Towing with Tesla Model X

[Peelz]

Replying to my own post.....I'm super classy this morning

Couple of thoughts now that I've watched the whole video and had a moment to digest.

Cost: Holy crap, over $100k. I'm out. I simply can't afford it. $80k for a Rivian is honestly a stretch for me, and almost 2x more than I've paid for any vehicle in my life. Unless I hit some big stock options, or have some other windfall level money, I'm out. That is not to say I don't think it's worth it, it is, I just can't play at that level yet.

Tech: Only thing that really jumps out at me here are the graphics on the screens. They're more sizzle than steak though. The rest looks pretty "par for the course" at this level. Crab walk is an interesting take on rear wheel steering, although I'm not a big off road guy, so I have no idea if it's actually valuable or not. Air suspension, off road modes, etc. It's all more of the same. I'm really really hoping that GMC decides to throw the SuperCruise options into the Hummer. GM has, what is IMO, the best driver aids available at this point.....based solely on revviews I've seen online. I've not driven any of the really advanced stuff, so take that for what it's worth.

Styling: I find it really interesting that GM took a similar route as Tesla. The styling here is just over the top with big muscular lines. It's less of a departure from "normal" trucks, but still very much in your face. It tracks for the Hummer brand, but I personally, don't think it's that great. I do love all the little "H"'s everywhere, but the moon motif is a stretch for me. It's neat, but meh.

Tow Rating of 7,500lbs is LOW for this segment IMO. My Q7 is rated at 7,700lbs and is (or well feels) 1/2 this size. I'm curious what part of the total package holds it back. It's not curb weight, so handling shouldn't be an issue. It has 1k hp, so it shouldn't have an acceleration issue. Cooling maybe? I have no idea why, but it's low.

I do really really love the (4) T-Tops setup on the roof. I'm wildly disappointed in the Rivians Non-openable roof. With the tops off, and the rear window down, I think that will make for an EXCELLENT summer cruiser. If it's not raining/snowing, I have my sunroof open. It was 36degF this morning on the way in, and I had the roof open, even with the new roof rack noise. I LOVE an open top on a vehicle, and the Hummer has me covered there.

I also really really like the front trunk on the Hummer. Nice rubber/plastic lined space to put all kinds of "stuff" in there. And it has the lower entry height that a front trunk should have. Another miss on Rivians part IMO. I get why Rivian did it (styling would be largely interrupted by those lines), but I like the lower entry better. Honestly the Lightning has it all over these other two in this area. The Ford front trunk is monstrous and easy to get to.

Anywho.....Happy Friday everyone!

watched it this morning, I would review almost exactly the same just looking at it on a screen. LOVE the roof. If 100k wasn't a big deal, it would be on my list. Think it would have done better as a Silverado, and be slightly cheaper, but applaud GM all the same. I get the idea of the "flagship" for higher cost versions to develop a system and push innovation though, and presume theres GM trucks on the way.

 

[Peelz]

The money those pathfinder go for is sickening too. I briefly looked for a v8 powered one as a daily like 2 years ago, and they were expensive af even then. Even the v6 models were super expensive, but there's tons of them with huge mileage on them for sale. Really robust and well built vehicles that do it all.

The newest pathfinder looks to have fixed some of the mistakes of the last gen, but not nearly as great as the 2010ish ones were.

Everyone wants to go green and and save the planet, but you know what's better than trading your car in on a new one for that? Building cars that are robust, reliable, and fixable. If you only have to replace some suspension parts and things that are wear items like that, you can avoid the pollution of building a lot of vehicles.

I agree It is "better" than that hyundai looking thing they started building in 13 for sure... But Its still a front wheel drive based transverse axle unibody. They just made it look rugged.

 

[BlkGS]

A few thoughts on the hummer.

100k is a lot of money, but not that much today. That's probably cheaper than the h2 was adjusted for inflation back in the day. I

t's also a whole lot less useful than the h2 was, with its pathetic tow rating. I suspect the chassis just isn't stiff enough to tow more, as they're doing some of that chassis and battery combined insanity. Either that or it's a gcwr thing.

Styling wise, I think gm has no idea wtf they're doing. They almost made it normal looking, but also seemed like someone told them all EVs have to look idiotic and futuristic. It's one of the better looking options, but it's just weird.. I prefer the h2 looks wise.

I get that there's a certain type of person who buys this, but the automakers really need to get over this obsession with insane power and Performa CE in EVs.. Nobody is worried that they're not fast enough, they're worried about range. They could cut the motor output to 25% and eek some extra miles out and people would be happier.

They should have come out with the suv first. There's nothing that will convince me selling the truck first makes sense.

