Diesel Prices Are Going Up Really Fast

[Voyageurs]

The main hangup on batteries is that manufacturers are so hung up on bespoke batteries. They design a battery and build a car around it. They need to build them like flashlights. Dead batteries? Swap in some fresh and back to work. In Thailand someone has already started this with electric scooter/mopeds.
Same thing could be done with cars and trucks. On cars, flat batteries in the floor or something. Pull up, open the rocker panels, push batteries in on side which pushes them out the other. Pay for the difference between the state of charge of you trade-in versus the 100% ones you just got. Bigger vehicle, more battery packs.

One barrier is the changing technology though. No one wants to be stuck with a big investment in one only to have it upstaged by something better that requires a whole different setup. Like if someone does do hot-swap battery packs, all of a sudden the entirety of Tesla goes right under the bus.

Tesla actually has tried it and actually had a swap out station on i5 to test market response. But people just don’t mind the 15 or 20 minute supercharge time. Pull in, hook up, walk over and get a coffee, pee, get a snack. By the time that is done the car is ready to go and you hit the road. Rinse and repeat three hours later. For most it’s not a big deal.

 

[marc2912]

Tesla actually has tried it and actually had a swap out station on i5 to test market response. But people just don’t mind the 15 or 20 minute supercharge time. Pull in, hook up, walk over and get a coffee, pee, get a snack. By the time that is done the car is ready to go and you got the road. Rinse and repeat three hours later. For most it’s not a big deal.

Very much this. Drove my 3 at the time from NY to the outer banks and my friend went down in his jeep a few years back. We did pretty much the same time. While fueling up is faster, the time it takes to grab food, have a smoke, take a leek makes it the same. We left at the same time and pretty much arrived within 15 mins of one another.

 

[Dona40]

But batteries are heavy thereby reducing the load carrying capacity. How much weight in batteries would an 18 wheeler need to run coast to coast with 80,000 lbs. of gross weight? How much weight in batteries would a 2500 pickup with a 10,000 lb. trailer need to drive 400 miles without recharge?

Not to mention the payload space taken. Pretty much like the rocket fuel equation. I.E. carry 1 lb. of weight to a given distance, you need 10 lbs. fuel. Add another pound payload and you square the fuel (110 lbs.) Adding fuel increases payload and so on. I don't claim to be a rocket scientist but that's pretty much the jist.

 

[GypsyR]

For most it’s not a big deal.

OK. I don't want to spend 20-40 minutes of my day loitering around any kind of filling station. Maybe that's just me. But I suspect give things a few years to where electric cars are no longer novel and "special" and I will have company.

 

[Fish]

Very much this. Drove my 3 at the time from NY to the outer banks and my friend went down in his jeep a few years back. We did pretty much the same time. While fueling up is faster, the time it takes to grab food, have a smoke, take a leek makes it the same. We left at the same time and pretty much arrived within 15 mins of one another.

I'm not big on electric vehicles, at my age I'll probably never own one.

I don't know if charging time is a factor though. I've sat in truck stops in line for longer than 15 minutes waiting to fuel up.

 

[Voyageurs]

OK. I don't want to spend 20-40 minutes of my day loitering around any kind of filling station. Maybe that's just me. But I suspect give things a few years to where electric cars are no longer novel and "special" and I will have company.

Meh. Typical supercharge for us is 15 to 20 minutes. We have however deliberately used public Chademo chargers with our adapter just to slow things down enough so we could have lunch. That’s probably the only time I have charged for 40 minutes.

On road trips a gas stop was never shorter than 15 minutes in our grand Cherokee. We still did the same stuff. Gas, pee, snack. Etc just how we roll.

 

[GypsyR]

Different frame of mind. We do leisurely stops too. But because we WANT to.
When you are forced to wait while wanting to be somewhere else and are happy about it then you aren't quite human. Or have rather more patience than I usually do. I've left more than a few fuel pumps with less than a full tank because the slowness of the pump was just wearing me down. There's a convenient gas station that has competitively low prices near me but I don't usually go there because I know how slow their pumps are.
They say you learn to take things more slowly when you retire, I've yet to get there myself and cannot say. My time is often still money.
"20-40" minutes of my day means assuming 1 or 2 stops respectively.

I fuel up my little daily driver pickup once every three weeks. Sometimes once a month. Very little of my lifetime is spent fueling that one.

