Meeting the W-15 Electric Pickup Truck

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/08/15/workhorse-w-15-surefly-electric-vehicles-take-new-york-city-by-storm/

by prostoalex • 8 years ago

62 38 8 years ago

cleantechnica.com

liaukovv3• 8 years ago

It's a hybrid though. It can run completely on the gasoline engine.

grecy• 8 years ago

That's not how I read it. The gasoline engine can't turn the wheels, it can only charge the batteries.

liaukovv3• 8 years ago

That's how all hybrids work. This allows to make combustion engine smaller and less powerful while still providing high-power bursts by buffering energy in a battery.

Reason0772• 8 years ago

Right. But it’s still a hybrid in the sense that it can run on fossil fuels. You have the option of plugging it in, but it can run on gasoline too.

(Toyota dubiously calls their plugless parallel hybrids “self charging electric vehicles” in UK ads!)

mchannon• 8 years ago

Probably most accurate to call it a plug-in hybrid.

Something else to add to my wish list to Santa.

jpindar• 8 years ago

dual electric motors will move the truck smartly down the road using only electricity from the battery. The 3-cylinder range extender motor sourced from BMW is just there to replenish the battery when needed.

Sounds like a series hybrid to me. On some series hybrids the engine isn't connected to the wheels at all.

dsfyu404ed3• 8 years ago

I really like the range extender. The Electric vehicle crowd likes to poo-poo them but a pickup that can't take a several hour trip to pick up or deliver something then turn around and come back isn't very useful to most people who have a use case for a pickup.

It'll be interesting to see how the carbon fiber body survives. It will probably depend mostly on whether the trucks wind up supporting maintenance work or putting around to check out faulty equipment reports.

ovi256• 8 years ago

For electric pickups, I'm sure we'll see range extenders packs that you carry around in your truck bed.

They could even implement what that Israeli EV startup wanted to do, quick charge by physically swapping the pack.

If enough contractors use electric pickups, I could see a contractor supply shop also renting these range extender packs and swapping them for charged packs. A construction supply shop is a good place to do this, as it already has storage, loading bays, weight carrying equipment and people used to heavy loads.

phkahler• 8 years ago

> For electric pickups, I'm sure we'll see range extenders packs that you carry around in your truck bed.

That kind of defeats the purpose of having the truck to in the first place.

bluGill• 8 years ago

This truck has a 2000lbs cargo capactiy. All the contractors I know have close to that in the bed of their truck. Tools are heavy, as are the other building supplies they have.

For a contractor doing repairs your value is the fact that you have the replacement part on the truck. That means you have bins of sensors, motors, valves and such sitting around because every 3 months you need each and the customer needs it fixed now.

For a contractor doing new work there are less materials (that is generally delivered by a different truck), but you still have tools.

anotheramala• 8 years ago

I have a BMW i3 with the range extender and it is very practical. I start it when I know I will travel beyond battery capacity.

You could avoid it on cars, but for a truck it makes a lot of sense.

johnvanommen• 8 years ago

It'll be interesting to see how the carbon fiber body survives.

CF is expensive, but I'd expect it to last longer than steel - it won't rust.

The thing that makes me nervous about CF cars is how quickly they burn. Look up videos of Lambos on fire; the entire car is engulfed in a matter of seconds. Epoxy holds carbon fiber together, and it's very flammable.

Shivetya• 8 years ago

I am more impressed with the amount of carbon fiber they are suggesting makes up this truck at the price they listed. As an owner of a 2017 Volt the range extender option is one of my favorite ideas for hybrids. The weight savings over trying to go full battery cannot be dismissed. The trade off is complexity which usually is in the transmission or such. Future REX solutions could involve hydrogen fuel cells or even natural gas.

On a side note, I do have a Model 3 LR on order to replace the Volt as it is now capable of doing the two long trips I take each year. The reason I bring this up is because the battery pack on the LR is a little over 1000 pounds which should show the reason why a REX solution is viable because you have to get into heavy duty trucks with full fuel loads to even approach that much weight.

*edit: changed 17 Volt to 2017 Volt

cmrdporcupine• 8 years ago

I'm a Volt owner, too, and I often hear the 'complexity' argument from pure BEV advocates. In reality the range-extended model of the Volt is still a little less complex and fail prone than most pure ICE cars as its transmission is mechanically simpler, and the ICE is rarely used. So it's an improvement over the status quo and not having to haul around an expensive 60kwh battery pack that I mostly only ever use 10-20% of is a serious $$ bonus (and weight as you say)

For me the Volt has enough that I can do my 105km a day commute without ever using gas. (I charge at work and at home).

