Atlis Motor Vehicles Pickup

Discussion in 'Other EVs' started by Cypress, Jul 24, 2018.

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  1. Cypress

    Cypress Active Member

    PNW
    http://www.atlismotorvehicles.com/xt-truck/
    ==================
    KEY FEATURES
    • Standard Range: 300 miles
      • Optional: 500 miles
    • Charge time: 15 minutes
    • 4 doors
      • 2 door models available post launch
    • Standard 6.5 foot bed
      • 8 foot bed lengths optional
    • True 4 wheel drive with independent traction motors at each corner.
    • Rear Steering
    • Single speed direct drive gear box
    • Independent air spring suspension front and rear
    • 12 inches of ground clearance
      • 15 inches in the 75TOR
    • Massive front storage space
    • 360 degrees of camera view with cockpit digital mirror displays
    • Autonomous and driver assistance capable
    • Regenerative electronic braking with independent wheel control.
    ====================
    They claim to be taking reservations and a 2020 date.

    Starting at $45k or a $700/mo subscription plan.

    Sounds like extra super vaporware. But who knows?

    [​IMG]
     
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  3. Jwbj

    Jwbj New Member

    Wonder what top speed is? Rear wheel steer would be scary at speed.
     
  4. Pushmi-Pullyu

    Pushmi-Pullyu Well-Known Member

    Looks like Atlis Motor Vehicles is a startup.

    Well, I wish them good luck, just like I wish all EV startups good luck! (...with the exception of obvious sham companies like Faraday Future.)

     
  5. Cypress

    Cypress Active Member

    PNW
  6. Well, Faraday Future is still helping to move the EV technology further. At least, give them some credits....
     
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  8. Pushmi-Pullyu

    Pushmi-Pullyu Well-Known Member

    Sorry, but you've confused making stupendously absurd, wildly over-the-top claims for mass producing compelling EVs, with actually making them.

    If you want a real-world example of a company that "checks all the boxes" of an investment scam, I doubt you can do better than Faraday Future.

     
  9. Sorry, I didn‘t wanted to show them up as heros, just wanted to point out that every company who develops ev‘s this days helps to move the technology further. Faraday wasn‘t a good shot, sorry
     
  10. Pushmi-Pullyu

    Pushmi-Pullyu Well-Known Member

    CityFreighter, perhaps I should have found a more polite way to disagree with what you said. I don't think you had any need to apologize. You're entitled to your opinion as much as anyone else, including me.

    For the record, just because a lot of us think FF looks like a scam, that's not actually proof that it is. Who knows? We could be wrong.

    BTW -- Welcome to the forum!
    :)

     
  11. gooki

    gooki Well-Known Member

    Frunks are going to be a big win for pickup trucks. No need to consume deck space to securely store you tools.
     
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  13. QuickFix813

    QuickFix813 New Member

    I wonder what size kWh battery it will have. 300 mile range with charging time of 15 min seems VERY ambitious! Also what kind of drag coefficient could a truck have that would allow it 300m range? (I'm assuming it's not any larger pack than industry size because then it would take way more than 15 min on a "fast charger" to get 100%)

    2020 seems really early to have these kinds of features fully developed! But wishing them the best!

    Edit: After reading further I saw this truck has 4 independent drive motors! Holy weight, Batman! And has capacity to trailer 20,000lbs?! What kind of sorcery is this battery pack?
     
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  14. gooki

    gooki Well-Known Member

    Well they just tested their 3kw battery.

    3kw should be plenty to travel 300 meters.
     
  15. Oh, I like this point. Perhaps it could be set up for tools and random gear so people don't use up their bed space with a big ol' toolbox.
    [​IMG]

    Battery-wise, I'm thinking 130 kWh, but that's just a rough guess.
     
  16. Pushmi-Pullyu

    Pushmi-Pullyu Well-Known Member

    Yeah, this is not a good sign. Looks very much like a desperate PR stunt. Startups which have solid products to sell and decent funding don't need to pull desperate stunts like this.

    See the InsideEVs news article: "Atlis Pickup Truck Battery Charges In Under 13 Minutes"

    Reminds me of the stunt that German battery maker DBM pulled to advertise their "Kolibri" battery, several years back. The claims associated with that -- breakthrough energy density, half the cost of then-current li-ion batteries -- turned out to be utterly false. Complete, total 100% B.S.

    Of course that doesn't at all prove that Atlis Motor's claims here are equally B.S. But the history of claims for breakthru secondary (rechargeable) battery tech from startups is almost universally that of shoveling out B.S., and that's been true for well over a century now.

    "The storage battery is, in my opinion, a catchpenny, a sensation, a mechanism for swindling the public by stock companies. The storage battery is one of those peculiar things which appeals to the imagination, and no more perfect thing could be desired by stock swindlers than that very selfsame thing. ... Just as soon as a man gets working on the secondary battery it brings out his latent capacity for lying." -- Thomas Edison, 1883
    In fact, the actual claims by Atlis here may well be entirely true. What is most likely false is not what their PR actually claims they have accomplished, but rather what it implies. Sure, you can charge a very small battery pack rapidly, in perhaps 13 minutes, if you're careful not to overheat the cells too much. (Electric bicycles have battery packs up to 1 kWh, so this is no bigger than 3x that.)

    But how many times can you do that before the batteries seriously degrade? If Atlis did that just as a stunt, with complete disregard for battery life, then it's meaningless in terms of building practical EVs. An EV with a battery pack that rapidly loses much or most of its capacity after just a few dozen super-fast charges... isn't a practical EV.
     