 

[Voyageurs]

Different frame of mind. We do leisurely stops too. But because we WANT to.
When you are forced to wait while wanting to be somewhere else and are happy about it then you aren't quite human. Or have rather more patience than I usually do. I've left more than a few fuel pumps with less than a full tank because the slowness of the pump was just wearing me down. There's a convenient gas station that has competitively low prices near me but I don't usually go there because I know how slow their pumps are.
They say you learn to take things more slowly when you retire, I've yet to get there myself and cannot say. My time is often still money.
"20-40" minutes of my day means assuming 1 or 2 stops respectively.

I fuel up my little daily driver pickup once every three weeks. Sometimes once a month. Very little of my lifetime is spent fueling that one.

And that is one advantage of an EV. Other than road trips all your “fueling” is done at home while you sleep. It’s about a 2 to 4 second procedure to hookup or unhook. I would say one of us hooks up 2 or 3 times a week. Nice to always have a full “tank”.

But yah. To each his own.

 

[Neal]

EV thread continued

I don’t want to derail the conversation about diesel fuel prices over here https://rvforums.com/threads/diesel-prices-are-going-up-really-fast.10675/ So I thought we can have a separate thread on EV. There’s a tremendous amount of money and research on EV batteries and where it is going. I’ll...

rvforums.com

 

[LoweCountryCamping]

We finally rough sketched our 2022 travel plans. We will be heading out of Florida in a couple of weeks.

Yesterday we had to drive the F350 down to Ft. Myers (170 miles round trip). I noticed that diesel prices were about .15 higher down there so as we drove back I kept watching stations along the way to see where I could get it a little cheaper. Corner station by a friends house was cheaper than anyplace else so we decided on the way back out of her subdivision we would fill there. Thirty minutes later we returned to the station and they had raised it .27 per gallon! We drove on without filling.

The next town closer to our resort had a Shell that was the cheapest at $5.15 per gallon. I filled up ($150 plus). When I went inside for a receipt the clerk said my timing was good because he just got a paper telling him to jack the diesel price .27 per gallon. As I walked out the door he was using a remote and sure enough before I drove off the station's fuel price sign was changed to $5.42 per gallon!

Silly me......when I planned our beginning travels I figured diesel at between $5.50 and $6.00 per gallon. Now I suspect by June we will see diesel at $6.00 to $7.00 per gallon. Plus currently my OpenRoads (TSD) app isn't showing hardly any good discounts anywhere in the country.

The Wall Street Journal has a very disturbing article this morning concerning diesel shortages and possible "rationing" occurring soon, with prices rising up to possibly $10.00/gallon. Loves CEO is warning members of these possibilities. Diesel engine owners are going to have to get really creative if we want to continue with our travel plans this summer. Ugh....

 

[Neemer]

Hey @LoweCountryCamping, can you post a link to the WSJ story?

 

[Deer Springs RV Park]

The Wall Street Journal has a very disturbing article this morning concerning diesel shortages and possible "rationing" occurring soon, with prices rising up to possibly $10.00/gallon. Loves CEO is warning members of these possibilities. Diesel engine owners are going to have to get really creative if we want to continue with our travel plans this summer. Ugh....

Yep, and those behind the fiasco have no clue (or just don't care) what the economic result is going to be. My friend bought a thriving campground last year. It's small, like mine, but it's established and has always stayed full. Yesterday he told me he's had one visitor all month.

 

[Voyageurs]

Yep, and those behind the fiasco have no clue (or just don't care) what the economic result is going to be. My friend bought a thriving campground last year. It's small, like mine, but it's established and has always stayed full. Yesterday he told me he's had one visitor all month.

We have noticed less RV’s on the road here as well all though the provincial parks definitely have people in them. We have been out camping 4 times this year and even in freezing temps people have been camping…including us. .

We start our 6 province 11000 kilometre, 8 week tour next Tuesday. I’m thinking we may not need reservations as much as we thought.

Hang in there folks.

 

[sheridany]

Hey @LoweCountryCamping, can you post a link to the WSJ story?

there have been several articles written. Here’s two.

Why the Northeast is quietly running out of diesel

Diesel inventories on the East Coast are at record lows. Truckers are spooked by the vanishing stocks and soaring rates.

www.freightwaves.com

Truck-Stop Chains Monitoring Low Diesel Supplies on East Coast -- Update

By Dan Molinski Two of the U.S.'s largest truck stop chains, Love's and Pilot, said Thursday they are closely watching low diesel fuel supplies in the...

www.marketwatch.com

 

[Texas Clodhopper]

EV thread continued

I don’t want to derail the conversation about diesel fuel prices over here https://rvforums.com/threads/diesel-prices-are-going-up-really-fast.10675/ So I thought we can have a separate thread on EV. There’s a tremendous amount of money and research on EV batteries and where it is going. I’ll...

rvforums.com

Well, that hasn't worked yet.