What It’s Like To Live With A 25-Year-Old Electric Truck

Last week, I was drooling over Chris’s highly modified Focus RS (and the junior version) with its Ford Maverick garage mate. This week, we get to look at a heartwarming Harley, and three very different styles of electric vehicles. Jim (Fuzzyweis) is a tech support guru living in North Carolina. His eclectic mix of vehicles includes his late father’s Harley, one of the oldest EVs around, as well as a couple of more recent ones.

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I’m excited for this one. Today we got to look at an electric truck, with a DeDion rear suspension, factory crank windows, zero paint options, and great vinyls going down the side. No, I am not talking about a Slate. This is a Radwood era EV truck!

Back in the late 90s, Ford and GM both decided to take a quick stab into the EV market, GM with the S-10, and Ford with the Ranger. Chevy was first on the market in 1997, but man it was weird. The electric S-10 was FWD, and the range was as low as 33 miles. Ford went a bit more traditional, keeping as many ICE Ranger parts as they could while pulling the engine and putting in the electric motor. Both options are very rare. Allegedly, about 1,500 Rangers were produced, but most were destroyed. There are only a few hundred out there these days, and Jim managed to snag one a few years ago!

What’s currently in the garage?

• 1998 Harley Electra Glide – configured like a Street Glide
• 2017 Chevy Bolt
• 2024 Honda Prologue
• 2000 Electric Ford Ranger

How did you get into cars?

My Dad was a mechanic his entire life. He started me off on Revell, Snaptite and Ertl models. He would often get me Transformers, Gobots, and M.A.S.K. toys. Growing up, we’d watch Knight Rider, A-Team, Hardcastle and McCormick, Street Hawk, Riptide, Dukes of Hazzard. So all that. Sadly there is a severe lack of automotive related toys/tv shows nowadays, which I believe is ruining the youths.

What is the story behind the Harley?

My dad bought the Electra Glide new. The Electra Glide has the trunk pack and some other minor differences. Basically, I took off the trunk pack and got a different license plate bracket, they have essentially the same front fairing and style otherwise. I’ve had it for about eight years now.

Would it be something you would have bought if hadn’t been your father’s?

I think something in this style for sure as I was starting to head in this direction, maybe not a Harley though as I’m not the typical “Harley guy”, but it’s not all blacked out on black with some black added, so maybe. Before the Harley, I had a Yamaha V-Star 650 classic that I’d added a Mustang brand seat, hardbags, a windshield, and a couple of speakers with an amplifier hooked to an mp3 player so I was already headed towards tourer territory.

What do you love about this?

Mainly I love it was my dad’s. He’s no longer among us so whenever I ride it or tinker with it I’m reminded of him. That and it’s so comfy to ride, my wife was always jealous of the big back seat it had when we used to go on rides with my dad and she likes it a lot better than our old Yamaha. Wind therapy is fantastic. There are some nice rural roads around the Charlotte area you can head down for hours, I still haven’t got to the Blue Ridge Parkway with it so that’s a definite must-do.

Anything you don’t like?

I love and hate it’s carbureted. Some days I would love to just get on it and go, but if you don’t let it warm up, you’re sputtering the first couple miles. It runs great once warmed up though, and the carb is so simple, nothing electronic to worry about with it.

Is it in pretty good shape?

It’s great now. When I got it, my dad had let it go for a while. I pulled off all the fading chrome bits he’d added. He had a tow hitch on it for a little fiberglass trailer that went away. Fortunately, once I got the body shined up, the old paint still holds up pretty well.

I brought it to a local shop that specializes in old Harleys, they even have some ’50s and ’60s models in their front area, and they got the engine in great shape. They also changed the primary chain as it was stretched out (probably from pulling the little fiberglass trailer).

After that, I then updated the old air suspension with progressive shocks front and back, updated the stereo from a tape deck to a bluetooth unit, and the speakers as they were pretty shot, put in LED headlights and spots, other than that it keeps running. It does have an oil leak on the rear cylinder so I need to do the gaskets on it, but it’s a Harley so that’s fairly typical. I’m debating doing that myself or having the shop do it. I really trust the shop, but also could be a good winter project to tinker with it.

How did you end up with the Bolt?

When I got the Ranger during Covid, I was mostly working from home and I still had about a year of payments left on a Chevy Volt. I sold the Volt since used prices were going up thinking I was so smart. Spoiler, I was not smart. I ended up needing to go back into work full time, and the Ranger could only just make the trip in the winter, so I needed another car.

I really wanted a Kia Soul EV which has less than half the range, but like the style of the Soul better, but at that time all the compliance EVs like the eGolf, Focus Electric, Kia Soul EV cost about the same as the Bolts with half the range. Then I got a free new battery a year later so score! We bought the Bolt used for under $20k, not the best deal if you look at what Bolt prices are now. But we’ve had it for four years and it has 108k miles on it now.

Was this your first modern EV?

Yes! We had a Volt before this, which does not get confusing to tell people about at all, and I was rarely using the engine so figured we could get by on a full EV, even if we just charge on 110v, which we have a 208v charger now so even better, but the first month or so it was charged on a regular outlet and worked fine.

