How long before we see a Kubota BEV?

motionclone

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So its a coal powered excavator instead of diesel?
 

SidecarFlip

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My cousin spent the weekend with us(from Chicago). He drove his Tesla X SUV. Went for a ride in it. Talk about acceleration, how about 0-60 in 2.5 seconds. What a rocket ship. I plugged him into the 220 volt shop power overnight to charge him back up.

Little too rich for my blood ($130K) but sweet. He wanted me to drive it, I passed but took a ride in it. Did the auto steer thing, goes down the road without touching the steering wheel.

I't coal fired in as much as the local utility burns coal to make power.
 

motionclone

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Id buy an electric truck if:

Its cheaper than a gas truck
its more reliable than a gas truck
gets better mileage than a gas truck
electricity price is low and stable
can be recharged in 5 minutes like a fill up
lasts as long as a gas truck
safe as a gas truck
as much power as a gas truck

When those things are met alternative energy will sell itself no need to guilt or legislate people into that tech.
 

Treckerzeug

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Freeheeler

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I don't see why all electric vehicles don't have a solar panel on the roof and hood. I have a ten minute drive work. If it had a solar panel to top off the battery while it sat in the sun for 8 hrs while I'm at work, I'd never have to plug in. But then I would miss out on having to do oil changes, timing belt changes, rusted out exhausts, etc.
 

lugbolt

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I drag raced a Tesla a couple years ago down at PBR.

It's quick from 0-60 but peters out quickly. That characteristic is pretty normal for EV's.

They were playing with it, against other cars. Ran it against a Hellcat Challenger. IIRC the Hell-cat ran 10.77 at 120 and the Tesla went 10.69 at 115. MPH is mostly always lower on EV's than gas burners because the horsepower just isn't there.

After making a run, the Tesla had to be charged. It would've gone further without, but it was weaker. Also typical of EV's.

EV's won't "take over" until the price comes down, they can be charged in 5 minutes, the range is 400 miles+, etc. That's going to take a while.

Having spent some time with EV, they're also sort of a pain to maintain. One thing a lot of folks forget is that the more you load the drive system, the less life you get out of a charge. When Bad Boy came out with their EV utility vehicles, they were the cat's meow until it was used to climb a hill. They advertised 30 miles on a charge and that was correct, however, the first time you put the throttle to the floor going up a hill, it would cut the range back to 5 miles. It was a bad deal. Salesman said 30 miles, so guys would take them 10 miles from the truck, and they'd die.....in the middle of nowhere, where daylight has to be pumped in, then we'd be the bad guy. Made a lot of people mad, and that's when they actually worked right. Couple years is all you got out of the 8 batteries, and the last set I put in was over $1600 just for the batteries. Electric car battery packs are VERY expensive as well.

They just have too many issues to be viable for anything or anyone but the rich and EV enthusiast.
 

troverman

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To the OP: thanks for posting that. Very interesting read. I think the big OEMs are all furiously working on EV rigs, whether wheeled or tracks, because they are fearful of what legislation might come down and really harm their companies.

This indeed proves a large excavator can function perfectly well on a battery source. If the stats are correct, it is impressive: 5-7 hours operating time, 80% battery capacity at 10k hours.

The problem lies in the charging. Most excavation sites don't have an electrical outlet on site...and if they do it isn't 63A at 220V. Many jobs require an excavator this large, or several, operating for a couple of weeks. At the end of each day, a service truck (or home heating oil truck) comes along and refuels all the machines in short order. Ready to work again, no problem.

So I guess if you are excavating in a city and can plug in over night, it might be OK...although some guys will put 10 hours in a machine before going home for the night.

Frankly, I love diesel engines. Love the sound, and even the smell to an extent. I love all the moving parts. And a brand new excavator is running DPF, EGR, SCR, and DOC systems. The emissions coming out of the pipe are quite small.
 

bearbait

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Green is good in my opinion the more the better however I don't believe it will be affordable nor practical in my time. I'll be alright with being wrong though as long as they let us keep our go fast toys.
 

Stmar

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Wow, that's a lot of battery bank, 3.4 tons. The battery bank for my alternative power system is only about 600#, 4 X 6 volt AGMs and I thought that was a lot. Ford is working on an electric F150 but I agree with the other posters that it will not be feasible until they get a quick and efficient charge system. Some super solar panel integrated, say in the roof, may be an answer. Living in the country you don't have plug ins on every corner, in fact you don't have corners except for where the fences come together. Range and efficiency are the key issues for electric vehicles. Wonder how they would work in the snow busting drifts??
 

troverman

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Wow, that's a lot of battery bank, 3.4 tons. The battery bank for my alternative power system is only about 600#, 4 X 6 volt AGMs and I thought that was a lot. Ford is working on an electric F150 but I agree with the other posters that it will not be feasible until they get a quick and efficient charge system. Some super solar panel integrated, say in the roof, may be an answer. Living in the country you don't have plug ins on every corner, in fact you don't have corners except for where the fences come together. Range and efficiency are the key issues for electric vehicles. Wonder how they would work in the snow busting drifts??
Solar panels in the roof would only supply a tiny fraction of power to charge the battery. 20 years ago, you could buy the most expensive Audi on sale - an A8 4.2L quattro - and optionally equip it with a sunroof that was a solar panel. The normal feature was a glass moonroof, but if you wanted the solar panel, your sunroof was obviously no longer see-through. The solar sunroof supplied enough power to run the climate control fan on low speed to try to keep the interior a little cooler on a sunny hot day. Granted, solar panels are probably a little better than they were 20 years ago, but even if the entire skin of the vehicle was a solar panel it wouldn't begin to supply over 400 volts at 250 amps.

Snow plowing duties, with a lot of going forward and then reversing, is hard on battery life. When Tesla says 335 miles for it's longest range vehicle, that means ideal conditions, 55-60mph, flat or gently rolling terrain, dry and pleasant weather. If it's hot, cold, raining, or hilly, or you have a lot of payload on board...that number is going to sink fast.