Driving an EV pickup

[sly_karma]

I'm up here now. It's cold and everything is closed. Bummer. This was the annual ski trip. Cars are starting, but they are laboring. Not electric trucks.

My buddy got back from 2 weeks in Palm Springs to find his shiny new $120K GMC 3/4 diesel was dead in driveway with frozen batteries. Had it towed to dealer, they replaced batteries under warranty and I just dropped him off there an hour ago.

 

[Haverodwilltravel]

Could you imagine being stranded in cold weather and depending on your electric vehicle for heat. It may be wise to make sure that you have extra clothing and maybe a sleeping bag.

 

[Aquaholic]

Could you imagine being stranded in cold weather and depending on your electric vehicle for heat. It may be wise to make sure that you have extra clothing and maybe a sleeping bag.

Danielle Smith?

 

[Bill 310]

Could you imagine being stranded in cold weather and depending on your electric vehicle for heat. It may be wise to make sure that you have extra clothing and maybe a sleeping bag.

I expect that most of the people on this forum carry a winter survival kit in their vehicle be it gas or electric. As I write this I wonder if stranded a small electric heater could be plugged into the socket on a Lightning EV and use to maintain cabin heat.

Say one like the Caframo shown below.

 

[kaelc]

Thanks @sly_karma I might start taking my Giant Yamaha and Bosch Bike battery inside to charge and keep warm. Nice to hear that a simply plugging the Lightning in will help with range in winter, makes sense. My bikes have none of the preconditioning features, likely the BMS is just simple on both. Bosch battery is a 2018 I believe and seems to be struggling on 20k trips right now, long trips are possible at low assist but if I have my 6 year old and 20+lbs of cargo and 180lbs of me it struggles. I'd like to grab a new battery for her but the dad bod has lots of calories to burn.

Thanks for the reminder to throw a charger on my F350 when it warms up. I hope the people with cheap lithium Lip04 batteries have them unhooked from their solar and chargers right now. I was interested in a trolling motor that came complete with all the wiring, charger and 3 Lip04 100ah batteries but they had cheap bms with no low temp charging protection so I passed, I'm glad I did.

Have a great trip to Sun peaks, I'm debating a trip there from the island in February with two young kids and we have tantrum range anxiety!

 

[sly_karma]

Could you imagine being stranded in cold weather and depending on your electric vehicle for heat. It may be wise to make sure that you have extra clothing and maybe a sleeping bag.

Winter trips out of town, all the usual safety gear is in my truck. Shovel, matches, candles, water, blanket, etc. Everyone should have this, no matter what they drive.

Next thing is how much energy do you have on board. For decades, it's beengood practice to not let gas tank get below half in cold weather. If something happens amd you're stuck in one place for many hours, you have enough fuel to be able to provide heat. So the same principle applies to EV trucks: stop in Merritt or Hope and add some charge before tackling the Coq, the most likely highway in BC to close in winter without notice.

I'd rather be in an EV during a winter road closure than a gas or diesel. Turning on the heat in an EV means it's all used in the cabin, rather than lighting a gasoline fire in an uninsulated engine compartment and waiting while it heats up a block of iron. How much of that heat actually gets inside the cab? Half? A third? Does a nice job of melting off the hood though, that's something when you're suck on the side of the highway.

The Lightning heater blows hot air in seconds, and using the heated seats doesn't come with the worry that the battery might not have enough juice to start the engine when the road reopens.

How about a little math...
Lightning heater: 5 kW.
Run the heat 5 minutes on, 10 minutes off (33% duty cycle). Energy consumption: 1.66 kWh per hour.
Battery size: 98 kWh at 100%
Battery depletion rate: 1.7% per hour
4 hour delay would use 7% of battery
8 hour delay would use 14%
12 hour delay would use 20%

So a smart driver heads onto the Coq with 80%, uses some of that getting to the summit, then a big accident happens and the road closes. Say they're at 60% when that happens. Even 24 hours stuck in a storm would leave them with 20% battery, enough to get to the next charger.

Lots of variables of course, a solo driver could use less power by using the heated seat more than ducted heat. You'd also have lights, music and wifi available, power of those is minimal. And no risk of blowing snow blocking exhaust and causing a CO problem inside.

