What's your opinion about electric trucks??

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Originally Posted by brandon

i like the idea of going electric, but this looks like an E-Ride, which has no room for storage. we have some of these at my job and with minimal weight in the back one of them blew out a differential, company told us we were carying to much weight in it. not really practical for a scrap metal buisnes, even if you are going to go out and pick up a washing machine from CL. if you do get one never let the battery go completely dead or let it stay dead for prolonged periods of time. the ones with Li batteries if left dead like to burn, if running lead acid i dont know if they like to burn or not when discharged for extended periods of time.

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Thanks for letting me know about the batteries I'm not sure if this truck uses Li or lead ill have to find out. If it uses Li, can these be charged the same was as lead batteries or not? If you don't mind me asking what kind of job do you do? Like what kind of materials do you haul in the truck? And how much did it cost to have the differential replaced. I'm assuming because electric vehicles are fairly new it would be more than replacing the deferential on a normal truck but how much more?

Who would you call if it broke down, and electrician, or a mechanic?

:-)

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Originally Posted by WeWillPrevail

I didn't keep receipts. All I know is I would have less profit with an $11K truck starting out with. Until that was paid off, you are making NO profit, simply trying to pay off your electric, low range, light hauling fancy truck. It would cost me $10-$20 for a round trip, and I would get AT LEAST $100-$150 at the yard. That's a pretty good ratio. I don't need exact number, as this is not a pissing contest.

All I am saying is you won't be in the black for awhile, way longer than if you buy a beater and run it until it dies.

Also, I could get 1800lbs in my truck. It sounds like the payload of your electric truck is nowhere near that. I also got a ladder rack with the truck, allowed me to cut longer sections of frame rail, and strap them up top.

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I'm looking at this as a long term investment. I'm trying to figure out if, over the course of the trucks entire life time, it would be better than a gas powered truck. I would save tons in fuel and get many tax credits. But maintenance would be more costly and btw I would not be buying a new one for 11k, I would get a used one. Does anyone know what a used one would cost? I've only been able to find one used on ebay going for 4k. If I get a used one for 4k the truck would pay for itself in about a year.

My yard is less than 5 mins away so it might cost me like .25 cents round trip and this truck payload rating is 1000lbs. My yard pays about 200 per ton so I'd be profiting 90.75 per trip - whatever it cost me to collect that scrap. And if I got the dump truck model it would save lots of time at the yard.

Your thinking in terms of how many trips would I have to make to the yard before I'm in the red. There are really so many variables in calculating this; i.g. how long would it take me to gather a full load using this truck vs a reg. truck. How much would I make for each load (this is impossible to tell as in sure you know the prices are always changing) how much would I save in gas, how much would it cost in maintenance. etc. If I was to actually calculate all this it would take a long time to figure out. But consider this,,

Why are many company such as Staples or General Electric, who plans to switch their entire fleet to electric starting with 25,000 electric vehicles by 2015, switching to electric vehicles? Because over the course of their entire life they save tons of money on gas. Here is a link to an article about a company called, KCATA, they estimate that just ONE electric truck will save them 100,000 over its entire life. http://www.kcata.org/news/kcata_adds...ruck_to_fleet/ I'd sure like to save 100,000G's. Maybe this particular truck is not a good idea for a scrap metal business, this is why I'm also considering waiting till a major motor company, i.g. Ford, to come out with an electric truck.

Ford did build an electric truck.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Ranger_EV

Dru,
I am a vehicle mechanic in the Air Force, we have a couple of these trucks on our base, i do not remember the cost for the repairs of the diff, sorry. they are being used to haul parts around.
in our vehicles the problem with the catching fire has been corrected, the company took them back and removed 1/2 of the batteries, now we have less range (i dont think anything was wrong in the first place the batteries were abused which is what caused the fire) but you cant tell the higher ups that so we lost range on it.
if you are lucky to find one with the Li batteries for a good price i would get it.
if nothing else use it as a platform to build a better one...take one tired S10 or Ranger with manual transmission, pull engine swap all E-parts into S10/Ranger lock trans into 2nd gear add axtra batteries for more range and have fun.
as far as charging, plug it into the wall, the ones we have, have a built in charger Li batteries should be charged after each use and generally charge up fast. our trucks the way we use and charge them the battery life has actually been extended by charging them after each use, the one that cought fire was fully drained then let sit for a while then when they went to charge it that is when it had its melt down.
fyi max speed in the ones we have is 25mph, but gets ther in the blink of an eye, lots of torque.
if you want to know anything more, ask, i wil do my best to get info for ya.
brandon

You guys are thinking WAY too hard about this. The money will never equal out. First time you have to replace a battery or motor, you'll be cashed out. Large companies can run them because they have the $$$ to do so, but I guarantee, they are operating at a loss.

If this is all daydreams, so be it.

The trucks I have use a deep cycle RV/marine type. Whether that is OEM or not, I don't know. It apparently worked at the time, as 2 of the 3 trucks have that type. 3rd is missing the batteries.

If what the OP wants to get takes an RV/marine type, then replacement isn't going to be too bad.

I just had a thought. You live in Vegas, it's sunny a lot right? Slap some solar panels on the roof. I know they make battery solar trickle chargers but who knows if they make anything beyond 12 volt. If you got it set up just right I would think it would keep the batteries topped off.

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Originally Posted by IdahoScrapper

The trucks I have use a deep cycle RV/marine type. Whether that is OEM or not, I don't know. It apparently worked at the time, as 2 of the 3 trucks have that type. 3rd is missing the batteries.

If what the OP wants to get takes an RV/marine type, then replacement isn't going to be too bad.

I just had a thought. You live in Vegas, it's sunny a lot right? Slap some solar panels on the roof. I know they make battery solar trickle chargers but who knows if they make anything beyond 12 volt. If you got it set up just right I would think it would keep the batteries topped off.

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Solar sounds good but would not be effective to charge the batts. nor would the cost to have three 12 volt panels wired in series to obtain 36 volt.

It would maintain the charge when not in use but would not charge fast enough to pay for itself or be effective.

he said, she said...yaddah, yaddah!!!!!!!!!!

make your own call I say, buy it if its what you really want to do, and be happy with the decission :)

Thanks.

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Large companies can run them because they have the $$$ to do so, but I guarantee, they are operating at a loss.

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They also get one h*ll of a tax write-off for buying them, I'd still opt for the baby Suzuki gas trucks, they been building them for quite a few years now.
http://www.americasminitruckcenter.c...mini-truck.jpg Mick, they even have one for you when winter hits,
http://www.americasminitruckcenter.c...ks-hunting.JPG

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Originally Posted by Mechanic688

They also get one h*ll of a tax write-off for buying them, I'd still opt for the baby Suzuki gas trucks, they been building them for quite a few years now.
http://www.americasminitruckcenter.c...mini-truck.jpg Mick, they even have one for you when winter hits,
http://www.americasminitruckcenter.c...ks-hunting.JPG

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THIS^^ would be a much better choice.

look what popped up in neck of the woods:

http://chico.craigslist.org/cto/2704750427.html

Daihatsu 4x4 Pickup