@Kidsandliz@Kyeh@pmarin since I live in MN I was thinking of either a plow or tow truck or why not have have a 2 in 1, but OMG that Mercedes camper is fantastic.
@Kidsandliz@Kyeh@tweezak I was at the Tourist Info center in Dinosaur Colorado and one of those was parked next to my truck camper. It had hard sides (the random picture the internet found above was a pop-up top which I’ve never seen). Mostly they have hard sides and are full height.
Talked to the middle-aged German couple that owned it. They were spending a few months in the US. Apparently they shipped theirs from Europe, and go to other continents as well. I was fairly pleased with my new-at-the-time 4WD truck and camper until I looked next to me.
@growyoungagain@Kyeh@pmarin I had a Nissan Sunraider I bought very used (most of the ones out there are on a Toyota base but the Nissan truck base one didn’t have the V6 transmission problems the Toyota truck base ones did, two piece fiberglass; stole the photo from the internet, the paint job on mine wasn’t as new looking) until I had to sell it due to cancer crap and I needed money. I loved that thing. Fit in a regular parking space. Got about 14-16mpg. Really miss it.
@Kyeh@pmarin@tweezak there are a number of pop top camper trailers. It would make sense to add that to a truck camper as you’d likely get better gas mileage with a lower truck, not to mention maybe clear some of the height restriction places to park. Toyota used to make one (sides of the pop top part were canvas though) called a Chinook.
@Kidsandliz@pmarin
Unimogs are awesome trucks. Expensive to keep and maintain here in the US though, and the compromises needed to satisfy various .gov regulatory nazis were pretty extensive when I was looking years ago…
@duodec Yes a Unimog is definitely not the most practical vehicle for here given the ‘regulatory nazis’ you mention. And of course very expensive to begin with. Just a little bit of irony complaining about ‘nazis’ regarding a vehicle originally built for the German military (yes I know they were not ‘nazis’ anymore and are allies, but still, a bit funny).
@pmarin The same issues (well, not parts availability as much) impact people trying to get surplus US military vehicles titled and road legal. There is, sadly, considerable government bureaucratic hostility to automotive diesels and to folks doing things like getting those surplus vehicles (even the pickups and Blazer types that have close civilian counterparts) on the road.
@growyoungagain@Kidsandliz@Kyeh@pmarin Unimogs actually began as farm implements. Many still have PTO shafts and because of the huge selection of attachments are used extensively in Europe for plowing snow, cutting roadside brush, etc. Their frame articulates making them extremely capable on rough terrain.
@Kidsandliz@Kyeh@pmarin My parents had a tent trailer that was great until the temperature dropped or went really high. Then they were looking for a motel. They bought a medium sized motor home after that.
Our parents made us suffer regardless of the temps in our tent top LOL.
We started out with 5 of us sleeping in a station wagon with mom pregnant with kid #4. We had this double bunk in the back where I was over my mom and could feel her pregnant belly (so they must have had coffin sized space. If they lay on their back with their knees bent their knees would poke into our back big time). My then youngest sister slept on the bench front seat.
We then moved on to an apache tent top trailer with bunks over the two slide out beds for our family of 6. That thing survived winds 1mph below a force 1 hurricane winds on the NC outer banks on a oceanside campground. The thing was going back and forth and up and down at the same time in the middle of the night (back then no media event over hurricanes, it had hit north FL so why should we worry? LOL) and when we were folding it back up in the rain felt like knives, the 55 gallon trash cans were airborne… Exciting as a kid. The tent top ripped off (all the snaps stayed snapped and the canvas tore out around them). So mom had as drink a ton of pop (which they never bought in the past) to use the rings on the pop top to sew to the tent top to hook around the snaps. We stupidly flew our kites the next day and the string broke and we lost them (sad day that).
They after a number of years of more use they bought a hilo hard sided one where the roof lifted up to go from tent top packed size to “normal” height.
