Tacoma Vs. Rivian

That’s why you want one gear.

https://youtu.be/acSdPy38XKU

It seems that people forgot that while towing with an EV does have limited range it also blows away the performance of an ICE vehicle (towing).

 

Beat me to it. I think the Porsche Tycan Turbo is the only EV with 2 gears.

 

That and the equivalent Audi RS e-tron GT

https://insideevs.com/features/436049/rimac-two-speed-gearbox-stupid-video/

 

I'm very suspicious of that statement. I've driven a lot of 6 to 10 speeds and they're okay, but unobtrusive sounds like a stretch. But then my better half doesn't think our Taco transmission hunts when it obviously does

 

two or three gears would be smart for electric cars. Doesn't higher revs still create heat? And a lower gear could really make use of the instant torque for 4x4s

 

It seems like one more for vehicles that tow would be handy but then you are also throwing a tremendous amount of torque at a transmission.

 

One gear seems to be doing fine for EV's so far but never know what direction Mfgs. may go. If a second gear equals longer range I say go for it. Also the fewer the gears the less to break.

 

Maybe a high load gear, only for EVs meant to tow, a cruising gear for long distance highway travel, and the normal gear? So 2 or 3 in total.

 

Yeh, maybe 3 in a truck and one or two in a non towing car.

 

tough to say, air cooled electric motors depend on RPMs for airflow. Would be cool if they did liquid cooled motors with dielectric oil.

 

I believe most EV's today use liquid cooled motors.

 

It helps when you have more than double the torque of the Tacoma, it really doesn’t need to shift to make any kind of normal acceleration or make it up an incline under cruise control.

 

Cool

 

You might be able to gain some efficiency by gearing down an electric motor, but a wise choice of fixed gear ratios should get you to a really good spot, and easily wins out over added complexity of a transmission, especially since the expected efficiency gains are so low.



edit: and gets really nutty if you’re adding multiple gears to motors for indivi dual Wheels

 

If I had to guess why Audi and Porsche have a 2 speed transmission it is simply because you can maintain a faster legal speed on the unrestricted parts of the autobahn.

 

I think that's exactly it. From what I recall once the vehicle reaches a certain speed the 2nd gear engages.

 

Well the eCVT on the Yota hybrids is an infinite number of gears that feels like one long continuous gear that can handle 200+HP ... does that count for anything?

 

Until you want to stop.

 

Imagine towing would be awesome with all that instant torque. Having range cut in half would be horrible though. Granted I never tow at full capacity in the Taco, but my average while towing is 18 mpg, unladen is 21. So even with a fussy trans, not too bad.

I would like to see a diesel hybrid similar in locomotives/heavy equipment, where you set the diesel at a certain rpm and let the electric motor do all the work, but that will never happen. Even if you ran bio-fuel in it, Government is too hell bent on pure EVs at this point.

 

I have acute range anxiety when talking about anything electric and cars. Dinosaurs died for our horsepower loving sins and it would be blasphemous if we went all greenie wieenie and didn't use their long rotten bodies for something. Then again we could be just burning Mother Natures blood so I am torn. But Rivian would be good if the grid goes down and we need a backup battery to use as a cell phone charger..