that you do not get any of this energy back from regeneration as the trailer is braked by its own friction brakes. The same reasoning applies to the towing vehicle except that much of the downhill potential energy (that's what m*g*h is called) is recovered. Thus we have consumed energy (in equivalent of "rated" miles):

97 to drive truck 97 miles to the campsite
47 to get the rig from sea level to 5000'
47 for going up the little hills on the way

Thus, considering only the potential energy load of the trailer we have cut range nearly in half in loading nearly as much energy (94 miles worth - 37.6 kWh) into potential energy as we used to move the tractor (97 miles - 38.8 kwh). That's a total of 76.4 kWh to go about 100 miles and we aren't finished yet. The truck also has to be brought to 5000'. Assuming it weighs half what the trailer does that's an additional 23.5 miles worth of juice. For the little hills, however, regen recovers perhaps 80% of the tractor's consumption so we need add only 20% of 47 = 9.4 miles to the budget.

97 to drive truck 97 miles to the campsite
47 to get the rig from sea level to 5000'
47 for going up the little hills on the way
23.5 for getting the tractor to the top of the hill
9.4 for cresting the little hills on the way.

Thus we have 126.9 mile ( 50.8 kWh) budgeted for potential energy demand for this trip. That amounts to 1308 wH/mi for potential energy alone. Potential energy alone will reduce your range to 25% of the rated range of the truck. Note that we still aren't finished. Unless we can accelerate uniformly to some cruising speed and hold it throughout the entire trip we will have to meet an intertial load demand too. Whenever we accelerate from v to v + ∆ we have to add m*v*∆ + 2*m*∆*∆ joules of kinnetic energy to the trailer and if we have to brake that is all lost. Typicall the kinnetic load is, in a normal vehicle, the largest load but as with the potential energy we can recover the lions share of it with regen. But the trailer does not have regen thus the inertial load is going to be very significant when towing too.

Finally there is drag to consider. If you drive fast enough at uniform speed and in flat terrain drag can become dominant but I have always thought there was a reason many states have speed limits for trailers that are less than those for cars and thus expect that the battery depleting heirarchy is going to be

1)Hilly terrain - weight
2)Inertial - weight
3)Drag

But lets go back to the potential for a minute. Suppose now that we still want to go 97 miles but that our grade is 0.5% ± 1% i.e. the campsite is at 2500' and the hillocks only 125' high. Now our potential load is cut in half i.e. is down to 654 Wh/mi. Then our range reduction by the potential is 400/(400 + 654) = 40%. And if the grade were 0.25 ±0.5% we'd have range reduction to 400/(400 + 327) = 58%.

The messages here should be
1)How much range reduction (relative to rated) you experience will depend on how much weight you are towing, what kind of terrain you tow it on and how fast you tow it. Given the number of variables it is impossible to answer the questions posed.
2)As you can't do much about the terrain you are going to travel over to maximize range minimize the trailer weight, drive at as uniform a speed as you possibly can and make that a slow speed. Travel when you have a tail wind.
.

Pretty sure you just agreed with me

 

[SpaceYooper]

The CT does still need to do testing. Regardless of whether or not they advertise with it. I don't think truck owners are just going to rely on blind faith when it come time to put $ where there mouth is and buying a CT...at least this one won't. We want to know the truck has been put through the wringer, corrections made, product improved, retested, etc. Then when it's good enough; production. Concept to production with only some street time obviously is not going to cut it.

I know Elon said he wanted to put the CT in a Baja race, but will he? The Baja 500 starts tomorrow. The Baja 1000 starts Nov 17th. If the CT is actually at one of these events, I can't imagine they would do that without some prior proving and it would be good to see some real world testing going on. We literally see it with every other truck and their ridiculous black and white wrapped concealed test vehicles.

Rivian is out front right now showcasing or advertising their testing like this and additionally being a confirmed competitor in the Rebelle Rally. We're entering the 4th Qtr of 2020 with supposed CT production just 12 months away. I know the factory is one part of production, but having a tested vehicle is another part. Without knowing if/how the Tesla is testing the CT I think it's falling behind regarding our expected production timeline of 4th Qtr 2021. Frankly, the vehicles coming out of the new factory need testing also for quality control issues. It's one thing to test a couple one off vehicles, but we need the assembly line vehicles tested. The last thing I want is an $69-$76k lemon even if it is the most bang for the buck available.

 

[lqdchkn]

The CT does still need to do testing. Regardless of whether or not they advertise with it. I don't think truck owners are just going to rely on blind faith when it come time to put $ where there mouth is and buying a CT...at least this one won't. We want to know the truck has been put through the wringer, corrections made, product improved, retested, etc. Then when it's good enough; production. Concept to production with only some street time obviously is not going to cut it.

I know Elon said he wanted to put the CT in a Baja race, but will he? The Baja 500 starts tomorrow. The Baja 1000 starts Nov 17th. If the CT is actually at one of these events, I can't imagine they would do that without some prior proving and it would be good to see some real world testing going on. We literally see it with every other truck and their ridiculous black and white wrapped concealed test vehicles.

Rivian is out front right now showcasing or advertising their testing like this and additionally being a confirmed competitor in the Rebelle Rally. We're entering the 4th Qtr of 2020 with supposed CT production just 12 months away. I know the factory is one part of production, but having a tested vehicle is another part. Without knowing if/how the Tesla is testing the CT I think it's falling behind regarding our expected production timeline of 4th Qtr 2021. Frankly, the vehicles coming out of the new factory need testing also for quality control issues. It's one thing to test a couple one off vehicles, but we need the assembly line vehicles tested. The last thing I want is an $69-$76k lemon even if it is the most bang for the buck available.

There are currently 2 Cybertrucks I believe and theyve been testing since Nov. of last year