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Workhorse isn't the first company to attempt to put an electric pickup on the road, but it is the first to build one from the ground up rather than convert an existing truck. Phoenix Motorcars has been converting Ford E-Series vans to electric drivetrains for years and attempted, briefly, to do the same to a SsangYong pickup imported from South Korea. Via Motors has been converting Chevrolet Silverados and Express vans into plug-in hybrids for a few years now, but both graft electric motors onto the existing powertrain.
Workhorse has taken the idea a step further and is poised to beat the much-hyped Tesla EV pickup to market by several years. Like Tesla, Workhorse builds its own battery pack with Panasonic 18650 lithium-ion cells and mounts it fully under the vehicle, where it doubles as the truck's frame. Front and rear subframes, each with an electric motor, single-speed reduction gearbox, and a fully independent coil-spring suspension, are mounted to the frame. Up front, a BMW-sourced three-cylinder gasoline engine acts a generator producing 50 kW of electricity to charge the battery or drive the electric motors. (It never powers the wheels mechanically.)
Further down the detailed article:
It's obvious at first glance the W-15 is designed for work. A light bar with yellow hazard lights is integrated into the roof, and a sprayed-in bedliner is standard. A power export module is mounted behind a door on the passenger's side of the bed and puts out 7.2 kW-hrs, enough to easily power a job site. The export pulls power off the battery, and if you manage to drain it, the generator will kick on. Workhorse is working on a 14-kW-hr module that'll allow the truck to power a whole house in the event of a power outage.
The Workhorse company already makes hybrid trucks -- last paragraph from the article:
It's easy to be pessimistic about the W-15's future, given how many automakers have tried and failed to sell a hybrid pickup in the past. Even General Motors couldn't get the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra hybrids to catch on. Workhorse, though, isn't just a startup. It's been in the business for years. Noticed any UPS trucks with the word hybrid on the side in your neighborhood? Workhorse builds those, as well as trucks for FedEx, Penske, Ryder, DHL, and more. The company knows vehicle production, and it knows fleets. Moreover, it's the first company to build a dedicated hybrid truck rather than cram batteries into an existing vehicle never designed for them, and the advantages show in the truck's capabilities.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Friday May 05 2017, @05:18PM (4 children)
I constantly see jacked-up pickups with extra-long suspension, giant wheels ... and less than a foot of actual clearance because of the differential in the middle of the rear axle.
Always cracks me up.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday May 05 2017, @05:46PM (1 child)
Those guys also often have air lift systems.
True the axle is going to sit at half the wheel diameter, but you quickly learn to put the wheels on the object in the path, and not straddle large rocks , (you straddle the ruts). I think you will find a foot of actual clearance gets you most places you would actually want to take a pickup even for sport.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday May 05 2017, @05:53PM
I know that, but it's still a major constraint. Many diffs take another 6 inches down from wheel center.
When people are ready to drop well over 20k on various mods, why isn't anyone selling a compelling solution to replace the fixed axle? 4WD/AWD with independent suspension isn't exactly a novel concept...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05 2017, @05:47PM
It isn't completely insane. You have to watch where your wheels go, but you're less likely to hang up on your undercarriage.
As the old saying goes: horses for courses.
Your low-slung 2WD truck is basically a city driver, or gravel roads at most.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday May 05 2017, @06:06PM
They do look rather ridiculous, don't they?
But in reality, clearance isn't just about the height of the obstacle you can pass the axle over on a level surface - you can very often drive at least one wheels over such an obstacle to get past it. The tricky part is not getting high-centered afterward, once the obstacle is completely underneath you.
For the simplest example, consider driving over something like a ridiculously huge speed bump. The wheels all pass over the bump, so it doesn't really matter if the axle is only inches above the ground. But once the front wheels have completely cleared it you're likely to grind to a halt as because your undercarriage hits it, unable even to back up because your weight is now carried mostly by the undercarriage rather than your wheels, so you have no traction.
You run into that sort of scenario a lot when driving across creeks or rocky terrain.