Those were fun months as kids except the part where we’d have a day to several day drive to get to get to the state(s) we were going to camp in that summer.
@Kidsandliz@Kyeh@pmarin@tweezak I cannot recall my parents having ever taken an actual vacation. We lived in Miami, and their attitude was that there wasn’t any point in going somewhere else. (And, honestly, just to get out of Florida, you had a day-long slog ahead of you. It was one of the many things that made me loathe Miami and despise the rest of the state.) My father professed to dislike driving long distances, and yet he’d do that willingly to attend a union regional or national convention, usually preferring to drive instead of flying. When I hit my early twenties, I got the bug bad, and built two vehicles that I used for marathon camping trips. Then I got Real Jobs, moved to Houston, and spent over 30 years only traveling to places that other people needed for me to go, mostly on business, and never with any detours. In the past 15 years, I’ve revisited some of the places I explored in the '70s, and added a few more. Next year, I hope to take another shot at hitting Grand Canyon and the Southern Utah parks in the fall.
@Kyeh@pmarin@tweezak@werehatrack One day we were camped just south of Miami somewhere or other and out of the blue we decided to drive US highway 1 until it dead ended at the ocean. As a kid I found it a fascinating drive. And so I saw Key West for the first time.
I, much later, worked on a tall ship out of there taking tourists on 2-3 hour sails including a sunset one where we’d parallel the beach where all the craziness took place. I really liked the Hemingway place. Because. Well. Cats. And it was interesting to see where he lived and it has survived all those hurricanes (but I guess won’t survive global warming which is too bad).
@heartny Mmm, fancy truck food. I still remember the days when the truck food was basically really cheap stuff and of questionable quality and safety. Now the food trucks have excellent fine cuisine including things that don’t really make sense but are good (like Korean Tex-Mex fusion) — Bulgogi Burrito, anyone? Man, I’m hungry now!
@pmarin Why would you need to worry about parking. It is so BIG rolling over any thing would not even feel like a speed bump in a normal size truck! So you Park ANY where you want!
I did have someone dump an industrial grade cherry picker in my yard, and, in retrospect, I really should have kept it, because those higher branches are such a pain in the ass.
@hchavers Been there, done that. Trust me you don’t want that.
(It’s parked outside if you want, bring tow truck, good luck, you really don’t want that.)
Mega tow truck – the kind you use to tow the tow trucks that are the bane of students everywhere. Been a long time, but I remember the racket. You call them, you got charged about $80 for the tow. The police or the parking lot benedict arnold (dick, for short) call them, you got charged $200 for the tow + a daily storage charge, starting that night. And you had to pay with cash. A little hard to get at night, when your car is AWOL. And some of your friends were still trying to figure out where their vehicle had gotten off to.
@phendrick alternatively you could have just read the signs/parked some where safe/taken a taxi before you decided to leave your car in a tow lot or gotten too drunk to drive.
@unksol A little naivete about college areas of towns in evidence here? And totally off-base about the situations involved? ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Towed during break down on off ramp; no cop around at the time, but showed up after I left to go get a friend’s help and had me towed. This was about midnight. Had to wait until next day to get a ride to get the car. Paid hefty, + a storage charge.
Towed after parking on a street, across the street from the campus, lined up with a campus street and had a street sign, but it was not a public “street”, but an entrance to the shopping center. I knew not to park in the shopping center and leave my car, but was not aware I was doing such. Sign was about a hundred feet away. This was middle of the afternoon. Spotter tipped off tow driver. Paid hefty, + a storage charge.
Different shopping center; we had some classes there. Parked by a dumpster to go in and get some papers from the office. Couldn’t park in my usual spot because it was used without permission by another car. About 9:30 pm and all the other businesses there were closed. I was gone about two minutes; came out and my car had been lifted. Tow driver had been trolling, looking for cars to tow. I had to pay the tow operator full price, though he did not have to make any trip, and it freed him to tow others. But at least it saved me from having to arrange a ride and drive to the adjacent town where the tow impound was. I understand why these people get in fights all the time. I guess I could have walked 10 minutes each way and avoided the possible tow. I have doubts you would have in those circumstances.