How have you liked it?

I like it as a friend, a really good friend, a faithful friend, but a strictly platonic friend. I’d lie if I didn’t say my eyes wandered every day on the way to work when I see a newer Beetle or Ioniq 5 or some such.

How long do you think you’ll hold onto this?

It depends on where we end up at the end of the Prologue lease, and what the future for EVs brings. I would really like something a little sexier or fun, I’m waiting for the dull SUV EVs to all get rolled out so we can get some fun EV offerings, but it has been such a solid reliable car I’m not going to get rid of it until I find something that really strikes me.

What do you think the first gen did better than the second for this?

The motor/battery are mostly the same. The biggest thing is the tail/brake lights. Mine has the combo tail/brake on the hatch as expected, only the blinkers are in the bumper, and they’re amber. In the second gen, the lights on the hatch are just tail lights, the brakes/turn are in the bumper looking like red reflectors. It’s ridiculous. Other than that, I really like the shifter. It’s much better than the buttons in later models.

What led to you leasing the Prologue?

We had a Forester, very similar to Matt’s. Seeing Matt’s multiple articles, it was like reading a novel about a serial killer and realizing the call is coming from inside the house! We’d just paid off the Bolt, and could get the Prologue lease for less than what Bolt payments had been, so we figured it was a great deal. Of course my wife driving the Bolt to work whenever I was working from home or on weekends and having that instant acceleration compared to the Forester didn’t do it any favors.

Is there anything you miss about the Forester or just glad to see it gone?

It was really roomy. I’m 6 feet tall and on the heavy side and I could just slide into the driver’s seat and stretch out. The Prologue is roomy too, but the Forester felt just a bit more airy inside. Also, visibility! To this day I’m still confused how Subaru managed the five star safety ratings but have such good visibility out, especially around the A pillars that have grown massively the past 15 years on other cars.

Do you feel this suffers at all being a Honda on a GM platform?

Not at all. GM has a really good underlying platform, and I felt Honda fixed some GM goofs with the Prologue. The charge port door is a regular push open/close instead of the motorized one on the Blazer, it has Carplay, it has regular headlights and tail lights with amber turn signals, it doesn’t look like tHe fUtuRe in design, just got the regular Honda design language. I like that it’s subtle and regular looking.

What does this do better than the Bolt?

It is so much more comfy, not just interior space wise but ride-wise too. It’s just so smooth and quiet. The Bolt is quiet as an EV but then we get out of the Prologue and into the Bolt and are like ‘why’s it so loud?’

The Prologue has some fancy gee-wizardry compared to the Bolt. For example, with the screens, there’s a steering wheel button to move the content from the big infotainment screen to the console, so you can have your map in the console screen.

The low-speed pedestrian sound from the Prologue sounds like an orchestral sci-fi noise that the pitch rises on as you accelerate, on the Bolt the low-speed noise sounds like a vacuum cleaner, I mean a nice vacuum cleaner but still.

What is the Bolt better at?

Handling, the Bolt is so nimble, my wife hasn’t driven the Bolt in almost 2 months, but we take it whenever we’re together to save mileage on the Prologue and I take some turns in the Bolt and just see her eyes get wide lol. Also 1 pedal driving is just a downshift in the Bolt, that is super handy on my commute in Charlotte traffic. The Prologue buried it in the infotainment screen. Mainly as they have a regen paddle on the steering wheel, the Bolt has that too but just activating that mode like a downshift is so intuitive.

Now what’s the story behind the Ranger?

It was the summer of 2020, and we had just bought a house. I wanted a small truck for house stuff, and being a bit of a tech nerd was looking to maybe convert an old mini truck to electric like an S10 or Ranger, in my research on that I found out about these and then started searching for ones for sale. and found some listings on Ebay.

There’s a couple of guys in Oregon that acquired the remaining stock of Ranger Electrics and various spare parts from the holding company that had them after people stopped the crushing back in the early 2000s. They listed 2 of them on Ebay and I won the bid on one for about $6k, First time I ever bought a vehicle sight unseen, and then paid to have it transported out here to NC.

How’s it holding up after 25 years?

It’s doing great! Even as an electric it’s still a FFR! It has barely any rust, even the AC still works.

Have you had to do any work to it?

Not a lot, it ran and drove when I got it, and it’s electric so not much to break. I did replace the brake booster which is the standard Ranger one, it has a vacuum pump for the booster and that kept cycling so I traced it to the booster, went to NAPA and got a replacement no problem. I’ve also updated the stereo. I have a Sony unit now with cd player and carplay, a bit of a unicorn itself so think it fits well.

I also changed the oil in the motor as that’s listed as a maintenance item every few years. Lastly it actually has a ‘cabin air filter’ to replace. This is a little half-moon shaped pleated filter that goes in the blower housing, the heater is a wire element type so that’s to keep leaves and such from getting on there and starting a fire.

Any issues with it?

