Recent content by bpdougd

A recurring theme on this forum is “better batteries and longer range are coming soon, probably before the first Scout ships”. And, there is a lot of R&D going on to create those better batteries. But, I am not as optimistic as some here that we will see those better batteries and longer range...

Good points. My 2015 Ram Ecodiesel gets a solid 20mpg pure city and 30mpg pure highway. It’s rated to tow 7700 pounds but that is largely a cooling limitation. I have hauled a skid steer plus implements plus an over 2k pounds trailer (total over 14k) from Craig, Colorado to our cabin. The last...

For it's (heavily) advertised purpose (off road), a 230 mile range is disqualifying.

I couldn't find a sub-forum for general battery tech. Mods, please move this if another forum is more appropriate. Looks like this is ready for production. In the context of use by domestic car makers, IMO, the benefits are lower cost, better cold weather performance and freedom from reliance...

True enough but when it comes to something as basic as transportation I am not the early-adopter type. But, bless those early Model T buyers.

The "trailering friendly" part is the fly in the ointment for me. The Maverik station/convenience store in Craig, CO (the last stop before we proceed to our cabin) has a half dozen Tesla chargers but they are pull-in-nose-first. If I used them with a trailer attached I would block all of them...

I won't be an early adopter either. My 12-year-old Ram Ecodiesel runs fine, gets outstanding fuel econony (20mpg pure city, 30mpg pure highway) and is paid for. A few years from now it will be 15 years old (and I'll be eighty should my luck hold). At that point I will likely buy my last vehicle.

When charging times get withing shouting distance of fill-up times... well, "game changer" is an overused term but this could qualify.

In 2015 I bought a brand new Ram 1500 with the 3.0 liter diesel. Fuel economy was excellent (20 city, 32 highway hand calculated) with the OEM tires. Hated having to go run it “at highway speeds) every few hundred miles to avoid clogging up the DPF (and going into limp mode necessitating a trip...

Here's a pretty good exploration of the effects of drag and temperature on EV range. https://www.geotab.com/blog/ev-range-impact-of-speed-and-temperature/ As I've noted previously, we travel often (three seasons) to our cabin in NW Colorado. The cabin is off-grid. It has a 25 year old 12 volt...

AFAIK, there are no "put it on a window sticker" battery range specs yet. Current (no pun intended) range specs for available EVs are a bit optimistic and vary widely with load and temperature. I hope your crystal ball is correct. I like the idea of a "pure" EV but it simply does not work for me...

As others have noted in this thread, it's all about your use case. My current vehicle is a 2015 Ram with the 3.0L ecodiesel. We travel to our remote cabin (NW Colorado) a dozen times or so from spring to fall (and once or twice during hunting season). It is 310 miles one-way from Colorado...

This version of the new Scout (and the analogous Ram) are of the most interest to me. I have always wondered why no vehicle manufacturers had built hybrid EV's on the diesel-electric model. Seems a no brainer. The battery can be smaller and lighter (you have a battery charger "on board"). There...