The situation in the community with towing companies has been a sore spot for a long time, and every few years makes the evening news again. Yeah, I don’t like those people. I’d enjoy towing one of their trucks into the next county.
@phendrick I’m sure that kind of shit happened. My own personal experience with some was it had accomplished it’s goal but I had to leave the car… I just ate it.
Things obviously are going to get weird when they let a private company have a bounty on tows/get extra shitty about it. And how bad it gets probably depends on the school/policy/environment. So… I’ll admit that was a overly smug quip… Experiences vary wildly.
Where I usually saw it was tow/ticket lots after 3AM which has a purpose and you could plan to not be there. Also even in a high density campus it was not in a high density city. I’d probably just choose to not go there
@phendrick but also. Yes we had on campus parking tags… we had to pay for to even be in the lots. And walking 10 minutes each way with a bag full of lab equipment was normal. So weak argument
However when I chose to use a 2 hour parking space across from the engineering building for my two hour lab. I was risking a ticket butI was at least not going to be towed…
@sammydog01lol When the bucket moves you can see a guy in brown overalls standing up. When I first looked, I thought “Why is there a kangaroo standing there?”.
But, yeah, backhoes are cool. I spent some time on one at my summer job during my college years. And, yes, jokes about “backhoe operator” were many and frequent.
Although I think that since some trucks came with tracks (like Half-tracks) that some tanks might qualify as trucks, if you stretch the definition a little… ok a lot…
@duodec@kittykat9180 You will find ‘burning EV’ stories get much more news coverage percentage-wise by a news industry fueled (pun intended) by the oil industry, ICE manufacturers that delayed and fought changes, and right-wing sources that just hate the concept of EVs. Burning stuff gets views and clicks so it’s profitable. But a regular car fire is commonplace (or motorhome fire, can’t tell you how many burned-out hulks of motorhomes I’ve actually driven by).
The only gas-vehicle-fire story in the news lately was the tanker truck that crashed (driver took the turn in the underpass too fast not understanding the weight balance of a large liquid tank,), and destroyed I-95 bridge that will take at least a year to rebuild (they got a very temporary crude hack in place). So, yeah, gas is always safer? I was going to say ‘idiot truck driver’ but mostly I respect truck drivers and he died in the fire, so I’ll withdraw that. No matter how you look at it it was tragic in many ways including for anyone needing to drive up/down I-95 through there for the forseeable future. And the emergency government funds that will need to be expended for what was avoidable destruction.
I’m glad to admit I love my Diesel pickup and at this point I’m going to stick with that because I use it with a camper to drive across the country, mostly in Winter. I would not consider an EV truck for cross-country trips, especially through places like Nevada or Wyoming when sometimes it is 100 miles between towns, let alone EV charging stations. And I’ve been stuck idling in line of cars and trucks stopped because a Semi jack-knifed on ice and the temperature outside is -4F. In that case I would not trade a nice tank full of diesel for any EV truck.
But also I love the basic model Tesla I got last month and would not go back to ICE for around-town or even a couple-of-hour trips.
@kittykat9180 Entirely likely with provisos about maintenance, and being in an accident. A few years ago I was reading about the difficulty fire departments were having in how to deal with the new hazards (from explosive batteries, water not working or even being contraindicated once the batteries are involved, etc).
Keep an eye on Rivian; there are news stories saying they may have a vehicle surplus as many of those who signed up are not buying their trucks. If true then the prices may decline.
@kittykat9180@pmarin
Of course, EV fires are still ‘new’ and some of them really are spectacular. So they are more ‘news’ than plain old fuel car fires. Especially since most of those don’t explode violently like in the movies.
