EVs Too Heavy for Road Infrastructure?

[TomB985]

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.

My dad's 2023 F150 SuperCrew 4x4 weighs 4,850 lbs, which is 600 lbs less than my 2013 did. My 2014 Escape was just over 4,000 lbs, but my service loaner '24 Escape was 3,300. A good friend of mine has a 2019 Expedition that weighs 500 lbs less than his 2014 did at 5,900 lbs. That's 700 lbs less than my Lightning.

I think it's crazy how my dad's similar configuration F150 weighs nearly a ton less than my Lightning. Same length, width, height, cab, and wheelbase.

Sponsored

 

[BeeKind]

My dad's 2023 F150 SuperCrew 4x4 weighs 4,850 lbs, which is 600 lbs less than my 2013 did. My 2014 Escape was just over 4,000 lbs, but my service loaner '24 Escape was 3,300. A good friend of mine has a 2019 Expedition that weighs 500 lbs less than his 2014 did at 5,900 lbs. That's 700 lbs less than my Lightning.

I think it's crazy how my dad's similar configuration F150 weighs nearly a ton less than my Lightning. Same length, width, height, cab, and wheelbase.

Sometimes you're just wrong. I'm not sure why I had in my memory that the heaviest F150s were pushing 8000 lbs.

 

[AI_Speed]

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.

Did you find yourself like me racing around loving the speed a bit too much - blowing off ICE trucks like metal as hell fun?

 

[BeeKind]

Did you find yourself like me racing around loving the speed a bit too much - blowing off ICE trucks like metal as hell fun?

In the Rivian? I was doing it to super cars. People can gush about the Raptor's 0-60 in 3.6 seconds but I was almost a full second faster and much heavier. Trucks didn't make it on my radar.

Honestly my truck feels slow now coming out of that thing. I'm not joking. It happened first with the Ioniq. That's right, slow! Crazy!

You don't think you can ever get used to the speed. But you do. Quickly.

Sponsored