Cold temps: only where it’s cold, can be mitigated through design, mostly only affects range. Diesel ceases to be liquid at cold temperatures, and much engineering has gone into making it and engines that run on it viable in cold weather. Most EV manufacturers have already figured out decent civilian tech solutions to this problem for EVs.
rough usage: EV’s have less moving parts, less fluids, can have their parts better sealed against the environment (less need for air cooling overall) and don’t “breathe” oxygen like ICE do. It’s a lot easier to ruggedize things that move less, and low weight doesn’t seem to be a high priority for most military vehicles.
low infrastructure: Logistics wins wars, this is a problem for gas vehicles too, and you either have the supply lines you need, or you don’t. EV’s make a lot more sense for operations within range of a base, obviously, but a base that can make its own power (either solar or nuclear) that fuels its defensive and patrol vehicles without an oil supply would be slightly more self sufficient. (Which is moot anyway, because humans need food). The military already contends with vulnerable infrastructure as well. This is an example of how fuel (and water) is often stored on US bases.
Water immersion: Yeah, combustion engines hate this too. Motors and battery packs can be sealed, an engine cannot be since it needs to consume air to function.
Also stealthy af and much much higher torque ratios.
Only problem is current SOP for technical vehicles in most modern a armies is to be run and used continuously for days on end without contact with supply lines. If they can create E-Jerry Can modular batteries and some sort of mobile generator refueler then hell yeah. Otherwise liquids strapped to the side of everything is gonna be more effective.
We’ve already established that weight isn’t really an issue so let’s just give it two battery racks. It runs off one battery at a time so the other one can be disconnected and changed. When the one in use runs low, throw the breaker over and either change the dead battery or keep running on the aux until that one dies too if you’re in an emergency situation.
Larger vehicles with higher power requirements can scale up the number of battery racks they have and still use the universal Grunt Power Brick just in larger quantities, and you can create a battery hauler with a generator and like 40 battery slots to carry around your fresh ones and recharge your empties. That generator might be the one thing in your squadron that still runs on gasoline, supplemented with solar.
There’s no such thing as needing to disconnect while charging, unless you literally leave the battery behind somewhere. If you have two batteries on board, then you can use them in parallel.
Yes but this way you can hot swap in a fully charged battery from your carrier unit without needing to power down the vehicle. You could use both batteries in parallel, but the proposed solution minimizes charging time on any given machine by sourcing it all out to the carrier and allowing constant uptime of the target vehicle by never leaving it with two dead batteries.
I think you’re underselling the state of gas and diesel off-road vehicles and overselling evs in the very rough, very logistically detached space.
I obviously am not present in this conflict, and can only relate from a VERY distantly similar occupation: Wildland firefighting. I’ve not seen an ev that could live up to the way we used and abused trucks, side by sides and ATVs.
Edit Again, I’m not claiming I’m a combat veteran, or claiming firefighting is as demanding. Only that they’re is some obvious overlap in how equipment is used, and detachment from logistics.
Often there would simply be a pallet of 5 gallon jugs we would stop by, to fill up. Sometimes 55 gallon drums with a hand pump. No charging infra possible.
With good glowplugs we got diesel trucks started in the early morning, in freezing temps.
As long as you don’t flood the intake, ice vehicles are fine in the water. I’ve read they many evs have vents on the battery packs that don’t agree with immersion, though this one especially I’m sure they are ruggadizing.
But we are probably both a bit off and it is in the middle.
I know this is changing, I just haven’t seen an ev do it yet.
I legit look forward to seeing evs in such a role, but I’m not aware of big contacts for them yet
Most of that is because ICE vehicles have been the default for a very long time, so there’s a lot of niche applications that don’t have an EV developed for them yet.
I only know of a single ev prototype being looked at by the US military, so it’s not like they’re going full steam ahead, I’m just saying that for some missions they seem viable. Maybe even preferable (“single use” short range drones perhaps…)
EVs actually make a lot of sense on a battlefield, to be fair.
In what way? I could see the volume being a plus. but cold temps, rough usage, low infrastructure, water immersion all seen very concerning.