There are real issues though (I don’t know current status); just a few years ago fire departments across the country (and around the world) were evaluating the new hazards involved when an EV is in an accident, and / or catches fire. Similar to airlines not wanting lithium batteries in checked luggage and cargo because the compartment fire extinguishing wasn’t capable of dealing with the kind of fire they could produce.
There’s more than a century of tech, experience, manufacturing, and regulation behind transportation of gas and diesel. But you can’t exclude the human factor. If that had been an EV truck towing a tanker of some other hazardous flammable liquid (getting rid of gas/diesel won’t stop the requirement for many other such loads) the same thing might have happened. Or worse; instead of two tanks of diesel in the truck, it might be a couple trays of lithium based batteries that exploded and added to the destruction.
The truck that I would voluntarily own does not exist. I had a one ton long body Dodge van for a long time. I don’t need it anymore, and I don’t miss its terrible gas mileage.
Camper truck
@Kidsandliz Yup you can actually get one of those. Well actually it’s a pickup + a camper. I love it.
However if you want to get serious, there is this (which I do NOT have but would want)
/image Mercedes Unimog Australia camper
@Kidsandliz @pmarin I wouldn’t mind having that!
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @pmarin since I live in MN I was thinking of either a plow or tow truck or why not have have a 2 in 1, but OMG that Mercedes camper is fantastic.
@Kidsandliz @pmarin I was just looking for a good picture
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @tweezak I was at the Tourist Info center in Dinosaur Colorado and one of those was parked next to my truck camper. It had hard sides (the random picture the internet found above was a pop-up top which I’ve never seen). Mostly they have hard sides and are full height.
Talked to the middle-aged German couple that owned it. They were spending a few months in the US. Apparently they shipped theirs from Europe, and go to other continents as well. I was fairly pleased with my new-at-the-time 4WD truck and camper until I looked next to me.
@growyoungagain @Kyeh @pmarin I had a Nissan Sunraider I bought very used (most of the ones out there are on a Toyota base but the Nissan truck base one didn’t have the V6 transmission problems the Toyota truck base ones did, two piece fiberglass; stole the photo from the internet, the paint job on mine wasn’t as new looking) until I had to sell it due to cancer crap and I needed money. I loved that thing. Fit in a regular parking space. Got about 14-16mpg. Really miss it.
@Kyeh @pmarin @tweezak there are a number of pop top camper trailers. It would make sense to add that to a truck camper as you’d likely get better gas mileage with a lower truck, not to mention maybe clear some of the height restriction places to park. Toyota used to make one (sides of the pop top part were canvas though) called a Chinook.
@Kidsandliz @pmarin
Unimogs are awesome trucks. Expensive to keep and maintain here in the US though, and the compromises needed to satisfy various .gov regulatory nazis were pretty extensive when I was looking years ago…
LEGOS! EGGOS! STRATEGO! AWESOME!
@duodec Yes a Unimog is definitely not the most practical vehicle for here given the ‘regulatory nazis’ you mention. And of course very expensive to begin with. Just a little bit of irony complaining about ‘nazis’ regarding a vehicle originally built for the German military (yes I know they were not ‘nazis’ anymore and are allies, but still, a bit funny).
@duodec @Kidsandliz OK let’s try this one
/image 6x6 motorhome
@duodec @Kidsandliz or this…
/youtube oka 6x6 motorhome 2022
@Kidsandliz that camper is more than adequate! Sorry about " the big C", I hope you are doing better. Regards, another Liz
@pmarin The same issues (well, not parts availability as much) impact people trying to get surplus US military vehicles titled and road legal. There is, sadly, considerable government bureaucratic hostility to automotive diesels and to folks doing things like getting those surplus vehicles (even the pickups and Blazer types that have close civilian counterparts) on the road.
@growyoungagain In my opinion it was perfect for me and my cats. Am doing OK at the moment.
@growyoungagain @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @pmarin Unimogs actually began as farm implements. Many still have PTO shafts and because of the huge selection of attachments are used extensively in Europe for plowing snow, cutting roadside brush, etc. Their frame articulates making them extremely capable on rough terrain.
