Whew...

[GotScout]

 

[Cranky Canuck]

Given that the renders in this video aren't even consistent in what they show I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is fake and Caterpiller has no plans to enter the consumer space with a pickup truck. This is just some internet designer's fevered dream posing as "fact". Also it appears to be a combustion vehicle which makes it uninteresting.

 

[GotScout]

Given that the renders in this video aren't even consistent in what they show I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is fake and Caterpiller has no plans to enter the consumer space with a pickup truck. This is just some internet designer's fevered dream posing as "fact". Also it appears to be a combustion vehicle which makes it uninteresting.

" it appears to be a combustion vehicle which makes it uninteresting"

Lol... read the room lately?

 

[Colt_44_magnum]

Oh yeah I read an article on this a couple days ago. It's 100% fake. There was also claims it was going to come in ICE, Hybrid, and BEV configurations and come out in 2025

 

[Cranky Canuck]

" it appears to be a combustion vehicle which makes it uninteresting"

Lol... read the room lately?

I know some people are hesitant but for me a new combustion or hybrid vehicle is thoroughly uninteresting. I have no interest in ever going back to a fossil vehicle.

 

[JohnnyScout]

I know some people are hesitant but for me a new combustion or hybrid vehicle is thoroughly uninteresting. I have no interest in ever going back to a fossil vehicle.

I, OTOH, have no problem with ICEs that consume biofuels. Consider situations like landfills. Every city has at least one. They produce methane. Instead of letting it enter the atmosphere we harvest it to run an ICE that produces electricity.

Therein lies one rub as far as the world going all ev and that is that we are a looooong way from beingbable to produce 100: of all the electricity the world requires solely from wind, water and solar without also using nuclear and natural gas. And the environmental and humanitarian costs of child slave labor mining cobalt in the Congo for ev batteries is not a valid or moral cost of production.

Like avoiding "blood diamonds" I would wish for a consortium of ev manufacturers to pledge to not use strategic elements secured under such conditions.

 

[GotScout]

I, OTOH, have no problem with ICEs that consume biofuels. Consider situations like landfills. Every city has at least one. They produce methane. Instead of letting it enter the atmosphere we harvest it to run an ICE that produces electricity.

Therein lies one rub as far as the world going all ev and that is that we are a looooong way from beingbable to produce 100: of all the electricity the world requires solely from wind, water and solar without also using nuclear and natural gas. And the environmental and humanitarian costs of child slave labor mining cobalt in the Congo for ev batteries is not a valid or moral cost of production.

Like avoiding "blood diamonds" I would wish for a consortium of ev manufacturers to pledge to not use strategic elements secured under such conditions.

I want a Scout that runs and is powered by DIAMONDS!!! Bloody or plain, I care not.

 

[Cranky Canuck]

I, OTOH, have no problem with ICEs that consume biofuels. Consider situations like landfills. Every city has at least one. They produce methane. Instead of letting it enter the atmosphere we harvest it to run an ICE that produces electricity.

Therein lies one rub as far as the world going all ev and that is that we are a looooong way from beingbable to produce 100: of all the electricity the world requires solely from wind, water and solar without also using nuclear and natural gas. And the environmental and humanitarian costs of child slave labor mining cobalt in the Congo for ev batteries is not a valid or moral cost of production.

Like avoiding "blood diamonds" I would wish for a consortium of ev manufacturers to pledge to not use strategic elements secured under such conditions.

Biofuels will never make up enough fuel to matter and are generally a waste of resources, especially fuels like ethanol that displace food crops. They're hugely energy intensive to make and cause more pollution and CO2 than they prevent. We should be growing food, not fuel. Landfill methane will never be enough to meet demand and most of it is best used to heat local buildings or other local industrial processes. Running an ICE vehicle on it would be wasteful and there isn't even enough of it to run a municipal bus fleet.

We aren't that far away from being able to produce 100% of our electricity cleanly. Quebec is already there and where I live in Ontario we are 95% there with the last few % being the expensive gas peaker plants that will hopefully be shut down soon in favour of more solar, wind and batteries on the grid. I have no problems with nuclear other than the cost of building new nuclear and therefore locking in expensive electricity for decades to come.

As for the mining myths, more than half of the world's cobalt is used to de-sulphurize gasoline so it's interesting that the ethical issues of cobalt suddenly appeared when EVs came on the scene even though EVs don't consume the majority of the cobalt being mined. Still, you wish has already been granted as many new EVs don't use cobalt at all anymore and most existing EV companies have already taken measures to reduce the amount of cobalt used and to track their supply chains to ensure there are no so-called "artisanal" mines being used.

