Cybertruck!

 

Tesla recently (finally!) had a Delivery Event for the Cybertruck, 4 years after announcing it.... Although the specs seemingly have dropped a bit, and the price has certainly increased, it's still a very different type of vehicle, very much in the mold of the original Tesla Roadster announced in 2008 and the Model S of 2012. Both of those vehicles were initially very polarizing but in the case of the Model S especially, became almost mainstream and segment leaders. Will the Cybertruck do the same?

I have had a CT on order since early 2021, right around the time I bought my Model Y. It was $100 to get a reservation, which seemed like a no brainer at the time. Tesla reportedly has over 2 million reservations, although perhaps that number has declined a bit since the event last week. 

To me, the Cybertruck isn't a competitor for a gas-powered 'working' truck. People that use their trucks in support of their businesses aren't going to buy the CT (or a Rivian, for that matter). These are 'lifestyle' vehicles, used for off-roading, camping, trips to Home Depot for DIY projects, etc. I think a LOT of people that drive pick-ups, frankly, use their trucks for this purpose. That's the context to think about these trucks. They aren't really suited for long-distance towing or constantly carrying heavy loads. Being an EV, you don't really pay a penalty for around-town use of a truck - no horrible gas mileage, for example. 

I did have the chance to check one out in person in Boston last weekend. There are about 20 CT's on display in Tesla stores around the country - the closest to me is NYC, but since I was in Boston for a family holiday party, I took the opportunity to see it there - much easier to access Boston from where I was staying, then getting to NYC from home. I thought it was awesome! It looks so much better in person than in pics (although I am posting my pics below). It IS big, but the styling actually minimizes the bulk to a great extent. So without further ado, here are my pics (and video)!

Walk-Around Video

Good view of the 'squirkle' steering wheel...

Minimal front overhang.

The massive front wiper blade.

Supercharger Visits - Updated

 I've taken a few road trips this summer, so though I would update my Supercharger list....

Now I really would like to take a trip to Florida and extend the list.....

Week Long Road Trip to Northern New England!

 

Just finished a nice long late summer road trip in northern New England! Our ride took us from Central NJ to Saratoga Springs NY, across Vermont to North Conway NH for a couple of nights, and then to Winthrop ME for a family wedding - then home. The trip was 6 days and about 1,100 miles, and included several new charging locations (for me) which is always fun. Ac always, the Tesla driving and charging experience was flawless. With just over 40,000 miles on the car since March of 2021, and a new set of tires, it continues to be a great road trip car - roomy, comfortable, quiet and efficient.

Here is a summary of the trip from my TezLab app -

A couple items of note -

- Charging cost vs gas savings - you can see that charging at the Supercharger network cost me almost $138, with gas savings of about $100. This reflects the most expensive charging costs you'd encounter, about $.40 per kilowatt. Compare this to my home cost of about $.09 per kilowatt.... Still, $100 in gas savings beats a sharp stick in the eye...

- Total charging time of 11 hours is a little misleading, as that includes home charging at either end of the trip. Actual time spent at Superchargers was 3 hours and 15 minutes. A couple of those stops also included lunch so were a little longer than I would normally stop (one for 27 minutes and one for 29 minutes). One in North Conway also coincided with us doing some grocery shopping. 

- Another interesting thing - driving through the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire does interesting things to your energy consumption. Just like in a gas car, you use more energy going uphill, but unlike a gas car, an EV can recapture some of that used energy going downhill by regeneration - using the electric motors to capture energy that would normally be wasted by braking and put it back into the battery. You can see on the picture below a flat spot just past halfway in the graph, where is was essentially using no energy coming down a hill. 

You can also see noted at the bottom that the car added back about 53 miles of range through regeneration during this period, which is really cool.

As always, it was a great trip made better by driving a Tesla!

Some pictures from the trip -

Rainbow over North Conway, NH.

Refreshment after a long drive.

Bates Falls on the trail to Arethusa Falls, White Mountain State Forest, NH

Arethusa Falls

Family Wedding, Cobbosseecontee Lake, Winthrop ME

More EV's in the Comics

 

How Norway Does EV's

Interesting article from the NY Times on Norway's EV adoption, which is incredibly high - 80% of all new vehicles sold there are EV's! 

Click here.

New York International Auto Show - All of the Electric Vehicles!

