EVs Too Heavy for Road Infrastructure?

[TomB985]

That quote snippet directly refers to roadside barriers, which have never been assumed to be effective for any vehicle at a 90 degree inclination. I'll retract everything I've said if someone can post information that says otherwise. I tried to find it and failed.

The quote is from the agency who designed those roadside barriers. This is their test. You should tell them they’re doing their job wrong.

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[AI_Speed]

Not to mention the 5-ton Hummer EV - however in this internet order/deliver society - more trucks are due to deliver to our doorsteps - so isn't Amazon mainly to blame-game?

 

[Zprime29]

The quote is from the agency who designed those roadside barriers. This is their test. You should tell them they’re doing their job wrong.

An excellent suggestion. I will write to them and ask for their justification. The DoD collaboration appears dubious to me. I have been working on DoD installations for 15 years, in 3 different states as well as overseas. Cement barriers are common, never once seen a roadside guard rail. Here is a list of approved perimeter defense for DoD installations: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...EQFnoECBgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0iQeZZcUap6IHQ9TIqRBMw

If I get a response (unlikely over the weekend) I'll share it here.

 

[Kit2874]

Saw this article, I think my reading comprehension dropped a couple notches after looking at the study...


Tesla's are roughly on average 400 pounds more then the ICE equivalent cars...

Now the f 150 lightnings are about a thousand pounds heavier than their equivalent counter ICE depending on battery size...

And the way they hit those barriers I mean come on.

 

[PrivateJoker]

Our trucks are heavy, though. My dad has an identically configured 2023 F150 STX with the 2.7L EcoBoost that weighs only 4,800 lbs. That's almost a ton lighter than my Lightning ER. The longest-range Silverado EV is over 8,500 lbs, which is an absurd amount of weight for a half-ton pickup truck. For comparison, my diesel F250 and F350 were about 8,000 lbs.

They are - that said it's a pretty open platform at this point in that sense that people will be able to completely high-jack every point of it and its modules.

This means once we see a viable solid-state battery with a higher energy density per kg, you could in theory reduce the weight of the truck by 1000lbs with an aftermarket battery solution. That does two amazing things:

1) More efficient and powerful everything else being equal; and the extra range that goes with it.
2) With the plated GVWR you basically have a Super Duty with an almost 3000lb payload capacity!

To me it seems the trend is that newer EV's will be very locked (via software and encryption) down and it will be more difficult to make 3rd party batteries. Even if that trend reverses, this platform that can handle this amount of weight in a half-ton price point will likely never be available again if the Cyber Truck is a sign of things to come for a dedicated EV platform.

 

[Randall Stephens]

Let's say I made the claim, "flu shots don't prevent measles, therefore we need to make flu shots better." What would your response be?

Get off my lawn.

 

[Effonefiddy Lightning]

Build a more robust guardrail.

 

[PrivateJoker]

Build a more robust guardrail.

These are all disingenuous pleas for safety anyhow. The bigger problems I see on roads in North America are:

* No roundabouts -> I drive and work in europe quite a bit, you have no idea how nice these are when they're all over. Basically no more stopping, and waiting. Bigger bonus is that this is where a lot of lethal and expensive crashes happen. They still happen at roundabouts but they're pretty minor side swipes most of the time.

* Tons of undivided highways. Head on collisions are the most lethal type of accident, and most road ways have zero form of division with people facing off at 100km/h (60 mph) and this is quite lethal.

Pickup trucks have some advantages to safety. But people forget they also have some disadvantages as well. It's easier to lose control due to weight and height, and it's harder to recover than a car that is lighter and more nimble. They also roll over much easier than smaller cars, and these types of collisions can prove lethal.

The F150L does have a major advantage over it's ICE sibling in this department in that the battery pack offers a lower center of gravity creating more stability and a lower likelihood of roll-over. At some point we'll hopefully see if data supports the F150L being overall safer than the ICE version.

 

[Effonefiddy Lightning]

These are all disingenuous pleas for safety anyhow. The bigger problems I see on roads in North America are:

* No roundabouts -> I drive and work in europe quite a bit, you have no idea how nice these are when they're all over. Basically no more stopping, and waiting. Bigger bonus is that this is where a lot of lethal and expensive crashes happen. They still happen at roundabouts but they're pretty minor side swipes most of the time.

* Tons of undivided highways. Head on collisions are the most lethal type of accident, and most road ways have zero form of division with people facing off at 100km/h (60 mph) and this is quite lethal.

Pickup trucks have some advantages to safety. But people forget they also have some disadvantages as well. It's easier to lose control due to weight and height, and it's harder to recover than a car that is lighter and more nimble. They also roll over much easier than smaller cars, and these types of collisions can prove lethal.