If this truck ever actual goes on sale for consumers, I will buy one assuming the Canadian pricing isn't ridiculous. While I don't enjoy driving trucks, I live on a hobby farm and we need a hauler.

tantalor• 8 years ago

"17 Volt" is rather confusing... Maybe say "2017 Chevy Volt"?

toast0• 8 years ago

Future REX solutions could involve hydrogen fuel cells or even natural gas.

I don't know about hydrogen, but natural gas in vehicles has a planned obsolescence problem: the fuel tanks expire, and replacing them is expensive (both parts and labor). There's also a pretty sparse network of filing stations (some of which require a lengthy preregistration process) -- adding a different dimension of range anxiety doesn't really solve the range problem. (I tried to get a natural gas crown Vic last year, and gave up because it was way too hard)

dogma1138• 8 years ago

Carbon fiber is an extremely environmentally unfriendly product, it’s production alone takes on average 20 times more energy than steel, it cannot be recycled (or effectively repaired for that matter) and it and it’s bonding materials are toxic.

Carbon fiber is one of the first things we need to replace in car manufacturing if we want to scale hybrid and EVs manufacturing by orders of magnitude.

RickJWagner2• 8 years ago

I live in a hilly area, and we have hard rains some times of the year. When this happens there are often deep puddles on the road.

When confronted with such a puddle, the driver (in an ICE vehicle) usually does some mental calculations and sometimes forges ahead. I've never been stuck (yet).

I wonder what happens with an EV? Anybody got real world experience?

RickJWagner2• 8 years ago

Oops, just found my own answer via Google.

It seems you can drive safely through deep water, there are actually tests for this.

I'd still be nervous about it!

CarVac• 8 years ago

There was a video going around a while back where a Model S floated through a puddle without the wheels touching the ground.

martythemaniak• 8 years ago

You can use an EV as a boat!

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/06/tesla-model-s-floats-bo...

But don't.

sparrish• 8 years ago

With no 4 wheel drive option, this thing is just a car with a pickup bed. I wouldn't use it for any real rural work.

The electric truck I think has most promise is the Bollinger B1 (https://www.bollingermotors.com/). Itching to get my hands on one of those. Analog gauges on an all-electric truck has serious appeal.

lolsal• 8 years ago

I found it interesting that they revealed an electric truck in Manhattan, I would have thought that would not be a great place for using trucks. I suppose I would not really know though.

I really like the fact that the creators investigated and addressed the issue that all-electric trucks will always have - they are used fundamentally different from sedans and coupes. You will not get very far on a 100 mile charge if you are trying to tow 15,000lbs.

It was also interesting to read that the company targeted a company like UPS as their customer instead of everyday folks. Neat!

rdl2• 8 years ago

The truck has been announced for about 18 months and shown repeatedly. NYC has a lot of press, and one of their target markets for the truck is utilities.

rdl2• 8 years ago

I’ve had a deposit in for this since CES, so I think I’m one of the first non fleet customers. Seems like a perfect vehicle for Puerto Rico, my only concern being maintenance of the custom components. (It gets around the 40% import duty..)

jefurii• 8 years ago

Love the headline of the article. Hard to imagine a pickup truck taking New York City by storm tho.

supGrill• 8 years ago

That it has WORKHORSE in giant letters, out front, between the headlights, is kind of unsightly.

I really hope it’s optional, because that sort of thing only appeals to people who customize the style of their vehicle, by decorating it with aftermarket accessories.

Also, that low hanging front bumper is very city and highway oriented. Decorative, and not durable. A curb might rip it off, and a fender bender’s going to turn it into flotsam on the median. The downward stretched proportions feel almost lowrider-ish.

I suppose the expectation is that they’ll only expect serious buyers, as early adopters, from that segment anyway?

Reason0772• 8 years ago

The low front bumper presumably reduces the drag coefficient, improving efficiency and highway range.

DenisM• 8 years ago

Specs: https://workhorse.com/pickup/

NotQuantum• 8 years ago

Photos by the author except where noted. The author owns shares in Workhorse.

Maybe they should disclose this at the top of the article, not the bottom.

jaclaz• 8 years ago

I am skittish about flying in tiny aircraft that have the word Experimental plastered all over their sides, but as my bus back from New York was slogging along Route 95 at 5 miles an hour while ensnared in a massive traffic jam that stretched from horizon to horizon, I began to understand the appeal of the SureFly. I would have been happy to fly above the clouds at 70 mph instead of being trapped in the gridlock below.

...BUT as soon as the thingy will be FAA approved, a new Law will - rightly - prohibit using it in New York (or in any city, for that matters).

It will be a long time before self-driving multicopters will be allowed anywhere near densely inhabited areas.

It is years that everyone dreams about these "flying cars", but set aside the cost, if they work and become common, they won't be usable in cities because of traffic.

Meeting the W-15 Electric Pickup Truck

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