Shift Magazine - February 2022 - 10

OPINION
IT'S NOT YET
THE END FOR ICE
GM is working on an electric
version of the heavy-duty
Chevrolet Silverado.
Work, emergency vehicles aren't suited for battery-electric powertrain
Electric motors
A
friend of mine who works in
powertrain at Ford told me
recently the company has
just one more new engine
coming. And that's it. Ford, like most other
automakers, is shifting its powertrain
lineup from gasoline and diesel engines
to electric motors in the coming years.
Ford has greatly reduced the number of
engineers assigned to create new engines
and improve existing ones.
" I'm the last man standing, " my friend
said with a semi-serious laugh.
But automakers' move away from
further development of the internal
combustion engine doesn't mean we can
put an end date on the classic workhorse.
There are some vehicles whose duty
cycles are not - yet - compatible with
battery-electric powertrains. Consider the
heavy-duty versions of pickups used as
work vehicles on farms and ranches and
for hauling heavy loads long distances,
such as delivering classic cars.
10 shift * february 2022
RICHARD
TRUETT
REPORTER
can easily deliver
more torque than the
powerful diesel V-8s in
the Duramax, Power
Stroke and Cummins
engines in the
Chevrolet Silverado/
GMC Sierra, Ford
Super Duty and Ram
Heavy Duty pickups.
But battery technology has not advanced
enough to enable these behemoths to
travel as far on a single charge as they
can drive today on a single tank of fuel.
And charging times have to come down
- way, down.
NUMBERS GAME
Let's look at the numbers for a
moment.
The Silverado heavy-duty diesel truck
has a 36.2-gallon fuel tank and gets
about 19 mpg cruising unloaded on the
The 2023 Chevy Corvette Z06
is powered by a new 5.5-liter
V-8 engine that makes 670 hp.
highway, according to a review. That
gives it a highway driving range of about
687 miles on a tank. Let's say that a
trailer is connected and the driver maxes
out the truck's 18,500-pound towing
capacity. Fuel economy, of course, will
suffer. Let's say it drops by half. The truck
can still go more than 340 miles on a tank
Shift Magazine - February 2022

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