 I went to the NY Auto Show last wee, specifically to see the various EV's that are now for sale.... And I have t say, I was very surprised at the number that are currently available in the US! I consider myself pretty knowledgeable in this space, but it was great to see (almost) every new EV currently available, as well as a few that are hopefully 'coming soon'. This disappointment stems from the LACK of EV's from some of the large manufacturers of popular cars, but I'll discuss that a little later.

First, here are the ones you can order and/or buy now, in no particular order....

First up is Ford, with 2 vehicles there (as well as a Transit E-Van) - the Lightning Pickup and the Mach-E - they had several of each, and were doing a little Mach-E ride-along... First time I had the chance to see the Lightning up close and it's impressive - certainly full-sized, and with a massive frunk that opens up right down to the bumper. I'm guessing Red Bull is a sponsor...

Ford F150 Lightning 

Ford Mustang Mach-E

Next up was Chevy with several up-coming cars (some of which I believe you can pre-order now) - 

First up is the Equinox, which Chevy has been touting as starting at around $30,000. I imagine the one on display is a top-of-the-line model, but it looks pretty sharp.

Chevy also had the Blazer EV which seems to be a similar size as the Equinox but I imagine will be a bit more up-market as it's starting price is supposed to be around $45,000.

Silverado EV Pick-Up

Subaru showed up with their version of the Toyota bZ4X, the Solterra, It's a poor effort, just like the bZ4X. Hopefully the Japanese manufacturers (Toyota, Honda, Subaru mainly) start to take EV's seriously at some point, as they could certainly make them at a high level if they actually cared. Not all of the fingerprints on the 'piano black' console cover. No one really uses PB any longer for this exact reason.

Stellantis was the next stop, they have no current modern EV's, only the Fiat 500e which is admittedly cool, but not really useful in the real world if you drive a lot of daily miles. They did have a 'future' vehicle, the Chrysler Airflow, the Challenger EV and a weird 2-seat golf-cart kind of thingy that serves no purpose, but was kind of cool none-the-less.

Chrysler Airflow

?

FIAT 500e

Challenger EV 

Next up were the real stars of the show, in my view - Kia and Hyundai. They have really bought in to the idea of EV's and are making some really good ones - both in design and in features and capabilities.

Kia EV9 - a full-sized, 3-row SUV

EV6 in GT guise

Niro EV

Hyundai Ioniq 6 - gorgeous!

This is actually a beautiful dark green

Ioniq 5

 

Hyundai's version of the Niro, the Kona

Genesis, which is Hyundai's luxury division (see: Lexus) had a couple of EV's as well. The GV60 is the SUV and the G80 is a large sedan, which they called by the awkward name of 'Electrified'. But their paint is incredible.

GV60

G80 Electrified

BMW showed 2 of their EV's. The German companies are making a bit of noise in this space, which is nice to see - although BMW has completely lost their way styling-wise. Fortunately, when driving one, you don't have to look at the hideous front end... Unfortunately, they were roped off with no one there, so you could only stare in dismay at the front of the cars.

BMW iX

i4

Ram showed off their upcoming full-sized truck EV, the RAM EVO. They have taken a page from Ford in that the vehicle is very 'trucky' with a few EV hints. Hopefully it does as well as the F150 Lightning...

VW is another company getting ready to make a big move into EV's, although they only had 2 on display - the ID.4 which has been on sale for a couple of years, and the ID.Buzz, their VW Van remake - which was very cool...

'Split' ID.4

ID.Buzz - could not get inside as there was a line right after I took these pics...

ID.4 dashboard - ID.Buzz is the same

Finally, Nissan had several of their new Ariya cross-over EV's. The interior is very nice although the overall specs are a little underwhelming.

Some no shows: Mercedes which was a bit of a surprise - they are rolling out a new EV every couple of months, it seems. Also, Volvo was a no-show as well. Polestar and Audi were in a roped off section. The former only had one Polestar 2, along with a Polestar 1 hybrid. Audi had an e-tron Sportback which I would have liked to have sat in. Their loss. No Porsche. No Honda, who amazingly doesn't make an EV for US consumption.... And there were no Rivians, Lucids or Teslas on the main floor (although I heard later on that there was a Rivian pick-up in the aftermarket area - missed it. 

Overall, it's really encouraging to see all of the new EV's that are out there or coming very soon! It's a great time to be an EV enthusiast - more choices are always better, and the technology is only going to get better, more efficient and less costly..