Is the EREV going to be a flop?

[Foolcyclist]

So, the more I read about how the Harvester is actually playing out, the more I wish I would have reserved the BEV.

Less electric range, smaller battery, worse towing capacity, the complexities of the 4 cylinder engine. It all seems like we are getting an inferior version of what the Scout could be.

When I first heard about the Harvester concept and made my early deposit, I was imaging something more like a generator. I could drive into the mountains a few hundred miles, set up camp, turn on the generator and charge the truck for another full battery of 300-500 miles. But its just not what are we getting.

Thoughts, disappointments, disccusions?

 

[maynard]

So, the more I read about how the Harvester is actually playing out, the more I wish I would have reserved the BEV.

Less electric range, smaller battery, worse towing capacity, the complexities of the 4 cylinder engine. It all seems like we are getting an inferior version of what the Scout could be.

When I first heard about the Harvester concept and made my early deposit, I was imaging something more like a generator. I could drive into the mountains a few hundred miles, set up camp, turn on the generator and charge the truck for another full battery of 300-500 miles. But its just not what are we getting.

Thoughts, disappointments, disccusions?

Switch your reservation to a BEV...

Oh, and Welcome to the forum!

 

[LastDayScout]

So, the more I read about how the Harvester is actually playing out, the more I wish I would have reserved the BEV.

Less electric range, smaller battery, worse towing capacity, the complexities of the 4 cylinder engine. It all seems like we are getting an inferior version of what the Scout could be.

When I first heard about the Harvester concept and made my early deposit, I was imaging something more like a generator. I could drive into the mountains a few hundred miles, set up camp, turn on the generator and charge the truck for another full battery of 300-500 miles. But its just not what are we getting.

Thoughts, disappointments, disccusions?

I don't know if it will be a flop. But, I have a Traveler "Electrall" BEV reserved for all the reasons you mentioned plus some. You can switch your reservation at any time.

 

[cyure]

So, the more I read about how the Harvester is actually playing out, the more I wish I would have reserved the BEV.

Less electric range, smaller battery, worse towing capacity, the complexities of the 4 cylinder engine. It all seems like we are getting an inferior version of what the Scout could be.

When I first heard about the Harvester concept and made my early deposit, I was imaging something more like a generator. I could drive into the mountains a few hundred miles, set up camp, turn on the generator and charge the truck for another full battery of 300-500 miles. But its just not what are we getting.

Thoughts, disappointments, disccusions?

Welcome! I don’t think it will be a flop, but I do wonder if there’s a portion of EREV reservation holders who switch to BEV when the actual specs are released. I also hope we get specs for both at the same time so people can compare and make an informed decision.

And as some members have already stated you can switch at anytime. Your reservation number and place in line will not change. Also, we aren’t locked in until we place our order and we can order any of the 4. Only then are we locked in so to speak.

Welcome again, glad to see your first great and post!

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

One of the many, many reasons I wouldn’t buy an EREV is that I don’t want to deal with ICE anymore. In every use-case that I have, they’re inferior to electric. I have a diesel tractor that I hate using because of the noise, smell, and cost and inconvenience of fuel. And I have an obnoxious gas chainsaw and I only use it when I need to cut something large. Otherwise I use my smaller electric chainsaw. I’ll replace both as soon as I possibly can.

 

[Cranky Canuck]

I don't think it will be a commercial flop given how popular it seems to be and how many people feel like they need a safety blanket gas-burner.
I suspect though that most EREV buyers will come to the same conclusion that all PHEV buyers eventually come to, and that's that BEV is just better.

I owned a PHEV for a few years about a decade ago along with an old used EV. Even though my old used EV was a clunker with short range (1st Gen Leaf) I quickly realized that I didn't really need or want the annoying gas engine. PHEVs - and by extension EREVs - get you used to the quiet, smooth, hassle-free ride and quickness of an EV. And then they shatter that illusion when the obnoxious, dumb gas engine kicks in. Over time you come to resent the gas engine and all the money you spend keeping it going even though you only really use it a tiny fraction of the time and eventually you get fed up enough with it that you buy a full EV as your next vehicle.

It's a story as old as time.

So will the EREV sell well? Probably.
Will EREV owners all switch to EV eventually? Definitely.

I predict that used values for the EREV version will be chronically lower than for the BEV version.

