• grue@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    Yeah the electric pickup is such a no brainer for the US

    Disagree. The truck market itself is a no brainer, but electric trucks have design challenges that electric sedans don’t. Namely, aerodynamics, towing, and aerodynamics while towing. It is much harder to make an electric truck capable of doing “truck stuff” with a reasonable range and price compared to making an electric car.

    • khepri@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      Correct, but now consider how much time and money has been spent over the decades on making sure that “trucks can do truck stuff” for combustion vs. electric drives. “it’s much harder” is true only in the context that thousands of years of engineering time have already been poured into diesel and gas trucks, and only a tiny fraction of that has yet been dedicated to electric. So it’s not “much harder” it just “hasn’t been funded yet at the level that the oil industry has provided combustion vehicles for nearly 100 years”.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        It’s not a technology/research issue; it’s an economics issue. Trucks simply need an absolutely huge battery pack to brute-force not only themselves but a boxy trailer through the air for hundreds of miles, and all but one of them don’t actually have it (even at the very expensive prices they sell for).

        • khepri@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          Look up the curve of the density of energy storage for batteries the last 20-ish years and then honestly tell me this isn’t a technology issue in the midst of being addressed.

    • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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      12 hours ago

      Harder maybe but it’s clearly doable. We have a number of options now. And it’s not like they’ve had to make them hyper-aerodynamic or anything. Just took a little more advanced battery tech.