Mining is definitely bad for the environment though so if that's you're crusade then you might be interested to know that more than 90% of the mining activity on earth is done for oil so by getting off fossil fuels we'll eliminate more than 90% of humanity's mining activity.

 

[JohnnyScout]

Biofuels will never make up enough fuel to matter and are generally a waste of resources, especially fuels like ethanol that displace food crops. They're hugely energy intensive to make and cause more pollution and CO2 than they prevent. We should be growing food, not fuel. Landfill methane will never be enough to meet demand and most of it is best used to heat local buildings or other local industrial processes. Running an ICE vehicle on it would be wasteful and there isn't even enough of it to run a municipal bus fleet.

We aren't that far away from being able to produce 100% of our electricity cleanly. Quebec is already there and where I live in Ontario we are 95% there with the last few % being the expensive gas peaker plants that will hopefully be shut down soon in favour of more solar, wind and batteries on the grid. I have no problems with nuclear other than the cost of building new nuclear and therefore locking in expensive electricity for decades to come.

As for the mining myths, more than half of the world's cobalt is used to de-sulphurize gasoline so it's interesting that the ethical issues of cobalt suddenly appeared when EVs came on the scene even though EVs don't consume the majority of the cobalt being mined. Still, you wish has already been granted as many new EVs don't use cobalt at all anymore and most existing EV companies have already taken measures to reduce the amount of cobalt used and to track their supply chains to ensure there are no so-called "artisanal" mines being used.

Mining is definitely bad for the environment though so if that's you're crusade then you might be interested to know that more than 90% of the mining activity on earth is done for oil so by getting off fossil fuels we'll eliminate more than 90% of humanity's mining activity.

Points taken.

However bad mining may be, iron ore and bauxite are not laying around on the surface of the planet for the easy processing other than in junk yards and recycling plants. True, glass is readily made from sand of which there is an abundance on the surface, even copious quantities even in Nebraska of all places. Rubber does grow on trees but EVs use more of it for heavier duty tires than an equivalent sized non EV due to the weight difference.

But the rest of the EV, now due to extra weight (and an EV could weigh no more than same size ICE if the battery pack plus electric motor could weigh the same as the could weigh the ICE and transmission it replaces---surely less than 500# when looking at compact car with a 3 cylinder engine and CVT) must also carry beefed up suspension parts.

There are still parts of a vehicle as they are presently constructed that require raw products from the ground and under the ground is my point. Yes, '67 Corollas where made from '57 Bel Airs that as scrap were shipped overseas but junk cars keep piling up and are nowhere near being 100% recycled into new. You and I, at least I, do not know the recycled content of our brand new cars. Maybe it's on the sticker but maybe what's on the sticker only refers to the recycled content of the paper. But are you willing to buy a brand new Scout running on retreads from the factory? Not me. I would take a plain steel or aluminum dashboard but safety experts wo t allow it so there are plastic and foam and explosive airbags with propellers harmful to nature to protect my noggin.

Henry Ford proved long ago that a car body could be made entirely from plastic made from soybeans. But to your point that uses up foodstuffs or at least land that could provide food. Do we go back to building cars out of wood? Not a chance, safety wise.

 

[J Alynn]

Points taken.

However bad mining may be, iron ore and bauxite are not laying around on the surface of the planet for the easy processing other than in junk yards and recycling plants. True, glass is readily made from sand of which there is an abundance on the surface, even copious quantities even in Nebraska of all places. Rubber does grow on trees but EVs use more of it for heavier duty tires than an equivalent sized non EV due to the weight difference.

But the rest of the EV, now due to extra weight (and an EV could weigh no more than same size ICE if the battery pack plus electric motor could weigh the same as the could weigh the ICE and transmission it replaces---surely less than 500# when looking at compact car with a 3 cylinder engine and CVT) must also carry beefed up suspension parts.

There are still parts of a vehicle as they are presently constructed that require raw products from the ground and under the ground is my point. Yes, '67 Corollas where made from '57 Bel Airs that as scrap were shipped overseas but junk cars keep piling up and are nowhere near being 100% recycled into new. You and I, at least I, do not know the recycled content of our brand new cars. Maybe it's on the sticker but maybe what's on the sticker only refers to the recycled content of the paper. But are you willing to buy a brand new Scout running on retreads from the factory? Not me. I would take a plain steel or aluminum dashboard but safety experts wo t allow it so there are plastic and foam and explosive airbags with propellers harmful to nature to protect my noggin.