 

[6-ScoutFamily]

One of the many, many reasons I wouldn’t buy an EREV is that I don’t want to deal with ICE anymore. In every use-case that I have, they’re inferior to electric. I have a diesel tractor that I hate using because of the noise, smell, and cost and inconvenience of fuel. And I have an obnoxious gas chainsaw and I only use it when I need to cut something large. Otherwise I use my smaller electric chainsaw. I’ll replace both as soon as I possibly can.

Funny you should reiterate your points here. You’ve mentioned them in the past and it just occurred to me this is the reason I use electric lawn tools. When I bought a dual line gas string trimmer years ago I thought it was the greatest thing. The continual struggle just to get it started made me say lots of bad things. Except for the lawn mower, all is electric. When the mower dies, electric will be its replacement.

Still on the fence about BEV/EREV Scout. We just don’t know all we need to know yet. There is time yet.

 

[dleepnw]

Once you've owned an EV and tried to do a long road trip, you'll quickly realize the limitations of a BEV. On paper, the EREV addresses a lot of those issues: long charge times, multiple charge stops (300 miles per full battery is not 300 miles between charges), you have to stop on the batteries schedule not yours, potentially long wait lines to charge, potentially broken or slow charger speeds. It seriously adds hours to your trip each way. On a 2400 mile round trip road trip with my R1T, I had to stop to charge 8-10 times each way, which I would have done in 2 stops for an ICE and potentially only 3-4 stops in the EREV.

Until battery and charging technology improves, the EREV is a decent stop gap option for full BEV. For 90% (if not more) of daily driving use cases, 150 miles of battery only range is more than enough. To your point though, there are trade-offs to EREV vs BEV. I'm definitely concerned about complexity and cost of maintenance/repairs, not so concerned about performance. Luckily, there are competitors like GM that will have EREVs out before the Scout so we'll see if this tech actually works in the real world and they can take those lessons learned for their engineering/design decisions.

 

[Cranky Canuck]

Once you've owned an EV and tried to do a long road trip, you'll quickly realize the limitations of a BEV. On paper, the EREV addresses a lot of those issues: long charge times, multiple charge stops (300 miles per full battery is not 300 miles between charges), you have to stop on the batteries schedule not yours, potentially long wait lines to charge, potentially broken or slow charger speeds. It seriously adds hours to your trip each way. On a 2400 mile round trip road trip with my R1T, I had to stop to charge 8-10 times each way, which I would have done in 2 stops for an ICE and potentially only 3-4 stops in the EREV.

Until battery and charging technology improves, the EREV is a decent stop gap option for full BEV. For 90% (if not more) of daily driving use cases, 150 miles of battery only range is more than enough. To your point though, there are trade-offs to EREV vs BEV. I'm definitely concerned about complexity and cost of maintenance/repairs, not so concerned about performance. Luckily, there are competitors like GM that will have EREVs out before the Scout so we'll see if this tech actually works in the real world and they can take those lessons learned for their engineering/design decisions.

That hasn't been my experience at all as a long-time EV owner but to each their own. Driving an EV hasn't added "hours" to any of my trips and I've done things like drive 1,000 km in a day and stuff. I go on road trips about once a month on average and it's usually just one charging stop each way so not a problem at all.

I guess your milage may vary but the cost savings alone make an EV worth it over a combustion vehicle. I also usually stop every four hours or so of driving anyway because I need to eat or use the washroom, so going EV hasn't changed my trip profiles much at all from when we had the TDI Golf.

I think a lot of people like to focus too much on the 1% of journeys they MIGHT do in a year instead of the fact that 99% of their trips would be better in an EV. If you just can't take a BEV on your Kessel run because you need to do it in under 12 parsecs then I'd suggest maybe go rent a diesel Audi to cannon ball that day, but the rest of the time an EV beats combustion on cost, maintenance, and overall ownership experience.

 

[dleepnw]

That hasn't been my experience at all as a long-time EV owner but to each their own. Driving an EV hasn't added "hours" to any of my trips and I've done things like drive 1,000 km in a day and stuff. I go on road trips about once a month on average and it's usually just one charging stop each way so not a problem at all.

