Off Road Dreaming

[JBee]

I'm thinking we could write a whole series of Cybertruck Tales, with all the fiction that has been written here on this forum.

When Bully meats Beary
Cybergus: The Meme Within
Seven Signs of the Kodiak - Cybertruck Pricing Apocalypse
CyberChucky - ICE cold horror
The Midgate Scandal
Crissa presents: An inconvenient Inflation
Release the Cybertruck (and hurry up about it!)

?

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[TyPope]

Where I off-road most often, it's possible to run out of gas but not out of battery power. You heard me right.

All the good off-road ventures lead out of the river valley up into the mountains. If I am dumb enough to run out I would just regen back down. In my Model 3 I can generally add 17-20 miles in a 12-mile return trip, more than enough to take me back down the valley highway to various charge locations. However, the Model 3 can only go on roads without high drainage swales, storm damage and landslides on the road. Most of the highest and best routes require a high clearance 4x4 vehicle.

In my F-150 I would be stuck because it would be foolhardy to try to descend without the engine powering the brakes and (especially) the steering. In most cases, I don't think it's even physically possible due to the steepness of the grade and need to turn the steering from lock to lock to traverse washouts and sections of road that have fallen away. These can take many years to get repaired, if ever. But, even the roads I've managed to navigate on my Model 3, the steepness ensures exceptional regen, even as I'm dodging larger rocks, drainage swales and other hazards that could cause bottoming without careful choice of lines.

There are no canyons around here that are below the highways and county roads, all the four wheeling is up, up, and away! Still, I've found the Model 3 to be super-efficient when crawling these rugged roads at 2-15 mph. There is essentially no drag from air resistance, so it all comes down to the delta between drive efficiency and 100% efficient and regen efficiency and 100% efficient along with whatever is used for auxiliary purposes like the stereo, lights and climate control. I've found the draw of those things to be really minimal when I have up to 75kWh to work with. Even if I start the venture with only 50 kWh, that is a lot of power! The Cybertruck will have much more. When you climb a big mountain trail you are left with a bunch of potential energy represented by the weight of your vehicle and the elevation it's sitting at. As you descend, it's surprising how quickly it can charge your battery! This also works on paved roads, but they are rarely steep enough to get a lot due to wind drag consuming most of the potential energy. Four-wheeling the speeds are slower and the grades are often steeper so the regen potential increases more than you might guess.

If you want to "supercharge" your regen potential when in the mountains, simply load the bed with, for example, 15 100 lb. rocks. Or shovel the bed full of snow heavy spring snow. This could be useful if running low on range and still having another pass to climb before getting back to civilization. Just make sure to remove the ballast after you make the descent and before you have to make the ascent. The amount of extra regen the extra weight provides is substantial, even compared to the amount of work to get it into the bed or trunk. That's because you are only lifting the weight a few feet compared to the regen opportunity provided by, for example, a 2000–4000-foot descent. This is an option that is simply not possible with a gas or diesel rig which unfortunately consume a surprising amount of fuel, even when descending and even when travelling at very slow speeds.

There are some mining trucks that carry heavy loads down the hill and those trucks regen more than it takes to get the truck back up the hill. Question: How much weight would you have to have in/behind the CT to recover more electricity than it takes to get the empty CT up the hill? Hmm...

 

[JBee]

There are some mining trucks that carry heavy loads down the hill and those trucks regen more than it takes to get the truck back up the hill. Question: How much weight would you have to have in/behind the CT to recover more electricity than it takes to get the empty CT up the hill? Hmm...

There's actually a parallel discussion about doing this down Pikes Peak.
https://www.cybertruckownersclub.com/forum/threads/500-mile-cybertruck-is-a-must.5586/post-114811

 

[HaulingAss]

There are some mining trucks that carry heavy loads down the hill and those trucks regen more than it takes to get the truck back up the hill. Question: How much weight would you have to have in/behind the CT to recover more electricity than it takes to get the empty CT up the hill? Hmm...

This is essentially asking, how much ballast do I need on the downhill leg to be able to continuously drive up and down the hill indefinitely, while never needing to charge the vehicle from an outside source.

The answer will depend upon things like how fast you are going (because that impacts losses to aerodynamic drag), the rolling efficiency of your tires and the steepness of the grade. Based on my subjective experiences with my model 3 in the mountains and combined with what I know about the efficiency of EV's in both drive mode and regen mode, I would say a Cybertruck could easily drive indefintely up and down a 20% grade at 15 mph if it took on ballast for each downhill leg of 2000 lbs. (and probably quite a bit less). This is a very conservative estimate so it's likely you could unload a substantial surplus into a stationary storage unit that could be used to supply the surplus to nearby homes or charge other EV's.

