![]() I assumed solar charging 90% of the time for the BEV and PHEV, and doubled emissions ten percent of the time for all vehicles for occasional towing.Īs you can see, the hypothetical F-350 Lightning looks a lot like a Hummer EV, but its emissions after production has a pretty flat line. I created a 250 kWh F-350 Lightning, a 100 kWh F-350 PHEV, and put in real numbers for a diesel 2wd non-dually F-350. So, I decided to see what that might look like. Unlike the half-ton, which is frequently used in the suburbs by people who don’t use the truck’s capability for work, larger pickups are expected to deliver a lot more towing capacity. One category of trucks that really concerns me for the future are 3/4 and 1 ton pickups. PHEVs Really Make Sense For Larger Pickup Trucks Right Now You can see how much better for the environment and your children’s future doing most of your driving on electric is, and you’re getting most of the way to what a BEV would do (and probably for cheaper, making it an option at all for you). But, if at all possible, charge that battery pack up with solar power. If you’re an office worker who does the occasional run to Home Depot and tows a boat up to the lake on the weekends, and you’re not excited about having to hunt for DC fast chargers to get back home on those trips, the PHEV may be the cleanest choice that fits your personal needs with minimum inconvenience. ![]() If you’re doing local towing for business and you want to tell people your business is doing right by the environment, get an electric truck and put solar on the roof. Towing 10% of the time really didn’t hurt it much because doubling minuscule emissions still was minuscule emissions for that 10% of the time. This clean benefit helped the Lightning BEV the most. Even with some emissions, they’re still drastically cleaner than grid power is today. After all, it takes energy to build, transport, install, remove, and recycle them. I wasn’t lazy and I didn’t put solar in as zero emissions. Towing part of the time doesn’t seem to give the BEV a huge benefit, but as with before, powering electric vehicles with cleaner power drastically changes the chart:įirst off, as I explained in previous parts to this article, I used NREL figures for lifetime emissions per kWh of solar. What This Looks Like With Solar Charging At Home (Or Business) One size definitely does NOT fit all here. Once again, which truck would be the cleanest is really about picking the truck that gives the most environmental benefit for different users. The cost savings of not having to buy gas for towing a backhoe or trencher would make it a much better job for a BEV in most cases. ![]() Unless they’re doing some sort of unusual over-the-road towing, the construction or maintenance truck that occasionally tows a trailer isn’t going to end up hunting for DC fast charging on those local drives. Just getting those people to charge up and drive electric during the week and for around-town runs to Home Depot or whatever still bags us most of the environmental benefits.Ĭommercial vehicles that tow part-time are probably going to want to live on that red line (BEV). So, the PHEV could be an important selling point for people who tow for recreational reasons on the weekend. On the other hand, many people would be perfectly happy with towing on the yellow line (PHEV) because their weekend trip to the lake or their favorite camping spot wouldn’t be interrupted by charging stops, or worse, not being able to get there at all. This widened gap really puts that on display. This is because towing efficiency on gas power gets worse faster than electric towing does, at least emissions-wise. The hybrid still stays well above the BEV and PHEV, which are fairly close together.īut, that having been said, there is one noticeable difference that towing makes: the red and yellow lines get more of a gap between them. Towing on the weekends with the hybrid, hypothetical PHEV, and Lightning versions of the truck obviously drives up emissions. With that having been said, let’s move on to looking at how towing affects this graph.Īs you can see, the graph doesn’t look that different from the normal graph in Part 2, but the slopes of every line are all similarly steeper, so that’s a big deceptive. If you’ve made it this far, I probably don’t need to rehash the methods and sources again, but if you landed in this article, here’s a link to Part 1 so you can see how I arrived at my numbers here and even play with the spreadsheet yourself if you disagree with any of it.
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