A 300-400 mile range while towing? My head spins with the engineering challenge. I doubt that can be practically done with a BEV. My first thought is a fuel cell range extender with some sort of lithium battery pack. But you still must carry the hydrogen and have opportunities to refuel. Seems like something that would take twenty years to develop.
Yeah that would require like a 700-800 mi range when not towing. EVs are great for most use cases but battery technology is just simply not there yet for long distance towing. If someone needs to tow a lot then they still need to stick with ICE at the moment.
Ahem! That's "vegan leather" LOL.
Not anywhere close to leather. Alcantara is synthetic and the "fuzz" will become matted very quickly. They have them on race cars for better grip but they also always wear gloves. Alcantara should never be used for any high-touch areas.
It is a very smooth ride for a truck. Nearing 40k miles and so far the only regret is the small battery I bought (I'm poor).
Just a little play in the gears which feels like a soft "klunk" when switching from acceleration to regen and again when you go back into accel. Subdued on the LIghtning compared to prior trucks I've owned but definitely there. It's really not a big deal - it is a truck after-all - but something different I noticed almost immediately.
I agree on all points but I do think it's worth considering how to make EV trucks work for towing if batteries do not improve further. There is no guarantee we will be able to make them 2x to 3x better down the road, but the desire to engage in risk management in response to carbon emissions risks will remain. I do think there is some amount of carbon emissions that is sustainable while sufficiently mitigating the risks, so it's possible there will be room in that carbon budget to indefinitely use gas for towing, but it's not the first place I would want to spend that budget.
I just switched from 2020 Model 3 Performance to 2023 Lightning Lariat. I'm maybe not a good judge of interior quality, but the Lightning interior seems pretty nice, and has some features the 2020 3 did not, like a cooled seats, a heated steering wheel, and the opening moon roof with blind. I don't care that much about soft touch outside of arm rests and seats. Never understood why some folks want soft touch on things like the dashboard; I don't actively poke my dash repeatedly while driving. It looks nice. I have no complaints. The only thing that feels not quite as good to me is I think the BO 8 speaker sound system in the Lightning Lariat is not quite as good as what the Model 3 had. I like having an instrument cluster screen again in addition to the center screen. I liked the sportiness of the Model 3 overall, but I do think the Lightning feels more luxurious (keeping in mind the model year and variants I'm comparing here).
Tesla didn’t become a 600b company by chance. However, I think it’s very clear that market valuation is weighing heavily on their vehicle design. Like every public company at this phase they need to show a growing profitable business that warrants the valuation. They are attempting to achieve that by selling cars with less features and hoping customers don’t care.