The catch is, you would need an endless supply of ballast at the top and, if it's not water, a bottomless pit to unload it all at the bottom unless you could find a market for the ballast. Water from a non-fish-bearing stream would be relatively low-impact and easy to load at the top and discharge at the bottom (ideally into the same waterway). To save energy, it could be loaded via siphon and discharged via gravity.

 

[Cybertruckee]

Sloshing water could be a real danger off road. Also if you accidentally catch a fish in there...straight to jail.

That's why I also make sure I have a fishing license.

While camping, a Big Sur park ranger almost ticketed me for having a fishing rod (protecting the steelhead).

 

[SwampNut]

Reminds me of the joke about the woman who took her husband's fishing boat out just to read on the lake.

 

[JBee]

Reminds me of the joke about the woman who took her husband's fishing boat out just to read on the lake.

How did the book end? With swimming with the fishes?

 

[Crissa]

Reading while being gently rocked by the wind is rather nice. I'd row out onto the lake to do that. It's why I even had a boat at all.

I never caught a fish from it ^-^

-Crissa

 

[SwampNut]

A woman decided to take her husbands fishing boat out. She was not familiar with the lake, so she rowed out a bit and anchored the boat, and started reading her book. Along comes the Game Warden in his boat, pulls up alongside the woman's boat and asks her what she's doing? She says, "Reading my book." The Game Warden tells her she is in a restricted fishing area and she explains that she's not fishing. To which he replied, "But you have all this equipment. I will have to take you in and write you up!" Angry that the warden was being so unreasonable, the lady told the warden, "If you do that, I will charge you with rape." The warden, shocked by her statement, replied, "But I didn't even touch you."

To which the lady replied, "Yeah, but you have all the equipment!"

 

[JBee]

Obviously only makes sense and is funny to people who deal with rangers often.
Most are on a power trip. We had one like that a while ago, he didn't last, they had to employ an extra person in the shire just to handle all the complaints he got.

 

[Zabhawkin]

On the trails we usually go on its ok to move rocks around to get through, but it is a listed off-road recreation area. Though it is considered bad form to leave them stacked up.

The forest service has gotten rather hostile over the past couple of decades, but there are so few that even bother to leave their office that I haven't seen any outside of the travel management meetings.

I don't plan on taking the Cybertruck on anything particularly difficult, I already have a toy that I don't mind if I get a dent in it.

 

[SwampNut]

Obviously only makes sense and is funny to people who deal with rangers often.

Dunno, the squirrel police around AZ are mostly pretty cool, except for one super aggressive fed at a national park way North. I unwittingly hiked into a no-hiking area from the back, where there were no markings. She only wanted to scream, not listen. I have no respect for badges or unearned respect, so I put on full smartass mode and had a great time with it.

Mostly though they are chatty, love their jobs, and a few have been very helpful. Two have given me excellent new shooting spots.

 

[JBee]

Dunno, the squirrel police around AZ are mostly pretty cool, except for one super aggressive fed at a national park way North. I unwittingly hiked into a no-hiking area from the back, where there were no markings. She only wanted to scream, not listen. I have no respect for badges or unearned respect, so I put on full smartass mode and had a great time with it.

Mostly though they are chatty, love their jobs, and a few have been very helpful. Two have given me excellent new shooting spots.

Yeah there are different types for sure, but I meant in context with the joke.

The shire Ranger wasn't great, but our national park one is the exact opposite. So many old sites from the gold rush nobody else knows about. Sort of reminds me of a wise Gandalf of the Aussie bush.

No hunting here unless its on private property. Need a gun licence and a property big enough to use it on with a legit pest to kill with it. Can't shoot kangaroos etc without a population control licence, you can shoot rabbits and foxes, if you have them. Both of which aren't native and are considered a pest and are heavily baited, which is a pain when you have your own dogs. Same with stray household cats that grow to twice the size and are decimating natural habitats that normally don't have predators.

Then we have the famous cain toad that was another complete intentional import that went wrong. Those four species have done more native damage than humans with guns could have ever done.

Only cops and security get hand guns in public here. I suppose at least our rangers don't carry guns, lol. Which makes it interesting when they call you to put a kangaroo down that somebody hit with their car on the highway. ?

 

[SwampNut]

I'm in Arizona, we can just carry any firearm almost anywhere, and shooting is pretty liberal. Have to be 1/4 mile from an occupied structure and not shoot across roadways. Hmm, who will make a rifle rack for the CT...?

 

[Zabhawkin]

Pretty similar in New Mexico, in addition you have to be something like 100ft away from the roadway as well. Its hard to tell how many are carrying when on the trail most are pro 2A but they are kept stored unless needed and New Mexico considers inside the vehicle to be an extension of the home so anyone who can legally carry can carry consealed inside their cars. But due to demographics I would say 50%+ are armed.

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