I guess your milage may vary but the cost savings alone make an EV worth it over a combustion vehicle. I also usually stop every four hours or so of driving anyway because I need to eat or use the washroom, so going EV hasn't changed my trip profiles much at all from when we had the TDI Golf.

I think a lot of people like to focus too much on the 1% of journeys they MIGHT do in a year instead of the fact that 99% of their trips would be better in an EV. If you just can't take a BEV on your Kessel run because you need to do it in under 12 parsecs then I'd suggest maybe go rent a diesel Audi to cannon ball that day, but the rest of the time an EV beats combustion on cost, maintenance, and overall ownership experience.

If you're charging once during a road trip, then its not a long road trip and you don't really know what its like. Its a lot more complex then just stopping once to charge. Try a 4000+ km trip and get back to me. I also didn't say anything about all the other advantages of a BEV, I agree with all your points there, my point was around long road trips.

 

[R1TVT]

Once you've owned an EV and tried to do a long road trip, you'll quickly realize the limitations of a BEV.

For many of us, the trade-offs for a more leisurely paced road trip are just fine! My longer road trips are now more relaxing knowing that I will simply charge and eat, but I have great infrastructure on East Coast and don't see all these problems you seem to have. In fact, I have never waited in a long line to charge at a DCFC.

90+ percent of my charging is home charging for regular usage. Far more convenient overall!

 

[Chaz26]

That hasn't been my experience at all as a long-time EV owner but to each their own. Driving an EV hasn't added "hours" to any of my trips and I've done things like drive 1,000 km in a day and stuff. I go on road trips about once a month on average and it's usually just one charging stop each way so not a problem at all.

I guess your milage may vary but the cost savings alone make an EV worth it over a combustion vehicle. I also usually stop every four hours or so of driving anyway because I need to eat or use the washroom, so going EV hasn't changed my trip profiles much at all from when we had the TDI Golf.

I think a lot of people like to focus too much on the 1% of journeys they MIGHT do in a year instead of the fact that 99% of their trips would be better in an EV. If you just can't take a BEV on your Kessel run because you need to do it in under 12 parsecs then I'd suggest maybe go rent a diesel Audi to cannon ball that day, but the rest of the time an EV beats combustion on cost, maintenance, and overall ownership experience.

I have a similar thought process. If on a long road trip you spend a couple of hours extra charging, how much time for the rest of the year when you are charging from home and not having to fill up with gas at all do you save in time. We do quite a lot of miles locally that is easily within the range of our EV so just charge from home, probably around 14,000 miles a year. If I filled up every 350 miles that would be 40 fill ups, even discounting having to divert to a gas station, it's still at least 5 minutes per stop which is easily over 3 hours of time saved (in reality it's probably more time than that when we have to divert slightly, pay, pump etc. and we probably fill up more like every 275 miles but I'm trying to make it appear even better for the gas vehicle rather than a worst case scenario, otherwise we might be closer to 5+ hours in time saved).

We did a trip last month from Lancaster, PA to Quebec City, via Boston and Maine, and then down to Montreal and back home from there. Stopped at a hotel half way up and charged over night. Then the hotel we stayed in Quebec City had a level 2 charger in the car park (so did a spa we visited while there) so a lot of time we didn't even lose time for charging. On the main drive up we timed charging stops that were near restaurants so would have been there the same amount of time in a gas car as well. I'd say overall on the entire trip which was around 1,800 miles, we probably spent 45 minutes longer than we would have in a gas car. I'm some people road trip differently to use and want to get there as fast as possible and drive straight through without breaks, and maybe then the EREV is more useful, but for us, it's much more relaxing. I had over $300 of free charging credits from a referral that was expiring at the end of Feb, so the driving portion of the trip was almost free which was a nice bonus.

 

[dleepnw]

For many of us, the trade-offs for a more leisurely paced road trip are just fine! My longer road trips are now more relaxing knowing that I will simply charge and eat, but I have great infrastructure on East Coast and don't see all these problems you seem to have. In fact, I have never waited in a long line to charge at a DCFC.

90+ percent of my charging is home charging for regular usage. Far more convenient overall!

Its definitely possible because of my location (PNW). Going from Seattle to Minneapolis or Chicago is pretty rough. However, many of my road trips are also up and down the west coast. There's pretty good charging infrastructure there, maybe not as dense as the east coast, and its still painful nonetheless.