    Last edited: Oct 18, 2018
  17. gooki

    gooki Well-Known Member

    Nor is there any mention of how the will scale the charging to a full size pack.
     
  18. Mark Hanchett

    Mark Hanchett New Member

    My apologies for being 2 months late to the conversation. I thought I'd chime in and address some of the questions below and feel free to shoot some back.

    Top Speed

    ~120MPH, while you won't use this kind of top speed, our objective is to ensure high efficiency at highway speeds, which also allows us to reach higher top end speeds. Aftermarket vendors may choose to re-gear the gearbox for higher speeds or greater torque and lower speeds and we will leave this to the aftermarket community.

    Four-wheel steering

    We have some concepts around this that are new to the industry and are still working through details on achievement. It's done quite often today and has been done in the past with straight axle designs. Our front and rear drive assemblies are currently identical, which means we can fix the steering geometry or provide electronic capabilities. Having a solid rear steer capability means greater stability control while driving, especially while towing, and improved maneuverability while towing or traveling at slow speeds.

    Frunks

    A frunk in a truck is one of the biggest things we look forward to. That being said, trucks sit high, it's expected that you can load heavy items into these spaces. So a frunk must be done right. Our frunk will be easily accessible, height perfected for tall and short people, and capable of handling more than just the groceries and a cooler. You'll also find plug-ins for USB, 110v and 220V receptacles, as well as air.

    Vehicle battery pack capacity

    Our vehicle will be capable of holding a very significant battery pack size, making it versatile enough to scale from Class 1 all the way to a Class 6 vehicle. Our design is optimized for a 500-mile range and charge in 15 minutes on the Atlis Motor Vehicles Advanced Charging station. Existing efforts in charging stations are just not powerful enough to meet long-term visions, and not powerful enough to charge a vehicle of this size in a reasonable amount of time.

    Independent Motors and weight

    This is not unheard of configuration for vehicles and has been perfected by several others. The independent motor design allows us to develop a drive system that is significantly lighter than existing diesel vehicle powertrains today with higher torque and power outputs.

    Why a 3KWh test?

    Simple, to ensure we could adequately test with any existing charging station within range of us. Until recently, the only station with greater than 50KW of power was in Kentucky, but within the next few weeks, there will be a CCS station capable of DC fast charging in the 350KW ranges. Our pack capacity, while small for this test, was intended to show publicly that it could be done and also allow us to test well beyond the standard 4C charge rates to achieve our goal. With a 3KW pack, we were able to push this pack to the point of failure and better understand these failure points and how it affects our decisions going forward.

    How does this 3KWh pack scale?

    The cooling system and pack construction we've designed can easily scale in capacity while maintaining proper performance. Does the increased size mean increased heat? Of course, it does, and existing cooling methods aren't capable of managing this, so we build a new system. Fast charging a cell is not difficult unless of course, you've designed the wrong cell, chemistry, and your pack design cannot adequately manage this performance. There are definitely examples of other cells available today that can charge faster, typically with much lower energy density, so we set out to ensure we could meet the high energy density requirements while still maintaining a system which is capable of fast charging.

    Longevity of the pack

    Our goal is a ten-year life of the vehicle, with continuous fast charge cycles for that lifetime. We're achieving this through a proprietary method, that while I'd love to share we cannot do so at this time. With that in mind, I would challenge you with a question: With everything you know about battery cell capabilities today, how would you design a pack that lasts for 10 years? The solution is not as hard as you think it is.


    Don't focus on what others say is possible or what others have achieved, focus on what the customer wants and find a solution to solve this problem. Anybody can build an electric vehicle today with high torque, fast acceleration, and range, but not everyone can build an electric vehicle that creates real value for the end customer.

    Mark
    Atlis Motor Vehicles
     
  19. Pushmi-Pullyu

    Pushmi-Pullyu Well-Known Member

    So, doubling down on the claims of a very fast charge, ~13 minutes, and claiming a 10-year life expectancy when doing that.

    Well, that's a pretty bold claim. Not impossible; yes, there are battery cells optimized for faster charging. But they are also more expansive, or at least that's what I've read. If Atlis can mass produce such a system and sell it at a competitive price -- if Atlis has figured out how to cleave the Gordian knot of significantly faster EV charging in a mass produced vehicle -- then Atlis will certainly be ahead of pretty much everyone in the field. (As I recall, Porsche is claiming a 15 minute charge time for the Mission E/Taycan, so Atlis' claim appears to be in that ballpark.)

    So, I certainly hope this will turn out to be real and practical, and not just hype! (But hope ≠ belief.)

    Also, good to see an acknowledgement of a real-world limitation; that an EV capable of such very fast charging will be beyond the charging power of all, or nearly all, publicly accessible EV chargers in use today. This would definitely be "future-proofing" the BEV!

    Good luck to Atlis! :)
     
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2018
  20. Pushmi-Pullyu

    Pushmi-Pullyu Well-Known Member

    Caveat: At least some of the pictures of the Atlis "prototype" pickup are CGI (Computer Generated Images), and I think they all are.

    Seems odd that the IEVs News article calls this a "Reveal" when it's just digital concept drawings.

     
  21. gooki

    gooki Well-Known Member

    Looks good though.

    Rugged, non integrated bed, big frunk.

    A good half way house between the Bollinger and Rivian. I’m glad they’re all targeting a different segment of truck buyers.
     
  22. gooki

    gooki Well-Known Member

    I just spotted the camera side mirrors.
     

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