As a data point, my 28.8 home battery pack cost $9,000 for the batteries, and a couple more grand for the charge controllers, inverter, etc. That was 5 years ago. I reckon that’s about three days worth without space heating and water heating, both of which the wood stove is good enough for in such an unlikely pinch as going that long without utility power or significant recharge from the PV array.
If my 40kWh Aptera adds to that via V2H capability, that will be a pretty huge add. Hard to imagine needing even that much, never mind 100kWh or more for the home, though I realize some folks think that they need to use a whole lot more power than I do.
I wonder if an electric pickup can justify its resources because its bigger battery makes it even more suitable for Vehicle-To-Home, Vehicle-To-Grid, etc.
Or are BEV cars' batteries already sufficient: Mine would power my apartment for 10 days (if I didn't drive it).
I bet there are use cases for having a big battery as a Vehicle-To-Grid buffer. But i think having a battery at home is more sustainable than driving around a huge battery all the time. This is just an assumption though. I've never read a study on the topic.
@b_lumenkraft I thought putting the extra battery in the home made more sense too, but others on this forum say it costs less per kWh to upsize an Aptera pack for V2H.
I have a reservation for a cyber truck. After making it, I discovered how large it is. It is simply too larger. I am hoping when I am contacted by Tesla about the cyber truck, they will let me transfer my reservation to buy a European cybertruck.
Americans tend to want to buy one vehicle that can "do everything" - even if some of the fringe activities are rarely, or even never done. It's ironic considering how many of us own more than one vehicle already. For many, it would be better to drive something super efficient like Aptera and rent a truck for the occasional trip to Home Depot or IKEA .
@gaulfinger Funny you should mention Ikea - I'm considering redoing the kitchen this summer and the closest Ikea is a six-hour drive up the interstate. Renting a cargo van and making the drive is a more affordable option than paying for shipping!
@Kerbe #12705 Ya. Like Fiat offered free with their first 500e: Rent (when your daily car won't quite do the job).
I reduce rental cost to zero by borrowing/swapping with friends. I'd already loaned them my BEV before, leading one to finally buy a Tesla 3 & one to lease an eGolf.
I just recently pointed-out to my retired neighbor that keeping her old pick-up roadworthy and insured so that she can buy gardening supplies once a year makes less sense than renting a $20/hour F-250 from Home Depot when she needs it.
I don’t disagree with the arguments for renting to get the exceptional capabilities on the rare occasions that you need them. On the other hand, there are reasons for having a rarely used, older, more capable spare vehicle that weigh sufficiently to sway some people. Firstly, and on-topic, all the materials and economic investment has already been made. Keeping it as a spare is arguably better than throwing it out when it still has life in it. A counterpoint to our modern throw-away society.
Secondly, it’s a spare vehicle ready to hand when the main ride unexpectedly breaks down. Another form of insurance in that.
It is also less hassle having it ready to hand than to jump through the hoops each time that you need a rental. I am sure some would argue that. But what about in an emergency circumstance when the rental isn’t available? Fires, landslides, earthquakes, volcanos, all happen in my neck of the woods. More insurance.
All that makes it worth it to me to spend the few hundred dollars a year to keep the older, tow ready, V8 SUV parked out in the pasture, but ready to go on short notice.
And finally I get the pleasure of having it to lend to Kiteboarder when he needs it. See, lots of reasons why, for some folks, keeping the old urban assault vehicle on standby is still a compelling idea. Maybe a decade or two from now I will be able to replace it with an old, beat up Cybertruck.
I think the question misses the larger point. The ubiquitous oversized vehicle (pickups or SUVs) favored by US consumers and auto manufacturers IS a waste of valuable resources. Large EVs rather than ICE vehicles is just another flavor of that.
Sure there are genuine needs for the larger vehicles, but that’s not why most people buy them. Most people buy them because for the last forty years or so, US manufacturers have been pushing the idea that the only way to be safe when involved in an accident is to be in the biggest, heaviest vehicle involved. That and all the extra potential utility, used or not.
Whether that is true or not isn’t the why for the push. Rather what the auto manufacturers are interested in is higher profit margins. It costs nearly the same to assemble a large vehicle as it does to make a compact but they can charge a great deal more for the larger vehicle because consumers associate “economy“ with smaller vehicles.
As long as that paradigm keeps the shareholders happy, it is going to continue to be problematic in its excess consumption of valuable resources.
I suppose that I should click on the link and see if the article goes any where near there.
Yeah, but sometimes the items are 12 foot long 4 by 6 timbers. Hard to haul in smaller pieces😉. Besides using one tank of gas a year probably won't turn the earth into a smoking hellscape. And my 3k pickups usually last at least 3 or 4 years, longer if I just do basic maintenance, which because hate working on internal combustion engines, cause they clearly hate me, so that doesn't really happen until I have no other option😉
Fair enough. So maybe instead of taking "everything" every 2 weeks, take a trailer-load every week, which from personal experience rapidly increases one's trailer-driving skill. It's not as if the extra trip will burn more gas.
Yeah, I have a utility trailer, but I'm lousy at driving with a trailer, plus the size of trailer I would need for everything is too large for a car of any kind, particularly on the long step dirt road I live on. Good thought though.
If you only "actually use... a pickup... about once every 2 weeks", maybe get Aptera with the hitch option & buy/rent a truck-bed-sized utility trailer.