The tow rating is pathetic and honestly a problem. While I get it's enough for most uses, in a world where f150 is rated for like 12k towing or whatever, it's just... 100k for a vehicle that can't tow that much. Huge miss there, at least on the marketing front.

I think gm will do well with it overall. I think they'd do better with suv versions of their SUVs as long as they don't make them look dorky trying to make them futuristic looking like every other design has. I think they're fools to say a single word about all electric, and I think that the automakers will quickly figure out they're all fighting for the same pool of EV buyers, and they're not going to see growth in the buying pool in the same way they're growing the supply pool.

 

[Jim_in_Delaware]

I would have to think one of the issues for the Hummer's towing might be tied back to the weight of the vehicle, its a crazy 9,000 lbs. I believe thats about 2,000 lbs more than the Rivian, and almost 4,000 lbs more than my Ram 1500!

Jim

 

[2kwik4u]

https://www.thedrive.com/news/43569/the-first-gmc-hummer-evs-are-finally-rolling-off-the-line

 

[Tyguy]

Good to see another EV truck hitting the market. While the Hummer will be low volume, it’ll be a perfect testing platform for the EV Silverado.

Ford released the EV F150 battery specs with 98 kWh for 230 miles and 131 kWh for 300 miles. I was hoping to see larger packs and more range but it’s a start.

 

[2kwik4u]

Good to see another EV truck hitting the market. While the Hummer will be low volume, it’ll be a perfect testing platform for the EV Silverado.

Ford released the EV F150 battery specs with 98 kWh for 230 miles and 131 kWh for 300 miles. I was hoping to see larger packs and more range but it’s a start.

Agree on both accounts. Hummer will be a good proving ground and I think the F150 specs are a bit light.

I'm really hoping an electric GMC Denali is in the cards soon. I really like the 2022 dash refresh for GMC, and if they could keep that same interior/exterior look I would buy. Loved my '15 Sierra, and would go back, somewhat, on brand loyalty alone.

 

[BlkGS]

Agree on both accounts. Hummer will be a good proving ground and I think the F150 specs are a bit light.

I'm really hoping an electric GMC Denali is in the cards soon. I really like the 2022 dash refresh for GMC, and if they could keep that same interior/exterior look I would buy. Loved my '15 Sierra, and would go back, somewhat, on brand loyalty alone.

They actually just released a teaser video for it. It uh... Kinda looks dorky tbh.

 

[2kwik4u]

They actually just released a teaser video for it. It uh... Kinda looks dorky tbh.

Didn't know that. Went and googled. Looks like a mash up of an eTron and a Cadillac grill. Be curious what they do with the rest of the truck. Doesn't immediately turn me off for certain.

 

[Peelz]

I dont hate that denali!

I'm really hoping someone come along and designs an EV thats not attached directly to current styling and engineering. The look of modern cars follows the engineering of the first cars.. engine up front, big hood.

@BlkGS I agree, but, the problem is, the only way to get range is to add battery cells, and adding battery cells also adds voltage.. power just happens along with it. lol And if you add battery cells, the cost has to go up and people want to go fast when they buy expensive cars.

the range isn't the problem of my Model Y it goes nearly far as our Nissan pathfinder. The ACTUAL problem is the charge time vs drive time..

For instance, I Have another trip to Kansas City in Jan with some fellow soccer coaches. I offered to drive and take wife's car, one of the other guys was like" wont that add like 2 hrs or something?" This trip is through a LARGE area of non ev friendly spaces. Super chargers far apart. for the trip, The tesla requires 2 stops, one right near us for 10 minutes, and another for 20. Adds 30 minutes longer in the Tesla vs google maps to go 281 miles assuming one doesnt stop in the ICE car....But also, costs less than half.

The hassle is the battery tech. The cells can only charge quickly for short periods. Once that's fixed, its on. Im not sure I have as much hope as some do in the 4680 cells from Tesla...well see though. Kinda funny, we bought the kids a crazy laser pointer a while back, it started getting dim the other day. Pulled the battery.... its the same cell used in some of the earlier Tesla models lol the 18650. I thought it was cool, my kids called me a nerd.

 

[BlkGS]

I hate the way that most companies do EV front ends. I don't need it to be super obvious it's an EV. The solid front grilles and wonky lights all look dorky to me, and I don't like it. Audi and the Mach e GT do the best at making their front ends look normal, they of course have their own issues though.

Honestly, I value my time more than the cost to drive somewhere. I don't care that it's 5$ vs 10$ to drive somewhere if it takes me a half hour less.

I get the cost optics, but to me that's just one of those things that the automakers are failing at. I don't need my battery powered family hauler to have supercar acceleration. Cut the wattage of the motors and save some money.

