It’s One Thing To Read About EV Progress, It’s Another To See It For Yourself “In The Wild” – CleanTechnica

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It’s one thing to read about EV progress or see it at a dealer, it’s another to see it for yourself “in the wild.” I’ve been reading about the GMC Hummer EV now for at least a couple of years. Those of us who believe in modest vehicles think the Hummer is over the top, but it stands out as having the largest battery, 200 kWh, of any EV. The largest battery in any Tesla EV is 100 kWh. I’m often carrying two big ebikes on the back of my Tesla Model 3, so I am acutely aware of how difficult it is to carry bikes or pull a trailer behind an EV. Either one will destroy your aerodynamics and dramatically reduce your range. A huge battery like the one on the Hummer EV or on its brother, the Silverado EV pickup truck, makes pulling a big trailer or RV behind an EV long distances a real possibility. I saw my first Hummer EV in the wild a few weeks ago — one night in Saint George, Utah, as shown in Figure 1. I didn’t hold the camera still enough, but it makes for a very dramatic photo. Editor’s note: I see Hummer EVs regularly in Southwest Florida, but I guess that’s a more fitting market for the vehicle, or we just have a bigger, more mature EV market in general.

I’ve seen numerous Cybertrucks at the Lindon (Utah) Tesla Service/Delivery Center, and a few on the streets of Northern Utah. However, coming north from Saint George on November 8, I saw my first two Cybertrucks charging at the Beaver (Utah) Supercharger, as shown in Figure 2. I had heard that the placement of the charging port made Supercharging a Cybertruck difficult. However, as you can see, the charging cable easily reaches the Cybertruck’s charging port.

What I still haven’t seen at a Supercharger is a non-Tesla vehicle charging. We stopped at 21 Superchargers coming from Wisconsin to Utah in October and we just traveled from Northern Utah to Saint George in southern Utah and back with 5 more Supercharger stops along the way and I still haven’t seen a non-Tesla vehicle charging at a Supercharger. With the Superchargers now carrying the North American Charging Standard (NACS) moniker and virtually every non-Tesla brand committed to using the NACS, one would expect to see this happening soon. Editor’s note: I saw a Chevy Bolt charging at a Supercharger last week. Unfortunately, I didn’t snap a photo.

It’s one thing to see an EV “in the wild” when you are out and about, it’s even more impressive when you see one on your street or in your neighbor’s driveway!

Already in January of 2023, I was blown away seeing an Amazon Prime Rivian electric delivery van in front of my house in Lindon, Utah. In the succeeding 22 months, I’ve observed that all the Amazon Prime delivery vans in my area are Rivian electric vans. Editor’s note: Almost all of mine are in Southwest Florida as well.

How about two Teslas in a neighbor’s garage already in February of 2023!

The first of 30 electric buses were delivered to Zion National Park in late 2023. By fall 2024, all the electric buses were in operation. The buses run a full 12-hour day on an overnight charge transporting tourists up Zion Canyon. Automobiles are no longer allowed in the Canyon, but bikes and ebikes are an option. My brother informed me that my home town of Madison, Wisconsin, has just ordered 25 electric buses from the same company.

From our trip to Paris last spring, we observed most modes of travel are going electric.

From our Notre Dame Hotel just across from the Notre Dame, we observed that all the buses on the Châtelet line were 100% electric (see Figure 6). Other buses we could see from our hotel were double hybrid buses. Ironically, the RATPdev company from France operates the Zion buses.

How about my neighbor’s Cybertruck “In the Wild!” My neighbor and I were the only Tesla Model 3 owners in the neighborhood back in 2019. My neighbor has a red Model 3 Performance that he always parks far from other cars to avoid nicks. He stayed up late the night the Cybertruck was announced and had an early reservation number. After a 4-year wait, he recently finally took delivery of his truck. In Figure 7, we see him putting his Cybertruck to good use towing another vehicle. In the bottom panel of Figure 7, we also see him Supercharging his Cybertruck while towing. Since the Supercharger is otherwise empty, he can park sideways like I do with my Model 3 when I have two ebikes on the back.

Switching from EVs to ebikes: The Murdock Bike Trail (formerly the Murdock Canal) runs on my back property line in Lindon, Utah. I can ride 15 miles up Provo Canyon, 13 miles down to Utah Lake, or 40 miles to Salt Lake City without ever getting off of a paved blacktop bike trail. I ride my ebike on it nearly every day — fall, winter, and spring. I’m ebike riding on backroads and trails in Northern Wisconsin in the summer. On the Murdock trail, I see a lot of battery-powered vehicles. The most interesting recently is the: arm-powered etrike that I saw on the trail that you see in Figure 8. Trikes are too heavy to operate easily on hills without electric assist. The gentleman riding the etrike had injured his legs in a climbing accident. You can see his artificial left leg. However, he had surgery recently on his right knee and it wasn’t ready for any stress. He had borrowed the bike from a young lady who is a paraplegic. The lady paraplegic is paralyzed from the middle of her back down, but she can still use her arms to steer and power the bike. The bike is actually an electric mountaintrike! It has a suspension system that allows it to navigate off-road trails.

My final “In the Wild” photo is of a lady and her two small daughters on an ebike. I call this the SUV version of an ebike. With a bike like this, you can transport yourself and two of your small children or a big bag of groceries or other cargo significant distances. Notice the ebike has two large batteries. While the bike has no suspension system, the fat tires give you a fairly smooth ride if you under-inflate them.