When talking about battery powered vehicles, cars, trucks, semi-trucks, and motorcycles, what do you envision? How much is this going to change everything that we have learned and know about vehicles? What happens next? I remember when there were no cell phones. When called a friend, you usually talked to someone else in the house before you actually got to speak to your friend. In less than a generation we don’t even call. We text, send pictures, and use horrible grammar while doing it. The automotive industry is changing right now like the cell phone. This might take a little longer due to regulations regarding two tons of steel hurdling down a road at 70 miles per hour, but it is changing, and it is changing fast. Just in this last 20 year stretch, we have gone from variable valve timing to variable compression. Just keeping up with the internal combustion engine is difficult enough, then you add massive batteries and high voltage. The electric and hybrid offerings that have been introduced in the last 5 to 10 years are becoming more and more sophisticated and complex. We are going to go from the “bag phone” that you had in your car (the first cell phones) to an Apple 12 in the next 20 years or so, and tomorrow's technicians need to be ready.
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The Switch
When talking about battery powered vehicles, what do you envision?
This electrification isn’t happening overnight. It has been more of a slow burn. We, as a country, have resisted a bit. The United States is quite large compared to Europe and Japan. Due to size and commuting distance, most Americans cite a 300 to 400 mile range as the breaking point for owning an electric vehicle. As we have been slower to adapt, European electrification has been at a brisker pace. This is due to the prohibitively high cost of fuel in Europe, and most road trekking is a fairly short drive. Most European countries are smaller than many U.S. states, so a road trip of two or three hundred miles might involve several international borders. Even though we have resisted, they are still creeping into everyday life and becoming the norm and not the novelty. I live in rural Kentucky on a road with more cows and horses for neighbors than people. But in this very rural setting I have several Teslas, a Chevy Bolt, a Nissan Leaf and multiple hybrid electric Toyotas all within about 5 miles of me.
Currently, if these vehicles need service, they are simply taken back to the dealership. This may change soon as more used electric vehicles are sold and today's technicians are becoming familiar with the inner workings of the electric and hybrid vehicles.
In the coming years, the sheer volume and variety of electric vehicles will be significantly more than our current selection. The latest "Automotive News" announced the new vehicles that will be making their debut. The first one to catch my eye was the Mustang Mach E. It is an all-electric vehicle with a 300 mile range and a laundry list of options including all-wheel drive. It is touted to be “fast and fun to drive”. What more could you want? The offerings seem to just get better with new hybrid models from Jeep and all-electric models from Hummer, Volvo, and their partner, Polestar, coming out this year. Next year is awash with completely new models and brands.
In 2021 we can expect new cars from Alpha Romeo, Nissan, Audi, Toyota, Hyundai and Kia. But we will also see new entries from companies like Byton from China, Karma, which has a factory in the U.S. but is owned by a Chinese Company, and Lucid, which has a factory in the U.S. and is owned by a Saudi Arabian company. Finally, Ferrari, McLaren, BMW, Mercedes, Bentley, and Porsche all making new vehicles in the next few years.
Here is where it gets interesting because the electric vehicle is not exclusively a “car” anymore. Bollinger Motor Company, in Michigan, is going to offer several truck models like the B1 and the B2 with their moto being “No Screens, No Plastic, Just Truck”. These are truly utilitarian vehicles, fairly inexpensive starting at about $50,000 before incentives, built to take a beating and offer about a 200 mile range in the base model. I actually like the square no-frills look. The next truck on the list is the Lordstown Endurance. Their factory is in Lordstown, Ohio, and they are making their Stock Market debut on October 26, 2020. This model is similar to the trucks we are familiar with. Like Bollinger, its starting price is about $50,000 and offers about 250 miles per charge. Rivian is a new company out of Normal, Illinois, and they are offering a truck and SUV built on the same platform. These trucks are a bit more expensive, offer more amenities and tout a range up to 400+ miles “depending on how much you want to spend”. They are very nice off-road capable trucks like the Bollinger and the Lordstown but seem to be a little more polished. With a price tag almost $20,000 higher than the other two, they should be. The ‘cheaper’ of the bunch is the Tesla Cybertruck with a starting price of $39,900. I never thought I would say that a Tesla was the inexpensive option, but here we are. The base model Tesla gets about 300 miles per charge and its wonky shape (looks like it was drawn by a 5-year-old) is due to the fact that cold rolled stainless steel is too hard to form into curves. Still, it is a Tesla and a pretty proven platform if you can get over the Buck Rogers shape.
The last one on the list is perhaps my favorite. It is the Nikola Badger. Nikola is based in Phoenix, Arizona, and the Badger is the most ‘trucky’ of the bunch. It definitely looks the part of the aggressive off-road vehicle that we are accustomed to. It is base priced around $60,000 before incentives but offers a bit more for that price. What is unique about the Nikola is that it is a battery and hydrogen fuel cell hybrid. The Badger will offer a range of about 300 miles on the battery pack with an additional 300 miles coming from a full hydrogen charge for a combined range of 600+ miles. Nikola has just recently partnered with GM and became a publicly traded company. They are slated to start production in early 2021 on their hydrogen electric long-haul trucks. The Nikola Badger is anticipated to enter production by year-end 2022. All of these offerings are really taking a bite out of that 300 to 400 mile range anxiety, and pricing from these new manufacturers is expected to drop as production really starts rolling in the next four to five years. All of them are taking pre-orders now.
To aid in the reduction of the range anxiety problem, the United States and some private companies are installing charging stations at a record pace, so they are becoming more and more prevalent in shopping centers and along highways. They come in three levels of charging capability. Level One stations can charge most electric vehicles at about 5 miles of charge per hour, depending on the vehicle. The Level Two stations can charge an all-electric vehicle at a rate of about 20 miles per hour, which is great if you are just out shopping around in your town. There are over 72,000 Level Two stations across the United States in suburban areas. The Level Three stations are a high voltage charge to your battery and can charge a vehicle between 180 and 240 miles per hour. These stations are usually placed along major highways. There are currently about 16,000 Level Three stations, and this number is growing daily. The Level One charging stations are slowly being replaced by the more powerful Level Two and Level Three stations and will hopefully be phased out sometime in 2021 or 2022. We still have a little way to go to catch up with our European neighbors as there are currently over 120,000 Level Two and Level Three charging stations across Europe.
I hope that you found this as interesting as I did. Please look up any of the manufacturers that you are unfamiliar with and compare what they are offering. There is a lot of information out there. You could also dig into the world of electric motorcycles. That industry is trying to take hold also. Thanks again, and please be safe.
- Jeff B. Bogue, ATech Product Representative