The perpetual issue, mainly only issue, besides the brake booster, is the paint has constant delamination. When I got it there were giant patches missing on the bed and cab, and where the HOV lane stickers from California were on it they actually ate through the paint in a perfect square pattern. Having spent only $6k on it I didn’t want to spend much on a paint job so I roll-on lined the bed and continually rattle can the rest as needed. It’s standard white it doesn’t show too bad, and I got some NOS decals from a ’94 to distract from my bad paint as well, which look totally RAD!

Any plans for further modernization?

I updated the charge port from the original Avcon charge port, which is like a claw style connector, to the modern J1772 style most non-Teslas have. The Avcon was the predecessor to the J1772 so it was a direct wire in. Also, the stereo I have in it has a backup camera and carplay and I have a wireless steering wheel control. I also replaced the roll up windows with power windows as a convenience. It still has manual locks much to my wife’s chagrin, but literally the first 30 years of our lives most cars had manual locks so I tell her she should know how to use them lol.

Given that the Slate just dropped, do you feel that is a spiritual descendant of your Ranger?

Definitely! It’s literally the size of the old Rangers, right down to the plywood having to sit on top of the wheel wells lol. And yes, specifically with the Electric Ranger the rear drive unit and de Deon tube axle, and they had the roll up windows too! I hope it takes off and I get to see some around town. Maybe I’ll even try to sneak into local Slate meetups if they get that far.

What sort of range does it get?

It gets about 50 miles around town (45-50mph) now, just this spring I did the maintenance procedure to refresh the batteries. Like old RC car NiMh batteries, they get a bit of a memory, so you drain them to absolute zero several times to refresh them. Previously, it was only getting a little over 30 miles. The ‘guess-o-meter’ gauge, where the tach was on a normal Ranger, only goes up to about 60 so they weren’t trying to oversell the range back then either.

How often do you drive it?

I try to drive it about every weekend, sometimes take it into work on a Friday.  I do at least charge it every week though as that also helps top off the 12v battery.

What’s your favorite thing about this?

So many things, there’s a bit of history with having a Ranger as when my wife and I started dating I had a ’94 Ranger, 4×4 single cab. On our first date I left the headlights on while we went to see a movie, and had to have one of her friends come jump start it for us. She went out with me again after that, possibly because she liked the truck lol. This sits on the 4×4 frame like the later 2WD Edge model and is a single cab so it brings me right back when I get in it.

I love the simplicity of it and knowing that most things like the brake system, power steering, the whole body and frame are fixable with regular Ranger parts is comforting, and if something with the EV system does go there’s a whole community of Ranger EV owners for support, many have upgraded their batteries and charging systems. It’s just a really honest, basic truck that happens to have electric boxes all over it.

What’s the worst thing about it?

You’d think range but now that I’ve got it up to 50 miles that’s not it. It’s the acceleration! Or lack thereof. It is not fast, as noted by the Baymax decal on the window. It gets around fine, and I’ve hit top speed on the highway (75mph), but compared to all our other cars I have to really do a triple take when pulling out into traffic.

How do you think this compares to the Chevy S-10 EV that was also out in the late 90s?

At the time I would’ve taken an S10 or a Ranger electric if I could find either, but I’m really glad I wound up with the Ranger. The S10 had inductive charging which was a very proprietary type of setup that used a paddle to plug in to charge, and you needed the charger that matched. The Ranger had basically the previous generation of what’s now J1772 so that was an easy upgrade. The S10s are also much rarer, they made more Ranger Electrics than EV1 and electric S10s combined, and we know what happened to most EV1s.

Any interest in the new Lightning or any of the other bigger EV trucks now on the market?

My wife sure is interested in them lol, but the big ones are not for me. The Ranger has done everything I’ve needed of it so far, hauled over 800lbs of patio pavers, taken broken commodes to the dump, and I can take it to Radwood! Smaller EV trucks like the Slate would be tempting in that I could consolidate the Bolt and the Ranger, over 100 miles of range and a frunk would be cool, but we’ll see how they do, and what the price ends up being with options.

Having EVs from basically three different generations, how stark is the contrast between them?

I feel like the Ranger really shows how EVs were not public ready 25 years ago, and indeed it was basically a fleet truck, some didn’t even have air conditioning. Then just the 17 years between the Ranger and the Bolt it’s like [going] from the biplane Sopwith Camel to the P-51 Mustang.

Now with the Blazer/Prologues we’re entering the jet age of EVs. The differences between the Bolt and the Prologue don’t seem as big but the Prologue can charge 3 times as fast as the Bolt, is 2 sizes up from the Bolt, has AWD, but still gets just as much range from only about 25% more battery.

What aspect of these do you think has progressed the most over the last 25 years?

I think the obvious answer is battery technology, but also all the other technology under the hood. When I show the Ranger to other EV enthusiasts, they just marvel at the massive size of the individual components under the hood. Comparing this to the Slate Beta vehicles, or even the F150 Lightning, there’s a large frunk where all that stuff is in the Ranger. It’s like comparing the old massive rear projection TVs that took three or four people to move, to modern, hang on the wall with a thumbtack, 65″ flat panels.

Thanks Jim!

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