I actually placed an order for a cyber truck, it was the first ev that looked like it made sense for my life. Then the Aptera came along and made me rethink that. I'm one of those 10% that actually use my pickup as , you know, a pickup. It gets used about once every 2 weeks to haul to the dump or to pick up lumber or other bulky supplies. Traditionally I buy "disposable" pickups in the 2 or 3k range, run them into the ground and then donate them. Thought it might be nice to have something I could trust. But it wouldn't have been a great road tripper, so probably still needed a second car. Since I hardly burn any gas in the truck due to low miles driven, it made since when the Aptera came out to flip the script and buy the Aptera instead, plus I always wanted to own a version of the batmobile designed by them little green men they got locked up at area 51.
I'm in exactly the same position Glen, and I went through exactly the same scenario as you... ordered a Cybertruck and then changed my mind because I didn't want the truck to be my daily driver. I certainly do need a pickup in my life, but don't want nor need to drive it everyday. I'm hopeful that Chevy will soon release their "E-crate" motor (Google it), that I can throw into my old beater PU and convert it to electric.
As a data point, my 28.8 home battery pack cost $9,000 for the batteries, and a couple more grand for the charge controllers, inverter, etc. That was 5 years ago. I reckon that’s about three days worth without space heating and water heating, both of which the wood stove is good enough for in such an unlikely pinch as going that long without utility power or significant recharge from the PV array.
If my 40kWh Aptera adds to that via V2H capability, that will be a pretty huge add. Hard to imagine needing even that much, never mind 100kWh or more for the home, though I realize some folks think that they need to use a whole lot more power than I do.
I wonder if an electric pickup can justify its resources because its bigger battery makes it even more suitable for Vehicle-To-Home, Vehicle-To-Grid, etc.
Or are BEV cars' batteries already sufficient: Mine would power my apartment for 10 days (if I didn't drive it).
I have a reservation for a cyber truck. After making it, I discovered how large it is. It is simply too larger. I am hoping when I am contacted by Tesla about the cyber truck, they will let me transfer my reservation to buy a European cybertruck.
Well, pickup trucks for people who need a car are a waste of resources in general.
Americans tend to want to buy one vehicle that can "do everything" - even if some of the fringe activities are rarely, or even never done. It's ironic considering how many of us own more than one vehicle already. For many, it would be better to drive something super efficient like Aptera and rent a truck for the occasional trip to Home Depot or IKEA .
@Kerbe #12705 Ya. Like Fiat offered free with their first 500e: Rent (when your daily car won't quite do the job).
I reduce rental cost to zero by borrowing/swapping with friends. I'd already loaned them my BEV before, leading one to finally buy a Tesla 3 & one to lease an eGolf.
I just recently pointed-out to my retired neighbor that keeping her old pick-up roadworthy and insured so that she can buy gardening supplies once a year makes less sense than renting a $20/hour F-250 from Home Depot when she needs it.
I think the question misses the larger point. The ubiquitous oversized vehicle (pickups or SUVs) favored by US consumers and auto manufacturers IS a waste of valuable resources. Large EVs rather than ICE vehicles is just another flavor of that.
Sure there are genuine needs for the larger vehicles, but that’s not why most people buy them. Most people buy them because for the last forty years or so, US manufacturers have been pushing the idea that the only way to be safe when involved in an accident is to be in the biggest, heaviest vehicle involved. That and all the extra potential utility, used or not.
Whether that is true or not isn’t the why for the push. Rather what the auto manufacturers are interested in is higher profit margins. It costs nearly the same to assemble a large vehicle as it does to make a compact but they can charge a great deal more for the larger vehicle because consumers associate “economy“ with smaller vehicles.
As long as that paradigm keeps the shareholders happy, it is going to continue to be problematic in its excess consumption of valuable resources.
I suppose that I should click on the link and see if the article goes any where near there.
Yeah, but sometimes the items are 12 foot long 4 by 6 timbers. Hard to haul in smaller pieces😉. Besides using one tank of gas a year probably won't turn the earth into a smoking hellscape. And my 3k pickups usually last at least 3 or 4 years, longer if I just do basic maintenance, which because hate working on internal combustion engines, cause they clearly hate me, so that doesn't really happen until I have no other option😉
Fair enough. So maybe instead of taking "everything" every 2 weeks, take a trailer-load every week, which from personal experience rapidly increases one's trailer-driving skill. It's not as if the extra trip will burn more gas.
Yeah, I have a utility trailer, but I'm lousy at driving with a trailer, plus the size of trailer I would need for everything is too large for a car of any kind, particularly on the long step dirt road I live on. Good thought though.
If you only "actually use... a pickup... about once every 2 weeks", maybe get Aptera with the hitch option & buy/rent a truck-bed-sized utility trailer.
I actually placed an order for a cyber truck, it was the first ev that looked like it made sense for my life. Then the Aptera came along and made me rethink that. I'm one of those 10% that actually use my pickup as , you know, a pickup. It gets used about once every 2 weeks to haul to the dump or to pick up lumber or other bulky supplies. Traditionally I buy "disposable" pickups in the 2 or 3k range, run them into the ground and then donate them. Thought it might be nice to have something I could trust. But it wouldn't have been a great road tripper, so probably still needed a second car. Since I hardly burn any gas in the truck due to low miles driven, it made since when the Aptera came out to flip the script and buy the Aptera instead, plus I always wanted to own a version of the batmobile designed by them little green men they got locked up at area 51.