Stoping to eat, rest, take bio breaks is great, especially if its leisurely, but not all road trips are leisurely. Sometimes you just need to get from point A to point B, which is where the EREV looks like a great option. I can use it for almost all of my daily driving on battery only and then I have the option to extend the range to 500 miles for long road trips. I know the tradeoff is complexity, more potential mechanical issues and regular maintenance but for some (and most people based on reservations), its worth the tradeoff.

 

[LastDayScout]

Going from Seattle to Minneapolis or Chicago is pretty rough.

Let me preface my question as text does not convey tone. I am not trying to sound like an ass. My I ask why you would not fly to such distant locations?

 

[Scoutsie]

Funny you should reiterate your points here. You’ve mentioned them in the past and it just occurred to me this is the reason I use electric lawn tools. When I bought a dual line gas string trimmer years ago I thought it was the greatest thing. The continual struggle just to get it started made me say lots of bad things. Except for the lawn mower, all is electric. When the mower dies, electric will be its replacement.

Still on the fence about BEV/EREV Scout. We just don’t know all we need to know yet. There is time yet.

I updated my EREV reservation today to electric. I know that flies in the face of logic given the news we just got about the EREV coming first, but I think of the smell of the snow blower coming into my bedroom (which is not well insulated) and how, frankly, it reminds me of our old Scout. I loved Scoutsie a lot. There are so many great memories that I have of that car from my childhood. The best thing that I can do to honor my childhood memories is to remember that I am also a grown-ass woman with some responsibilities towards the kids that I don’t have, like my nieces, and drive an electric car. My neighbors won’t hear or smell it. Maybe it won’t get towed and crushed because it’s mistaken for an abandoned car. Someone might still try to steal it (it would suck if they pried off the power button the way someone took off the ignition lock cylinder), that all remains to be seen. I want to make new memories.

 

[robothero]

We did a trip last month from Lancaster, PA

Eastern PA Community is slowly taking over the forums.

 

[Mousehunter]

It will not be an initial flop - range anxiety is a real thing. I think as charging speeds and ranges get better, the need will drop. I also think people will become more aware of the charging locations on the trips they routinely do. People will start to realize they don't need the generator often, but do need to keep it serviced.

But I am not the average buyer - I have several other vehicles that I can use as the trip needs dictate. But honestly, there will be a lot of 2 car families that the BEV will serve quite well in.
---
FWIW, I am mostly completely electric or diesel at the moment. I do enjoy my small electric lawn mower. Easier to carry, quieter to mow, and it starts better each spring. But it does not replace my giant diesel zero turn when I need to mow an large area, or one that is grown up.

 

[Scoutsie]

Eastern PA Community is slowly taking over the forums.

You and your scrapples and your shoofly pies and your roast pork sandwiches

 

[Cranky Canuck]

If you're charging once during a road trip, then its not a long road trip and you don't really know what its like. Its a lot more complex then just stopping once to charge. Try a 4000+ km trip and get back to me. I also didn't say anything about all the other advantages of a BEV, I agree with all your points there, my point was around long road trips.

I have nothing to prove to you and if I were to take a 4000+ km trip I'd use an airplane because it would be to vacation somewhere that isn't the US.

 

[speedrye]

One of the many, many reasons I wouldn’t buy an EREV is that I don’t want to deal with ICE anymore. In every use-case that I have, they’re inferior to electric. I have a diesel tractor that I hate using because of the noise, smell, and cost and inconvenience of fuel. And I have an obnoxious gas chainsaw and I only use it when I need to cut something large. Otherwise I use my smaller electric chainsaw. I’ll replace both as soon as I possibly can.

I'm trying to reduce as many fuel-powered devices as possible. Most all of the yard tools are now electric, the chainsaw is electric. The Kubota is diesel and I don't see a way around that, but I'm starting to eyeball options to get rid of the gas generator as well. Some EcoFlow is tempting, but the cost doesn't justify it yet, so maybe a 3-point generator to go on the back of the Kubota? If I've got diesel around anyway, at least it's serving another purpose. They're building a new substation quite close to me, so power outages likely won't be as much of a concern soon.

I've been trying to consolidate vehicles for years, but there aren't many Swiss Army Knife vehicles out there for my use case. The EREV does that for me at least, otherwise I'd have an EV and an ICE.