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @pmarin My parents had a tent trailer that was great until the temperature dropped or went really high. Then they were looking for a motel. They bought a medium sized motor home after that.
@Kyeh @pmarin @tweezak
Our parents made us suffer regardless of the temps in our tent top LOL.
We started out with 5 of us sleeping in a station wagon with mom pregnant with kid #4. We had this double bunk in the back where I was over my mom and could feel her pregnant belly (so they must have had coffin sized space. If they lay on their back with their knees bent their knees would poke into our back big time). My then youngest sister slept on the bench front seat.
We then moved on to an apache tent top trailer with bunks over the two slide out beds for our family of 6. That thing survived winds 1mph below a force 1 hurricane winds on the NC outer banks on a oceanside campground. The thing was going back and forth and up and down at the same time in the middle of the night (back then no media event over hurricanes, it had hit north FL so why should we worry? LOL) and when we were folding it back up in the rain felt like knives, the 55 gallon trash cans were airborne… Exciting as a kid. The tent top ripped off (all the snaps stayed snapped and the canvas tore out around them). So mom had as drink a ton of pop (which they never bought in the past) to use the rings on the pop top to sew to the tent top to hook around the snaps. We stupidly flew our kites the next day and the string broke and we lost them (sad day that).
They after a number of years of more use they bought a hilo hard sided one where the roof lifted up to go from tent top packed size to “normal” height.
Those were fun months as kids except the part where we’d have a day to several day drive to get to get to the state(s) we were going to camp in that summer.
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @pmarin @tweezak I cannot recall my parents having ever taken an actual vacation. We lived in Miami, and their attitude was that there wasn’t any point in going somewhere else. (And, honestly, just to get out of Florida, you had a day-long slog ahead of you. It was one of the many things that made me loathe Miami and despise the rest of the state.) My father professed to dislike driving long distances, and yet he’d do that willingly to attend a union regional or national convention, usually preferring to drive instead of flying. When I hit my early twenties, I got the bug bad, and built two vehicles that I used for marathon camping trips. Then I got Real Jobs, moved to Houston, and spent over 30 years only traveling to places that other people needed for me to go, mostly on business, and never with any detours. In the past 15 years, I’ve revisited some of the places I explored in the '70s, and added a few more. Next year, I hope to take another shot at hitting Grand Canyon and the Southern Utah parks in the fall.
@Kyeh @pmarin @tweezak @werehatrack One day we were camped just south of Miami somewhere or other and out of the blue we decided to drive US highway 1 until it dead ended at the ocean. As a kid I found it a fascinating drive. And so I saw Key West for the first time.
I, much later, worked on a tall ship out of there taking tourists on 2-3 hour sails including a sunset one where we’d parallel the beach where all the craziness took place. I really liked the Hemingway place. Because. Well. Cats. And it was interesting to see where he lived and it has survived all those hurricanes (but I guess won’t survive global warming which is too bad).
A big food truck
@heartny Mmm, fancy truck food. I still remember the days when the truck food was basically really cheap stuff and of questionable quality and safety. Now the food trucks have excellent fine cuisine including things that don’t really make sense but are good (like Korean Tex-Mex fusion) — Bulgogi Burrito, anyone? Man, I’m hungry now!
A space shuttle. That’s a truck right?
@Cerridwyn If that counts, here’s my choice!
@PooltoyWolf it hauls things so works for me
@Cerridwyn Lots and lots and LOTS of things!!
@Cerridwyn @PooltoyWolf Technically, that thing has two trucks. But the road system for it is a bit limited.
@Cerridwyn @werehatrack You are correct!
@PooltoyWolf @werehatrack
Loaded armored car.
Those huge Dump Trunk that are in in Open Pit mines. They are one of, if not the larges truck in the world!
@mycya4me parking is a bitch, though.
@pmarin Why would you need to worry about parking. It is so BIG rolling over any thing would not even feel like a speed bump in a normal size truck! So you Park ANY where you want!
