Dodge going Electric

[Jeff Niceswanger]

Originally Posted by Eddies66

My daughter bought the extended range, 322 mile. The S model gets 402 mile range. Was reading an article where Tesla service stations are planned. In 15 minutes, you will drive in and the battery in automatically exchanged...plug and play.

I was a fork lift mechanic for 25 years. We had a fleet of 60 trucks, half gas and half electric. The gas (propane) trucks took about ten minutes to fill. The operators did it their selves. Had to take the tank off the truck, fill it, then replace the same tank they took off. The battery powered trucks were charged two ways. The drivers scheduled the recharge's around their break times and lunch, or between shifts. Or, if they ran out of electric during peak demands, they drove their trucks into our battery shop and we swapped out battery's. Took ten minutes. Sounds awful similar to me Eddie. Even with all the modern emission controls and management, those electric trucks were 10 times harder to work on than the gas powered ones. Their a complicated SOB. Your run of the mill mechanic is going to struggle. They rarely have issues and are quite trouble free, but finding intermittent drivability issues is a real challenge. I'm sure the factory's will get a handle on it, but there is most certainly going to be a learning curve, and the American public is going to be the lab rats ...

[Eddies66]

Originally Posted by Jeff Niceswanger

I was a fork lift mechanic for 25 years. We had a fleet of 60 trucks, half gas and half electric. The gas (propane) trucks took about ten minutes to fill. The operators did it their selves. Had to take the tank off the truck, fill it, then replace the same tank they took off. The battery powered trucks were charged two ways. The drivers scheduled the recharge's around their break times and lunch, or between shifts. Or, if they ran out of electric during peak demands, they drove their trucks into our battery shop and we swapped out battery's. Took ten minutes. Sounds awful similar to me Eddie. Even with all the modern emission controls and management, those electric trucks were 10 times harder to work on than the gas powered ones. Their a complicated SOB. Your run of the mill mechanic is going to struggle. They rarely have issues and are quite trouble free, but finding intermittent drivability issues is a real challenge. I'm sure the factory's will get a handle on it, but there is most certainly going to be a learning curve, and the American public is going to be the lab rats ...

Kind of like the good ole days when you pulled back on the reins and said whoa to stop and getty-up to go. Until that young fella, Henry, I think that was his name, came ago with the internal damnation called the horseless buggy. Ran the buggy people out of business and now we have all these useless horses and the crap to contend with....what is this world coming to.


Jeff, the only thing that I didn't like about the car was the size of the computer monitor, it was large and a little distracting. Comfortable seats, no center hump, lots of head room and too quiet, you actually hear the tires.

[Rory McNeil]

Originally Posted by Eddies66

Kind of like the good ole days when you pulled back on the reins and said whoa to stop and getty-up to go. Until that young fella, Henry, I think that was his name, came ago with the internal damnation called the horseless buggy. Ran the buggy people out of business and now we have all these useless horses and the crap to contend with....what is this world coming to.


Jeff, the only thing that I didn't like about the car was the size of the computer monitor, it was large and a little distracting. Comfortable seats, no center hump, lots of head room and too quiet, you actually hear the tires.

Funny thing is, many of Henrys Motel T Fords are still around, 100 years later.You still see them in parades and at car shows every weekend in the summer. Even a few Detroit Electric and Stanley Steamers , you know, the "new" technology that was going to make internal combustion engines obsolete in the 1920s, can be seen in a museum now & then. I wonder how many of these Teslas, and other electric cars will still be on the road, in say, 15 or 20 years from now. Certainly a car that costs $100,000 to buy should be able to last much longer than a "normal" fossil fuel vehicle, right? Electric may be fine in the big cites, but now that I am living in a semi rural area, even a gas/electric hybrid, like a Toyota Prius is a rare sight to see, and in the 4 months since I moved, I have seen exactly ZERO Teslas, where they were a daily occurance in Vancouver. Long distances, hot or cold climates, hills and towing, all kill the claimed range of an electric car. Considering most on this site, (at least those that actually race a car), have a large truck or SUV , to tow a trailer hundreds or thousands of miles to race, I just can`t see electric making much of a dent. And highly unlikely that campers or RVers, criss crossing North America on vacation, will be happy to plug in an electric Winnebago for 2 hours, every 2 hours, on their way to Wally World.

[Eddies66]

Originally Posted by Rory McNeil

Funny thing is, many of Henrys Motel T Fords are still around, 100 years later.You still see them in parades and at car shows every weekend in the summer. Even a few Detroit Electric and Stanley Steamers , you know, the "new" technology that was going to make internal combustion engines obsolete in the 1920s, can be seen in a museum now & then. I wonder how many of these Teslas, and other electric cars will still be on the road, in say, 15 or 20 years from now. Certainly a car that costs $100,000 to buy should be able to last much longer than a "normal" fossil fuel vehicle, right? Electric may be fine in the big cites, but now that I am living in a semi rural area, even a gas/electric hybrid, like a Toyota Prius is a rare sight to see, and in the 4 months since I moved, I have seen exactly ZERO Teslas, where they were a daily occurance in Vancouver. Long distances, hot or cold climates, hills and towing, all kill the claimed range of an electric car. Considering most on this site, (at least those that actually race a car), have a large truck or SUV , to tow a trailer hundreds or thousands of miles to race, I just can`t see electric making much of a dent. And highly unlikely that campers or RVers, criss crossing North America on vacation, will be happy to plug in an electric Winnebago for 2 hours, every 2 hours, on their way to Wally World.

Technology will only get better as time goes by, we shall see.

[Tom P]

As for what happens when 30 Teslas arrive at the ten spots. The video from Thanksgiving weekend in California is still on YouTube.


But if you plan ahead to expect miles long lineups and sleeping in your car awaiting your turn at recharging the next day it should be OK.

A friend works in the "Green Power" industry and has many stories of the ridiculous methods they use. Spending fifty million to develop fifty dollars worth of power is par for the course. Check how they actually dispose of the batteries and let us know if that will be an issue for the grandkids.

Then there is the safety issie of the cars themselves...

https://www.thedrive.com/news/28420/...ecall-in-sight

[Greg Hill]

As one of my favorite singer, songwriters once said, “ The times they are a changing”.

[Carguy49]

I last towed a race car with a 4-WD 3/4 ton Suburban and an open trailer. No problem, towed with ease.

I have played with the idea of getting back into the game. Chances are that it won't happen, but never say never. IF I did it would be with a1 ton Dually pickup and a trailer with living quarters. What are the possibilities of having an electric pickup that could tow that trailer??? I can see me trying to pull into/or out of a charging station with that combo. Funniest home videos comes to mind.