Cold temps: only where it’s cold, can be mitigated through design, mostly only affects range. Diesel ceases to be liquid at cold temperatures, and much engineering has gone into making it and engines that run on it viable in cold weather. Most EV manufacturers have already figured out decent civilian tech solutions to this problem for EVs.
rough usage: EV’s have less moving parts, less fluids, can have their parts better sealed against the environment (less need for air cooling overall) and don’t “breathe” oxygen like ICE do. It’s a lot easier to ruggedize things that move less, and low weight doesn’t seem to be a high priority for most military vehicles.
low infrastructure: Logistics wins wars, this is a problem for gas vehicles too, and you either have the supply lines you need, or you don’t. EV’s make a lot more sense for operations within range of a base, obviously, but a base that can make its own power (either solar or nuclear) that fuels its defensive and patrol vehicles without an oil supply would be slightly more self sufficient. (Which is moot anyway, because humans need food). The military already contends with vulnerable infrastructure as well. This is an example of how fuel (and water) is often stored on US bases.
Water immersion: Yeah, combustion engines hate this too. Motors and battery packs can be sealed, an engine cannot be since it needs to consume air to function.
Also stealthy af and much much higher torque ratios.
Only problem is current SOP for technical vehicles in most modern a armies is to be run and used continuously for days on end without contact with supply lines. If they can create E-Jerry Can modular batteries and some sort of mobile generator refueler then hell yeah. Otherwise liquids strapped to the side of everything is gonna be more effective.
We’ve already established that weight isn’t really an issue so let’s just give it two battery racks. It runs off one battery at a time so the other one can be disconnected and changed. When the one in use runs low, throw the breaker over and either change the dead battery or keep running on the aux until that one dies too if you’re in an emergency situation.
Larger vehicles with higher power requirements can scale up the number of battery racks they have and still use the universal Grunt Power Brick just in larger quantities, and you can create a battery hauler with a generator and like 40 battery slots to carry around your fresh ones and recharge your empties. That generator might be the one thing in your squadron that still runs on gasoline, supplemented with solar.
There’s no such thing as needing to disconnect while charging, unless you literally leave the battery behind somewhere. If you have two batteries on board, then you can use them in parallel.
Yes but this way you can hot swap in a fully charged battery from your carrier unit without needing to power down the vehicle. You could use both batteries in parallel, but the proposed solution minimizes charging time on any given machine by sourcing it all out to the carrier and allowing constant uptime of the target vehicle by never leaving it with two dead batteries.
I think you’re underselling the state of gas and diesel off-road vehicles and overselling evs in the very rough, very logistically detached space.
I obviously am not present in this conflict, and can only relate from a VERY distantly similar occupation: Wildland firefighting. I’ve not seen an ev that could live up to the way we used and abused trucks, side by sides and ATVs.
Edit Again, I’m not claiming I’m a combat veteran, or claiming firefighting is as demanding. Only that they’re is some obvious overlap in how equipment is used, and detachment from logistics.
Often there would simply be a pallet of 5 gallon jugs we would stop by, to fill up. Sometimes 55 gallon drums with a hand pump. No charging infra possible.
With good glowplugs we got diesel trucks started in the early morning, in freezing temps.
As long as you don’t flood the intake, ice vehicles are fine in the water. I’ve read they many evs have vents on the battery packs that don’t agree with immersion, though this one especially I’m sure they are ruggadizing.
But we are probably both a bit off and it is in the middle.
I know this is changing, I just haven’t seen an ev do it yet.
I legit look forward to seeing evs in such a role, but I’m not aware of big contacts for them yet
Most of that is because ICE vehicles have been the default for a very long time, so there’s a lot of niche applications that don’t have an EV developed for them yet.
Acknowledged, my reservation was only focused on what is currently rolling around, not the entire span of human technological progress ahead of us
Nothing really competes with the energy density of liquid fuel, to be fair, so it will always be around in military applications to some extent.
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I only know of a single ev prototype being looked at by the US military, so it’s not like they’re going full steam ahead, I’m just saying that for some missions they seem viable. Maybe even preferable (“single use” short range drones perhaps…)
Quiet and no IR signature. Run electronics for days or weeks without generating IR signatures.
I’m not familiar with an ev that could replace a gas/diesel truck and be used for weeks I’m a similar fashion. That’d be cool though!