@mycya4me @pmarin For that, just get a Marauder.
Optimus Prime
/giphy Optimus Prime
@xobzoo That would be useful if you were stuck in a traffic jam - although turning into a helicopter would be better.
I did have someone dump an industrial grade cherry picker in my yard, and, in retrospect, I really should have kept it, because those higher branches are such a pain in the ass.
@brainmist … gotta be an interesting story behind ‘ someone dump an industrial grade cherry picker in my yard’
/image someone set up us the bomb
A space shuttle crawler. I’d always have an excuse to be late for work.
@capnjb Pathetic. My Bucket Wheel Excavator will remove your roads.
@yakkoTDI HA! HAHA even!!! My last name is Buchet which far too many times has been called Bucket. THAT IS MINE!
Or something.
edit- that is quite the contraption
@capnjb And Lego made a version of it that I would love to get a hold of.
Voted cement mixer, since they so fascinated me as a child.
@f00l
/youtube mythbusters cement truck explosion
A big RV, the bigger the better, with the fuel economy measured in gallons per mile.
@hchavers Been there, done that. Trust me you don’t want that.
(It’s parked outside if you want, bring tow truck, good luck, you really don’t want that.)
@pmarin I will resist the urge to inquire about specifics concerning age, powerplant, and chassis type.
Mega tow truck – the kind you use to tow the tow trucks that are the bane of students everywhere. Been a long time, but I remember the racket. You call them, you got charged about $80 for the tow. The police or the parking lot benedict arnold (dick, for short) call them, you got charged $200 for the tow + a daily storage charge, starting that night. And you had to pay with cash. A little hard to get at night, when your car is AWOL. And some of your friends were still trying to figure out where their vehicle had gotten off to.
@phendrick alternatively you could have just read the signs/parked some where safe/taken a taxi before you decided to leave your car in a tow lot or gotten too drunk to drive.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@unksol A little naivete about college areas of towns in evidence here? And totally off-base about the situations involved? ¯_(ツ)_/¯
The situation in the community with towing companies has been a sore spot for a long time, and every few years makes the evening news again. Yeah, I don’t like those people. I’d enjoy towing one of their trucks into the next county.
@phendrick @unksol
or into a lake or river
(In the next county)
@phendrick I’m sure that kind of shit happened. My own personal experience with some was it had accomplished it’s goal but I had to leave the car… I just ate it.
Things obviously are going to get weird when they let a private company have a bounty on tows/get extra shitty about it. And how bad it gets probably depends on the school/policy/environment. So… I’ll admit that was a overly smug quip… Experiences vary wildly.
Where I usually saw it was tow/ticket lots after 3AM which has a purpose and you could plan to not be there. Also even in a high density campus it was not in a high density city. I’d probably just choose to not go there
@phendrick but also. Yes we had on campus parking tags… we had to pay for to even be in the lots. And walking 10 minutes each way with a bag full of lab equipment was normal. So weak argument
However when I chose to use a 2 hour parking space across from the engineering building for my two hour lab. I was risking a ticket butI was at least not going to be towed…
@phendrick I remember stories about wildcat tow truck operators on Dragnet, and I’m pretty sure Adam-12 series…
@duodec @phendrick go look for a song called The Lincoln Park Pirates.
@duodec @werehatrack Yep, that song nailed it! “collected the ransom”.
@duodec @phendrick @werehatrack Aw, Steve Goodman…
But I did pick Tractor-Trailer for the poll, so
/youtube largest Volvo sleeper garage
@pmarin That’s well over the maximum no-permit length for most of the country.
I thought a considerable amount on which answer was best compared to most meh polls. This one was tough
a monster truck. Big Foot, specifically.
Backhoes are the best.
/giphy backhoe
@sammydog01 I could make a pretty inappropriate high school nickname joke, but I won’t. Well… not out loud.
@sammydog01 lol When the bucket moves you can see a guy in brown overalls standing up. When I first looked, I thought “Why is there a kangaroo standing there?”.
