Would you be willing to give up 4" of headroom for more range?

[JBee]

The whole premise of reducing the headroom by 4" is just dumb.

If you reduce it buy 4" you are reducing total passenger height by some 8", which makes the rear only for kids and not adults. Remember 4" headroom is from the seat up, not the feet up.

It's already borderline low in the rear.

Further as outlined here in great detail double stacking the cells means a whole host of problems, plus it would no longer be structural.

https://www.cybertruckownersclub.co...battery-pack-explained-how-does-it-work.9731/

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[TheLastStarfighter]

They could have double stacked the battery AND kept headroom AND kept ground clearance if they just made the vehicle taller. It's about 7" shorter than an F150 at mid height. Make it same height, problem solved.

Personally, I'm glad they didn't do this. That 7"+ of lower driving position will make it vastly better as a driver's car. It's one of my favorite CT features. I'm OK with sacrificing some bed space for a Range extender as I'll rarely use the full bed but will enjoy the lowered height every day.

I'm not sure overall that my use case is the best for Tesla. There is clearly a sacrifice here to provide the "performance of s sports car" in a truck. But I'm happy about it.

 

[Crissa]

Allow the rear wheels to turn at a larger angle than they currently can. Let them turn as much as the front wheels do and now you're still pretty darn maneuverable. You also have room for 2 more feet of battery pack which adds up to quite a few kWh I'm sure.

Every few degrees you add to the rear steering, you take inches off the width of the bed - doubled, because both sides.

I don't see much overlap with the Semi because as an ordinary driver I have no use for a semi truck, but I could make plenty of use of an 8 foot bed. In my mind the only thing you're giving up here is the ability to park it in a garage, something that most truck owners don't do anyway.

That's because you are thinking like it's an ICE vehicle, not an EV. It's just a platform that has torque and speeds at certain loads. Unlike an ICE drivetrain, it's not specialized to certain narrow use profiles - electric motors have broad, overlapping curves instead if narrow bands. And under loading them you don't waste much energy as you get back in reliability.

The original Semi prototype was just four Model 3 motors. The current one is similar to the Cybertruck, just a little larger with a physical clutch and single gear.

You want a long bed, you want long range, you want high load capacity you want reliability... the Semi platform does that already.

You don't need a Semi, but that's what it takes to go that range.

They could have double stacked the battery AND kept headroom AND kept ground clearance if they just made the vehicle taller. It's about 7" shorter than an F150 at mid height. Make it same height, problem solved.

Yep.

But that means fewer miles per kilowatt, worse performance, and worse crash avoidance and worse for whoever they hit.

7", btw, is almost two layers of cells.

-Crissa

 

[Fleetwood75]

That's because you are thinking like it's an ICE vehicle, not an EV. It's just a platform that has torque and speeds at certain loads. Unlike an ICE drivetrain, it's not specialized to certain narrow use profiles - electric motors have broad, overlapping curves instead if narrow bands. And under loading them you don't waste much energy as you get back in reliability.

The original Semi prototype was just four Model 3 motors. The current one is similar to the Cybertruck, just a little larger with a physical clutch and single gear.

You want a long bed, you want long range, you want high load capacity you want reliability... the Semi platform does that already.

You don't need a Semi, but that's what it takes to go that range.

I see what you mean. A truck body built on the semi platform. Now that’s a great idea!

 

[Crissa]

I see what you mean. A truck body built on the semi platform. Now that’s a great idea!

Yeah. Tho it wouldn't look quite that goofy!

-Crissa

 

[HaulingAss]

One of the things rumored about the original Cybertruck design is that it would have a double-layer battery in the long-range configuration.

That's become more clear that it really was part of the original design, since they're missing the target by almost half!

So, where would you put it?

Changing the frontal size would reduce the range as well, so... Would you be willing to give up head room to stick that pack under the seats?

Let's get some ideas.

-Crissa

I don't believe a double layer battery was ever planned. It's just that the battery energy density still isn't up to original projections and the shortening of the truck left less room for batteries. On top of fewer batteries, Elon was just wrong by about 15% of what they could achieve given the size/weight and large wheels. Besides the shortening of the truck reducing battery space, I think they had to leave out a couple more rows of cells (front to back) due to side ingress protection, and there may be other unexpected contraints as well. For example, ranges might have been calculated using all permanent magnet motors but less efficient indction motors were substituted when it was realized they were no where near their anticipated cost to manufacture.

I do think Cybertruck will return better range than anticipated on the highway if speeds are kept reasonable (on the slower side). This is because EPA numbers are impacted downward due to the rotational inertial of those monster wheels/tires and at a steady state speed rotational inertia is not be a negative impact.