The F150L does have a major advantage over it's ICE sibling in this department in that the battery pack offers a lower center of gravity creating more stability and a lower likelihood of roll-over. At some point we'll hopefully see if data supports the F150L being overall safer than the ICE version.

Actually, if both cars were doing 60, it would in affect be 120. But yeah, there's bigger fish to fry.

 

[AI_Speed]

These are all disingenuous pleas for safety anyhow. The bigger problems I see on roads in North America are:

* No roundabouts -> I drive and work in europe quite a bit, you have no idea how nice these are when they're all over. Basically no more stopping, and waiting. Bigger bonus is that this is where a lot of lethal and expensive crashes happen. They still happen at roundabouts but they're pretty minor side swipes most of the time.

* Tons of undivided highways. Head on collisions are the most lethal type of accident, and most road ways have zero form of division with people facing off at 100km/h (60 mph) and this is quite lethal.

Pickup trucks have some advantages to safety. But people forget they also have some disadvantages as well. It's easier to lose control due to weight and height, and it's harder to recover than a car that is lighter and more nimble. They also roll over much easier than smaller cars, and these types of collisions can prove lethal.

The F150L does have a major advantage over it's ICE sibling in this department in that the battery pack offers a lower center of gravity creating more stability and a lower likelihood of roll-over. At some point we'll hopefully see if data supports the F150L being overall safer than the ICE version.

Thank you - Oregon and Washington states have a lot of roundabouts - and people complain about them - though I love them.

The Lightning is a super low center of gravity with its heavy battery - so not like most pickups - local dealership salespeople went on a Ford professional drivers' 'extend the limits' drive - and they said the high-speed handling was insane - 90 mph hard/fast turns glued to the asphalt.

 

[TomB985]

Motor Trend had the best writeup I've seen on this test.

https://www.motortrend.com/news/guardrail-safety-study-evs-popular-trucks-suvs/

This isn't to say the University of Nebraska's test is a misleading waste of time—per the university's announcement, "research suggests that EVs are involved in run-off-road crashes at about the same rate and about the same speeds as gasoline vehicles," a type of crash that occurs about 100,000 times annually in America. That's a real problem, and it's worth looking into ways to ensure fewer vehicles leave the road, including via improved barrier technologies. But the study's real takeaway should be that modern guardrails themselves are the issue, not EVs, because if vehicle mass is to blame, those guardrails likely can't contend with most modern vehicles, electric or otherwise.

And if you look at the other angle, the truck impacted the MGS guardrail at a 25º angle. I don't think they were doing it wrong.

 

[Zprime29]

I gotta eat my words and say, "you're right, I was wrong". I didn't do my due diligence and based my replies on that "heads on" view. Also agree that Motor Trend did a very good write up.

I never got a reply and I'm not hurt nor surprised. They have more important things to do than satisfy my unwarranted request for more data. I'm still curious about the DoD collaboration, best guess is they were more interested in the cement barrier performance. Will be interesting to see if there are new barriers that pop up around the base in the coming years. Most bases use pop-up bollards at the gate. Never seen them in action.

 

[ridgebackpilot]

Oregon and Washington states have a lot of roundabouts - and people complain about them - though I love them.

When I lived in the UK, I got used to roundabouts. They're literally everywhere in that country.

The problem in the US is that drivers who aren't accustomed to them don't know how they work. These drivers forget the single rule at roundabouts: Yield to traffic in the circle!

We're starting to see more roundabouts in the US but because of ignorant drivers, I'm not sure they help with traffic flow or safety!

 

[Jasonhc73]

My lightning is 1000 lbs lighter than the Ram 2500 I used to have.

 

[BeeKind]

My lightning is 1000 lbs lighter than the Ram 2500 I used to have.

The weight of EVs is overstated. All cars are getting huge and heavy and EVs are slightly heavier still. It's an issue but it shouldn't be the focus. If your ICE F150 weighs 8,000 lbs and your BEV weighs 8500 lbs then we're ignoring the overall problem.

We're beating around the other part of this physics equation which is speed. Accidents are happening at faster speeds. Here, I think EVs get a lot more blame. I had a Rivian and I don't think that speed should be legal. I'm serious, how far can we scale this? I think we're well past the point of acceptable performance in a vehicle. When do we acknowledge this elephant? Again, if you're against me, where can this performance scale to? Kinetic energy is a thing.

We probably need less trucks and SUVs on the road. Most make 0 sense for the use case. I've seen more soccer moms in Rubicons with all-seasons on Long Island "cause, snow" in the past decade than I ever thought possible. ($90k on a vehicle and $0 on wheels?!)

This also isn't an evenly distributed problem. For instance, roads in Florida have a lot less to worry about with weight than roads in Pennsylvania. Freezing conditions + weight are asphalt killers. Even when it comes to roadside barriers they vary so much region to region.

To me the study seems absolutely fair and the coverage, hyperbolic.

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