But, yeah, backhoes are cool. I spent some time on one at my summer job during my college years. And, yes, jokes about “backhoe operator” were many and frequent.
@macromeh @sammydog01 and yes at first glance the guy does look like a kangaroo.
Tow Mater, not so much own as befriend.
KuoH
With the current state of the world, I’d want a ready to roll Landmaster in an underground bunker.
KuoH
@kuoh Forgot about this! This!
Although I think that since some trucks came with tracks (like Half-tracks) that some tanks might qualify as trucks, if you stretch the definition a little… ok a lot…
Firetruck.
Rivian, because they look cool.
@kittykat9180 they burn spectactularly, too.
@duode ICE vehicle are more likely to catch fire.
Doesn’t matter though, I don’t have Rivian kind of money.
@duodec @kittykat9180 You will find ‘burning EV’ stories get much more news coverage percentage-wise by a news industry fueled (pun intended) by the oil industry, ICE manufacturers that delayed and fought changes, and right-wing sources that just hate the concept of EVs. Burning stuff gets views and clicks so it’s profitable. But a regular car fire is commonplace (or motorhome fire, can’t tell you how many burned-out hulks of motorhomes I’ve actually driven by).
The only gas-vehicle-fire story in the news lately was the tanker truck that crashed (driver took the turn in the underpass too fast not understanding the weight balance of a large liquid tank,), and destroyed I-95 bridge that will take at least a year to rebuild (they got a very temporary crude hack in place). So, yeah, gas is always safer? I was going to say ‘idiot truck driver’ but mostly I respect truck drivers and he died in the fire, so I’ll withdraw that. No matter how you look at it it was tragic in many ways including for anyone needing to drive up/down I-95 through there for the forseeable future. And the emergency government funds that will need to be expended for what was avoidable destruction.
I’m glad to admit I love my Diesel pickup and at this point I’m going to stick with that because I use it with a camper to drive across the country, mostly in Winter. I would not consider an EV truck for cross-country trips, especially through places like Nevada or Wyoming when sometimes it is 100 miles between towns, let alone EV charging stations. And I’ve been stuck idling in line of cars and trucks stopped because a Semi jack-knifed on ice and the temperature outside is -4F. In that case I would not trade a nice tank full of diesel for any EV truck.
But also I love the basic model Tesla I got last month and would not go back to ICE for around-town or even a couple-of-hour trips.
@kittykat9180 Entirely likely with provisos about maintenance, and being in an accident. A few years ago I was reading about the difficulty fire departments were having in how to deal with the new hazards (from explosive batteries, water not working or even being contraindicated once the batteries are involved, etc).
Keep an eye on Rivian; there are news stories saying they may have a vehicle surplus as many of those who signed up are not buying their trucks. If true then the prices may decline.
@kittykat9180 @pmarin
Of course, EV fires are still ‘new’ and some of them really are spectacular. So they are more ‘news’ than plain old fuel car fires. Especially since most of those don’t explode violently like in the movies.
There are real issues though (I don’t know current status); just a few years ago fire departments across the country (and around the world) were evaluating the new hazards involved when an EV is in an accident, and / or catches fire. Similar to airlines not wanting lithium batteries in checked luggage and cargo because the compartment fire extinguishing wasn’t capable of dealing with the kind of fire they could produce.
There’s more than a century of tech, experience, manufacturing, and regulation behind transportation of gas and diesel. But you can’t exclude the human factor. If that had been an EV truck towing a tanker of some other hazardous flammable liquid (getting rid of gas/diesel won’t stop the requirement for many other such loads) the same thing might have happened. Or worse; instead of two tanks of diesel in the truck, it might be a couple trays of lithium based batteries that exploded and added to the destruction.
The truck that I would voluntarily own does not exist. I had a one ton long body Dodge van for a long time. I don’t need it anymore, and I don’t miss its terrible gas mileage.