On the flip side, the performance of the Mach e was underwhelming. They set out to make a sporty ev, and did, but made a sporty ev that isn't very fast. And the nonsense with the power cutting in the performance model... Unacceptable.

Eventually someone will make a good EV, but they really need to stop with the stupid interior designs and the "must look like an EV and not a normal vehicle" stuff. I don't really think there will ever be a point where EVs charge fast enough to please someone like me, but I think their best bet is to try to sway the popular conception of what's acceptable.

 

[Peelz]

I hate the way that most companies do EV front ends. I don't need it to be super obvious it's an EV. The solid front grilles and wonky lights all look dorky to me, and I don't like it.

I don't need my battery powered family hauler to have supercar acceleration. Cut the wattage of the motors and save some money.

I very much agree. lol BUT, I do like the minimalist interiors. Cars have got awful button happy over the years.

The second part I agree too. Except, even with the small motors, you'll use the same power to go the same speeds. Electric is A little different than gas. Harder to "tune" power is power. Maybe get a little more range because you cant discharge with the pedal as much I suppose.. So the acceleration (at least for me) makes a nice little bonus for making the switch, on top of the cost.

The cost for the tech SHOULD continue to decline. As it does, The big automakers are going to choke tesla right out of the market if they don't speed it up. I am a fan, but a realist. Big Reveal events, seemingly faked "leaks" and funny tweets dont scale vehicle production. LOL Giant factory in Austin almost online though-so I may eat my words there.


He who figures out the range vs charge time and production cost problem will be knighted. We're close, but we are not there yet.

 

[Jim_in_Delaware]

I did not realize that there were tires specifically designed for EVs.

Goodyear debuts high performance electric car replacement tire. From the article, "Electric cars have a particular set of requirements for their rubber, which has to combine a low rolling resistance for efficiency with good grip for the torque put out by electric motors and a strong construction that can handle their relatively heavy weights."

Jim

 

[BlkGS]

I did not realize that there were tires specifically designed for EVs.

Goodyear debuts high performance electric car replacement tire. From the article, "Electric cars have a particular set of requirements for their rubber, which has to combine a low rolling resistance for efficiency with good grip for the torque put out by electric motors and a strong construction that can handle their relatively heavy weights."

Jim

Never miss a good opportunity for marketing a higher priced commodity...

 

[Peelz]

Never miss a good opportunity for marketing a higher priced commodity...

absolutely.

when ours wear out next year, I wont be shopping for "EV" tires.

tread life and quality vs cost-period.

 

[BlkGS]

I very much agree. lol BUT, I do like the minimalist interiors. Cars have got awful button happy over the years.

The second part I agree too. Except, even with the small motors, you'll use the same power to go the same speeds. Electric is A little different than gas. Harder to "tune" power is power. Maybe get a little more range because you cant discharge with the pedal as much I suppose.. So the acceleration (at least for me) makes a nice little bonus for making the switch, on top of the cost.

The cost for the tech SHOULD continue to decline. As it does, The big automakers are going to choke tesla right out of the market if they don't speed it up. I am a fan, but a realist. Big Reveal events, seemingly faked "leaks" and funny tweets dont scale vehicle production. LOL Giant factory in Austin almost online though-so I may eat my words there.


He who figures out the range vs charge time and production cost problem will be knighted. We're close, but we are not there yet.

I don't find the Tesla style interior minimalist, I find it unfunctional and ugly. I don't want a giant screen with a million menus to navigate. Buttons work well for things that will be interacted with often. Temperature on the AC, seat function, audio stuff, etc a phycial button works great. There's stuff that doesn't need a button, like the defeats for safety systems, the ac zones, radio presets, etc. Our rogue has a 2 row panel of buttons down under the steering wheel, only one is ever used, the button to operate the liftgate. The rest are for things like turning off the liftgate, an eco mode, sport mode, traction control, downhill control, etc. That stuff, sure, put it in a menu. It's about moderation, lol.

Charging is a physics problem, and physics is unforgiving. Watt hours have 3 components, voltage, amperage, and time. Voltage is overall, fairly fixed, you're not going to charge at transmission line voltages, it wouldn't be safe. Time is the enemy, so you have to make that as low as possible (5 minutes for a full charge is my "acceptable level" ). So that leaves amperage, which is the most brutal of the 3. You end up needing to charge in the range of hundreds of amps, which requires a LOT of copper to keep resistance and heat down, and you need huge drops to charge stations... It gets really expensive really quickly, and it won't go down in scale because the raw materials are the issue.

 

[Tyguy]

If you're diving into the Tesla menus on a regular basis, you're doing it wrong.