 

[onefish]

But, but, but, what if you are stuck for 48 hours. Now you would really be in trouble!

 

[Alex_c]

But, but, but, what if you are stuck for 48 hours. Now you would really be in trouble!

Lmao last year we got stuck on the Coq for 8 hours at -25°C on the way to Tunkwa. Burned just under half a tank in a Toyota 4 banger. Probably would have been popsicles after 48 hours in our car, let alone any other vehicle.

 

[Irishwolf]

Lmao last year we got stuck on the Coq for 8 hours at -25°C on the way to Tunkwa. Burned just under half a tank in a Toyota 4 banger. Probably would have been popsicles after 48 hours in our car, let alone any other vehicle.

Worst nightmare right there! The coq can smb til summer time!

 

[Alex_c]

Worst nightmare right there! The coq can smb til summer time!

Yeah it sucked. Was -45 overnight at Tunkwa lol. Got one good sized fish though.

 

[Irishwolf]

Yeah it sucked. Was -45 overnight at Tunkwa lol. Got one good sized fish though.

Glad you survived it. That’s a pretty gross situation.

 

[CBsqrd]

Could you imagine being stranded in cold weather and depending on your electric vehicle for heat. It may be wise to make sure that you have extra clothing and maybe a sleeping bag.

But, but... Could you imagine driving on the highway and not being able to cook dinner on the exhaust manifold? It may be wise to make sure you have a camping stove and extra fuel canisters.

Go be a troll someplace else. If you had actually read this thread instead of repeatedly posting unrelated and off topic comments, you would have seen that not only has this already been addressed and discussed in detail (which @sly_karma graciously posted again...), you'd be better off in an electric vehicle.

 

[Alex_c]

Glad you survived it. That’s a pretty gross situation.

It was not ideal. We sort of swore off making that drive around xmas after that trip. Too many morons on the road doing 120 km/h in 70 km/h conditions. The lake was nice though. I brought a 10x10’ canopy with walls and a 35k BTU propane heater, so we were comfortable fishing. The lodge also let us stay an extra night for free as the roads got worse and were closed on day we were supposed to leave. Pretty awesome place, more people should go there. Even with an EV truck, you could run an extension cord to keep the battery topped up, and it won’t sound like a bag of bolts when you fire it up at 6:00 am in -40 weather.

 

[Haverodwilltravel]

But, but... Could you imagine driving on the highway and not being able to cook dinner on the exhaust manifold? It may be wise to make sure you have a camping stove and extra fuel canisters.

Go be a troll someplace else. If you had actually read this thread instead of repeatedly posting unrelated and off topic comments, you would have seen that not only has this already been addressed and discussed in detail (which @sly_karma graciously posted again...), you'd be better off in an electric vehicle.

It was just a friendly alert, man. No need to be so offended.

 

[Aces]

Back in my trucking days I was stranded at the top of Rogers Pass for 2.5 days with snow slides on both sides. The restaurant ran out of liquor before food LMAO!

Sorry for the derail but this thread brought back memories

 

[sly_karma]

It was just a friendly alert, man. No need to be so offended.

What he meant to say was, go back and read through the entire thread. There's a lot of information there, and real world experiences. If you have questions about things I haven't covered yet, ask away. If you decide to go with one of the bingo card items, do some reading first, K?

 

[Haverodwilltravel]

Got it the first time. We can all read between the lines. All this fiddling with preheating the battery and making sure that every thing is planned out to the “T” for your trip with hardly any room for error or happenstance, just says what a dangerous predicament you can find yourself in this kind of weather with such a vehicle.
No need to get snarly.

 

[Aquaholic]

Got it the first time. We can all read between the lines. All this fiddling with preheating the battery and making sure that every thing is planned out to the “T” for your trip with hardly any room for error or happenstance, just says what a dangerous predicament you can find yourself in this kind of weather with such a vehicle.
No need to get snarly.

Don’t try and play the victim now.

 

[Haverodwilltravel]

Just pointing out the obvious.

 

[onefish]

Sounds like, Fiddling with preheating battery = fiddling with the block heater for ICE vehicle