I also think the Cybertuck will return increasingly poorer than exected efficiencies as speeds rise above 60-65 mph. I say this because it looks like at increasing speeds the air will increasingly seperate from the roof, at the peak of the roof. So, if you expect to blaze on trips at 75-85 mph, the range hit might be greater than expected since our expectations are formed by vehicles with rounded roofs. Keep the speeds on the slow end and I suspect the results will be impressive.

Having lived with two Tesla for over 5 years that have 300+ miles of EPA range, and often better efficiency than that in the real world, I'm more than satisfied with 320-340 miles of range and would not put up with an anchor of a battery to get additional range that would rarely even be of a benefit, and, when it was, it would mostly be a benefit of minor convenience. I'm into the way vehicles drive, and what tires they can wear. Vehicles that are too heavy suck. I'm impressed that Tesla got the weight of the Cybertruck right in there with 1/2 ton ICE trucks that don't have heavy batteries.

Also, being 6'-04", I really don't want to give up as much interior headroom as would be required to fit another layer of 4680's and supporting structure in there.

The obvious conclusion with the range being less than announced is less energy density in the batteries and Elon being too optimistic and not calculating things out in a rigorous manner, using conservative assumptions.

He had a lot on his plate and just "winged it" a little too much for my liking. That said, his good attributes encourage a lot of forgiveness for his weaknesses and it's hard for me to fault him over the little stuff. The fact is, he actually brought the truck that people said would never make it to market, to market. So big kudos to that that! He proved a lot of people wrong at the delivery event.

 

[CyberGus]

HOT TIP: if you’re over 6’ tall, remember to always call shotgun

 

[OhmsLolEnforcement]

Absolutely not, if I could increase the backseat headroom I would.

Same here. I'd take a 5% hit to add 2" of headroom in the rear. I wouldn't shave anything off the front for any range increase. I'm 1.96 meters tall. I need every bit I can get.

Setting us early adopters and VIPs aside for a moment, this is a TOUGH truck. Made for rough environments and WORK. A lot of folks who wear hardhats for a living are going to drive it. A couple extra inches of headroom, front or back seat, will be appreciated. It's a major quality of life thing. Headroom has a non-trivial impact on perception, too.

 

[Startreknerd]

One of the things rumored about the original Cybertruck design is that it would have a double-layer battery in the long-range configuration.

That's become more clear that it really was part of the original design, since they're missing the target by almost half!

So, where would you put it?

Changing the frontal size would reduce the range as well, so... Would you be willing to give up head room to stick that pack under the seats?

Let's get some ideas.

-Crissa

Cybertruck 2.0?

 

[geekwithout]

Heck no. And it won't happen anyways. It's a limited market and shrinking. We'll have more chargers everywhere by the time the truck is built in high volume (and even more by the time this option would be even available). no.

 

[NoTime]

^^ This.
With that design you'd have less of an angle on the rear slope of the cab, giving more headroom in the rear seat as well.

 

[JBee]

Same here. I'd take a 5% hit to add 2" of headroom in the rear. I wouldn't shave anything off the front for any range increase. I'm 1.96 meters tall. I need every bit I can get.

Setting us early adopters and VIPs aside for a moment, this is a TOUGH truck. Made for rough environments and WORK. A lot of folks who wear hardhats for a living are going to drive it. A couple extra inches of headroom, front or back seat, will be appreciated. It's a major quality of life thing. Headroom has a non-trivial impact on perception, too.

Why are you selling yourself so short?
I'm 1.98 and I love me some headroom!

The thing I dislike most, like in the MY, is that the glass is hard on impact over bumps. Could of all been solved by moving the apex back a bit and making the tailgate a but higher.

Doing the opposite and making it 4" lower to get more batteries in is just silly talk.

It then simply becomes a 2 seater.

 

[rodmacpherson]

I don't think that it is necessary to give up head room, I would gladly give up 4" of ground clearance fromthe 17" max that leaves it at 13" which is still more than almost all stock trucks in its class.
rhat would *almost* double the range (accounting fir extra weight and inability to lower quite as far for highway driving) with no loss of cargo space or passenger comfort.

 

[Fleetwood75]

Having lived with two Tesla for over 5 years that have 300+ miles of EPA range, and often better efficiency than that in the real world, I'm more than satisfied with 320-340 miles of range and would not put up with an anchor of a battery to get additional range that would rarely even be of a benefit, and, when it was, it would mostly be a benefit of minor convenience.

I'd be very happy with a vehicle that could get me even 240 miles of range, but the caveat is that it has to get that 240 with a trailer behind it. And that's the problem here. I agree that 320-340 miles is perfectly adequate with no trailer, but that become what, 160 - 170 miles with the trailer? Not exactly great for taking the camper up to Yosemite, or out to Zion...

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