 

[Peelz]

yeah I thought I would hate the screen too - until we owned it. Takes a few seconds to adapt, the tesla does it just as well if not better in most cases. I DO have trouble going back and forth to driving the nissan. but again, takes seconds to adapt. I do often turn on the wipers when I mean to shift though HAHAHAHHA tesla controls just different enough.

One Negative about the screen, I hate fingerprints on things, so I have to clean it a lot. But, its the same as the white seat argument to me. You can pretend your black seats(or buttons) are cleaner, but they aren't. You just cant see the dirt, therefore it never gets cleaned. I used to detail cars for a living as a youth, so I appreciate this more than most.

 

[2kwik4u]

@Peelz @Tyguy my big problems with screens are two fold. The first far less impactful than the second.

The first is that they are usually resistive and not capacitive. So the press is much harder than you're used to on your phone, and sometimes this doesn't register or work in a manner that we're used to in other aspects of life. It does mean it works with gloves on though, which is nice. It also makes the screens more robust and less sensitive to dust and debris. I get why, and agree with that decision (especially in a pickup), but it makes for a discontinuous experience with other touch interactive tech we already deal with on a regular basis.

The second is a MUCH larger problem for me. Night blindness. The premise of a screen working is that you can get light THROUGH the screen. So there's a backlight. Traditional gauges have these as well, however, instead of small numbers and a needle, we have giant expanses of real estate that are lit exceptionally bright as compared to your surroundings at night. If there are multiple screens, then they often don't dim 'with" each other, and one screen ends up brighter than the other. For someone like myself that has a relatively long adjustment time between bright and dark, looking at a screen in the car causes a temporarily blindness for outdoor settings. I purposely tinted my entire windshield recently to combat this from oncoming cars headlight glare (I'm giving you the side-eye there you bastard bro-dozer drivers) and it's helped. In my current Q7, I can dim the main screen, and literally HIDE the center screen at night. Then I can dim the HUD to a brightness that closely matches my exterior light levels. This keeps my eyes from constantly adjusting from bright-dark-bright-dark as I check the speed, HVAC settings, or anything else on the dash. There are a number of vehicles that do this exceptionally poorly. To the point I won't buy another vehicle without a "dark" test drive to ensure the dash dims both evenly, and far enough to be comfortable to drive at night for me.

Anyone remember the big tuner craze a few decades ago where they would put "indiglo" gauges into a car (Like these for an S10). IMO, we've taken this terrible idea, and continued to build on it for the sake of "being new and better". It's a cost savings for the manufacturer (due to lower parts count, less engineering on fit/finish, and easier assembly), and people think it must be better because a big screen is new tech, that's clearly more advanced. I postulate that it's the wrong tool for the job in general.

Don't get me started on the lack of a volume knob on the dash. I HATE up/down arrows for volume control. That's what is in my boat, and it's horrible. I hate it. Slider bars might be better, but require taking your eyes off the road to operate. You can't "feel" your way to them without looking. It's just a soft button under the glass of the screen. Again, some integrate this better than others. Steering wheel controls, knobs in consoles, things like that are better, but just soft buttons for everything isn't the right solution IMO.

 

[2kwik4u]

@BlkGS The power thing is an interesting delima. From a physics standpoint. You kinda "get what ya get" when you're spec'ing an electric motor. Once you narrow to the voltage that you want to run, you somewhat just get the torque you get. You're balancing voltage for charging against voltage for driving. You would charge at infinity volts if you could to get your 5min charge time, but then you would have even more absurd power levels.

The efficiency of an electric motor is also NOT tied as closely to the power output as an ICE. You can change the windings, and cores, upgrade the bearings, and change the control algorithms and not get a much more efficient motor than if you just bought a bargain basement motor. When spec'ing AC Synchronous motors for industry, the difference in a generic motor vs a Baldor or Toshiba "top shelf" motor is literally in the single digits of efficiency differences.

Keep in mind that power draw is just that a "draw" condition. It's not a "push" condition. The motors will only use as much as you let them, and the efficiency curves of an electric motor are pretty flat (due to constant torque nature), so you're in the "sweet spot" pretty much all the time, unlike an ICE where you need tons of gears to stay in that same "sweet spot" under varying conditions. The electric motor is really a much better solution to energy delivery for a varied demand curve. It's far more flexible while maintaining high efficiency.

All this to say, even if we made the 800hp Rivian a 400hp Rivian, we aren't going to gain much of anything in range. We're still only using 50hp to drive down the road at 70mph. It's only under exceptionally heavy loads that we will use the full potential of these motors, and since we have control over the throttle pedal, we can control how much of that potential we use.