Planning on using one of those neat, popular, new electric vehicles to tow around a camper this summer and take a trip to a beautiful National Forest, pristine campsite in the beautiful Appalachians, or even just on a fun tour of the country?
Or maybe you just got the truck and want to show it off while getting some good karma in, so you plan on using it to help a friend move and think you can use it to drag around a U-Haul trailer.
Well, if that describes you in the slightest, think again; someone just tried to use their electric truck to cart around a camper and the experiment crashed and burned in a miserable failure…just 85 miles after they started the journey.
Independent Journal Review reported on the experiment, noting that the contest was between the new, electrified Ford F-150 and the V-8 powered GMC Denali, both top-of-the-line trucks. In IJR’s words:
YouTube publisher Fast Lane Truck did a comparison between an electric and a gas-powered pickup to determine how far each could tow a 3-ton box trailer.
The contestants were an electrified Ford F150 pickup vs. a GMC Denali Ultimate Edition with a 6.2-liter V-8 gas engine.
Both trucks were hooked up to 25-foot trailers large enough to hold an entire car when empty.
Well, that experiment didn’t even make it one hundred miles.
In the beginning, when both vehicles finished filling up their energy stores in Colorado, the electric truck’s computer estimated 160 miles of range, which included calculating for the size and weight of the trailer, with the GMC estimating a 264-mile range after accounting for those variables.
That didn’t last. Shortly after leaving the computer recalculated, then recalculated again, forcing the driver of the electric truck to turn around and find a fast-charging station. In IJR’s words:
But that estimate was optimistic. The electric truck had only traveled 6 miles when the computer recalculated range from 160 to 150 miles, cutting things very close if it was to reach Pueblo. That called for a change of plans — the new charging stop was Colorado Springs, about 45 miles closer.
After going 50 miles, the electric truck recalculated its range to indicate it couldn’t even make Colorado Springs. South of Denver, the truck was down to a 20 percent battery charge and, concerned about being stranded with a dead battery, the driver had to turn around and drive the F150 back north to the Denver exurb of Castle Rock to find a fast charger.
And that wasn’t even the end of the electric truck driver’s troubles:
With low battery warnings blazing, and power automatically reduced to 90 percent, the electric truck, with 9 percent left on its battery, hobbled into a Target parking lot in Castle Rock.
But that caused another problem. Battery chargers tend to be lined in rows on the edge of parking lots. Because they do not provide a drive-through like a traditional gas pump, they cannot accommodate a vehicle with a trailer.
What a disaster. Seems much more like the future will be gas-powered than battery-powered, particularly if the future requires a trailer…
The only redeeming part of the experiment for the Ford was that it was far cheaper per mile than the GMC, though it’s hard to get too excited about that when the truck couldn’t even complete the trip.
By: Gen Z Conservative, editor of GenZConservative.com. Follow me on Facebook and Subscribe to My Email List
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This story syndicated with permission from Gen Z Conservative