Fair points, well stated. You know, if I could fuel up / charge up at the last "civilization" stop before heading out to the back country, and could then get a number of days of exploring out in the woods / wilderness / etc and make it back to that "last stop" to refuel / recharge before heading home, that would probably work. As long as I could refuel / recharge in a no more than 30 mins.
On my recent trip to SE Oregon, I drove from my home in NW Oregon over the Cascade mountains to Bend, in central Oregon, that's about a 4 hr drive, then 2 hours further east to Burns, where I topped off the truck, I was down to less than half full ( didn't start completely full either ). Then from there, I drove an hour south to a little hamlet called FrenchGlen from where I headed out into the Steens mountain area. I spent a couple days roaming around out there, and then drove all the way home without any more stops for fuel. I still had > 100 miles range when I got home. It's just fantastic ! And, I had a roof top tent on, which is definitely hurting my fuel efficiency ( it's over the cab because it's too long for my short bed Rebel ! ). I'm getting 22 to 24 mpg instead of 24 to 26 with the tent on.
I often wonder has nobody thought of a DIESEL-Electric hybrid. That sounds like just a whole lot of torque and awesome range. I haven't read of anybody considering making one though.
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I've wanted the same thing - a diesel-electric half-ton pickup. I haven't heard of any diesel-electric pickups in the works, although I believe both Ram and Ford are working on gas-electric "range-extender" light-duty trucks. Most of the speculation about Ram's upcoming "electrified Rams" announcements in November seem to think Ram's offering will be a gas-electric range-extender vehicle, not diesel-electric. Of course Ram will first reveal their full-on BEV half-ton pickup, which rumors are saying will have solid-state batteries, not lithium-ion batteries, but supposedly Ram will at the same time describe their "REPB" ("range electric paradigm breaker") ICE-BEV hybrid.
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A gas-electric would probably be overall more
economical than a diesel-electric, at least in the light-duty truck category. A small diesel powering an electric generator to charge onboard battery and power electric traction motors directly would probably be more
efficient than a gas engine, but in terms of overall cost-of-ownership, I'm guessing that the gas-electric will win out. At least until GPF (gasoline particulate filters) become required equipment for gasoline engines as they have been for diesels for years (yes, it's true, modern GDI [gasoline direct injection] engines emit far more tailpipe soot than modern diesels with functioning DPFs).
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At this point, I'm wondering if Ram's rumored REPB will use one of Stellantis' four-cylinder turbocharged engines or the new 3.0 L inline six-cylinder. Given the power levels of the newest turbo fours (like the 2.7 L I-4 GM now has as the base engine in Chevy & GMC half-tons, rated at 310 HP @ 5600 RPM and 420 lbf*ft of torque at 3000 RPM), I'm thinking that Ram's REPB will use something like an optimized 2.0-2.5 L four-cylinder turbocharged gas engine to spin the generator.
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But the way this all seems to be heading, in my mind, is that a half-ton pickup that is designed from the ground up to be a hybrid would not benefit that much by using a diesel engine, because the inherent thermal efficiency of any electric propulsion system trumps that of a diesel engine, so once they have a hybrid system onboard, the ICE half of the hybrid system will likely be a gasoline-powered ICE. Pure speculation on my part.
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Looks like I'll be moving to GMC for the 6 cyl duramax if this is true (for my next truck).