Henry Ford proved long ago that a car body could be made entirely from plastic made from soybeans. But to your point that uses up foodstuffs or at least land that could provide food. Do we go back to building cars out of wood? Not a chance, safety wise.

I think you make valid points. Enjoyed your response.
I will say I would not buy soy based even if it didn’t t impact food supplies as the rodents and animals eating components like wire insulation is already a common problem. Imagine waking up in the morning and finding 40 squirrels or trash pandas nawling away at your car ?

 

[Cranky Canuck]

Points taken.

However bad mining may be, iron ore and bauxite are not laying around on the surface of the planet for the easy processing other than in junk yards and recycling plants. True, glass is readily made from sand of which there is an abundance on the surface, even copious quantities even in Nebraska of all places. Rubber does grow on trees but EVs use more of it for heavier duty tires than an equivalent sized non EV due to the weight difference.

But the rest of the EV, now due to extra weight (and an EV could weigh no more than same size ICE if the battery pack plus electric motor could weigh the same as the could weigh the ICE and transmission it replaces---surely less than 500# when looking at compact car with a 3 cylinder engine and CVT) must also carry beefed up suspension parts.

There are still parts of a vehicle as they are presently constructed that require raw products from the ground and under the ground is my point. Yes, '67 Corollas where made from '57 Bel Airs that as scrap were shipped overseas but junk cars keep piling up and are nowhere near being 100% recycled into new. You and I, at least I, do not know the recycled content of our brand new cars. Maybe it's on the sticker but maybe what's on the sticker only refers to the recycled content of the paper. But are you willing to buy a brand new Scout running on retreads from the factory? Not me. I would take a plain steel or aluminum dashboard but safety experts wo t allow it so there are plastic and foam and explosive airbags with propellers harmful to nature to protect my noggin.

Henry Ford proved long ago that a car body could be made entirely from plastic made from soybeans. But to your point that uses up foodstuffs or at least land that could provide food. Do we go back to building cars out of wood? Not a chance, safety wise.

I'm not arguing that EVs don't require raw materials, they obviously do but EVs aren't necessarily much heavier than similar ICE vehicles. Just a few examples to illustrate my point:
Lexus LS460 Sedan: 4,674 lbs
Hyundai Ioniq 6: 4,462 lbs

BMW 3 Series: 4,138 lbs
Tesla Model 3: 4,054 lbs

BMW X3: 4,392 lbs
Tesla Model Y: 4,398 lbs

I could go on but you get my point. EVs when compared to vehicles of similar size and capabilities are not necessarily much heavier than the vehicles they're replacing so the weight difference isn't as dramatic as you seem to believe.

Either way, once an EV is built the mining for it effectively stops which is not the case for combustion vehicles. Every single fossil-powered vehicle requires continuous mining in order for the vehicle to continue operating. All of that gas must be extracted, moved, refined, moved, pumped, moved and ultimately burnt. All of those steps cause pollution which is usually not factored in to "tailpipe emissions" equations when gas vehicles are compared to EVs. The gas vehicles usually only have their direct emissions counted as if the gasoline magically appears in the tank whereas EVs always have the upstream grid emissions counted. I wonder why that is?

Anyway I'm sure someone will say "well the grid isn't necessarily zero emissions" which is true more in the US than here in Canada but even in the case of a fully coal-fired grid (of which there are thankfully none in North America) EVs are still the lower-emissions option because of how efficient they are.

Think about it, a car like mine has a 77kWh battery. That is equivalent to about 8 litres of gasoline. With that battery I can go about 500 km. A typical gas car on average burns 8.8 l/100km according to the latest numbers I could find by the IEA. That means to do the same job an ICE vehicle burns about 44 litres of gas to do what my car does with the equivalent of 8. Or to put it another way, ICE vehicels use about five times as much energy to do the same work as an EV.

Mining is bad for the environment. The vast majority of the world's mining is done to extract oil and gas so wouldn't it make sense to move to the technology that minimizes mining? That means moving away from oil and gas. You can recharge an EV with sunlight and your own roof. You can't extract and refine your own gasoline at home (at least not legally anyway).