EV trucks for overlanding?

[Foxtrot Whiskey]

So when do you think we will start seeing trail heads with EV charging stations at or near them? I thought this was going to be done long ago, but haven't seen anything about it. I was going to buy a Rivian to use off road, but bailed on that because no charging.

 

[smritte]

That has been an argument I've read across diffrent forums for the last several years. I'll give you my opinion.

There's companies that make small solar powered charging stations. These use solar and a battery bank with the capability of recharging 1-2 vehicles before it needs to charge itself.
I absolutely dare you to put a few out here (remote) near me. As soon as their spotted, they will be stripped of the panels and batteries. The issue with remote charging stations is they need to be monitored. Putting them out in remote mom and pop stores is a better idea but its a big investment that may never see any vehicle use. Then there's the maintenance. So far, there are three or four manufactures of charging stations. One of them is quality and has very few issue's (yep tesla). The others are thrown together crap. Next issue is the company that installed it. Most of charger failures are poor install with the rest of the failures being a crap charger. Again Tesla comes out on top. Then there's the idiots vandalizing them.

Right now charging stations are very lucrative as long as their in cities. I've very seriously considered buying my own charging stations and setting them out. Remember "Red Box"? Same thing. Get permits, pick an area, set them up and charge what you want.

Out here, there's a ton of people living in apartments and the chargers can barely support the number of people. When you set up a charger, you decide how much you charge for power. I have several friends with electric cars and a few travel with them. All of them live in homes not apartments. An example here is my sister. She lives in Vegas. The chargers are almost never full. When she drives out by me to a city called Temecula, its mostly apartments. She normally waits at least an hour if she needs charging. Her experience is, if its a Tesla charger, it normally works, the others normally have a sign saying out of order. Also, she pays a higher price on the crowded ones. Captive audience. The charging station owners will charge what they want.

 

[Jeep4Life]

WOW, such a good point. Easy to overlook how some people are... AKA will strip the system and use or sell. Just the nature of the beast, it would need to have 24/7 monitoring to insure no hanky panky, not to mention the upkeep I bet would be seriously lagging on these remote charging points. Alot of perspective to unpack here.

 

[smritte]

Yeah I know. These points are the only reason I haven't gotten an EV for off road. I just came back from a 10 day trip through AZ, NM and Colo. I kept my eyes open for chargers the whole time and didn't see enough to make the trip. I don't remember the town name but it was very remote in Colo. It had one charger with an out of order sign. My whole trip was 2100 miles. As far as I can tell, I couldn't have made the trip with an EV.