> Cybertruck uses like a fifth of the energy of a full size gas pickup truck

Yes, but the energy density of the energy storage mechanism in the cybertruck is substantially lower than a gas pickup truck

European units (`Energy/100km`) work nicely here, lots of EVs are around `20 kWh/100km`, and most residential housing around here consumes less than `20kWh/day`, actually averaging `20kWh/day` would probably cover a well insulated house including heating (heatpump).

Yes, driving, compared to living, uses ridiculous amounts of energy.

For comparison my cargo ebike, which is not particularly efficient, consumes about 30 Wh/mi (0.03kWh/mi) in medium assist while transporting an adult and two kids.

Are those numbers right? 0.4 kWh/mile is 24.85 kWh/100km compared to about 14 kWh/100km my Kia Niro EV uses.

Driving is not wasteful. Energy is not a scarce thing in the universe.

Using energy is not bad. Creating excess carbon emissions is bad.

We need to be able to hold two ideas in our heads instead of blindly repeating trendy religious dogma.

Driving uses a lot of energy. It's wasteful if you aren't getting a good use out of it (of which just driving around to relax could me considered a good use, but of which some manager requiring RTO might not be).

I mean efficient in engineering terms, not economics. A cybertruck is not as efficient as a small SUV (model Y) which is not as efficient as a sedan (model 3).

Cybertruck — 2mi/kwh

Model Y — 3.8mi/kwh

Model 3 — 4mi/kwh

The thing is that ICE vehicles are so inefficient to begin with, but a towed trailer needs the same amount of energy regardless of what is towing it.

Imagine a trailer takes 1 unit of energy to move, and ICE truck takes 5 units to move itself, and EV truck takes 1 unit to move itself.

The ICE truck towing it would go from 5 units to 6 units, reducing the range by 16%.

The EV truck would now go from 1 unit to 2 units, reducing the range by 50%.

So the better your efficiency, the worse you are at towing. Ideally EV trucks would have such a huge battery that even when the range is reduced by 50%, it is still as long as a gas truck's range, but modern battery technology is still too sucky to achieve this.

Are they really that inefficient? My 94 Roadmaster sedan gets 14ish mpg towing 7000lbs at 60mph, which works out to a bit over 300 miles on a tank. I figured your average gas truck would do at least that well, and they have larger tanks.

meanwhile, my impression is the whole poor towing narrative (while true) is a big part of what killed the ev truck when how many people use trucks in the way they could otherwise use a four-door sedan.

"ICE trucks are equally inefficient for towing."

Not so sure about that one, boss. I can fully-load up a Ford Ranger to its 7500lb rated towing capacity and lose ~10% in fuel economy/range while you just dropped something like 30% (from the base power package range of ~240 miles, platinum package at 300 miles you're losing half if you only get 150 miles out.)

Power still costs money.

Yep, having each individual person commuting in their own car is just not that efficient in general. Another data point that amazes me is the NYC subway uses 4-5 million kWh per day. Sounds like a lot until you realize that around 4 million people ride it every day, that’s about 1kWh, or maybe like 20 cents of electricity, per rider. A person commuting 35 miles in an EV would take about 10 kWh daily. They’re never going to beat the efficiency of public transportation.

Also regarding filling up an EV as fast as gasoline, there’s a company in China that has demonstrated charging from 20-80% in 5 minutes. They’re using 3MW charging.

It makes you realize why gasoline has been so popular for so long, you can stop for 5 minutes and dump 500 kWh of energy into your tank. Unfortunately most of that is wasted as heat during the combustion process.

In addition to the Aptera, I think there's a potential market for the enclosed 2-wheel vehicles also like the MonoRacer. The aerodynamic efficiency gains of enclosed cabin motorcycles is huge and greatly improves range, especially at highway speeds. I'd like to see something similar at a lower price range and produced in greater volume.

https://www.peravescz.com/electric-version/