[bennelson]

Well my friends, I love my electric car....

But it does only run on just a few, used, batteries, and doesn't have phenomenal range. There are times where I really wish I could just go a bit farther.

Since it's already an electric car, and gets its power from the wall, through the charger, it's already efficient and can run on renewable energy. I like that and want to keep it that way.

What makes sense to me is a "Chevy Volt"-style DIY Plug-In Hybrid.

A friend of mine is an RV mechanic. A while back, he gave me a propane generator. (Generac NP-40, 30 amp 120V) It didn't run, needed some troubleshooting and TLC, but still quite a score!

My idea is to mount the generator on the back outside of the car, along with its propane bottle. AC power from the generator would run to the cars charger, which would continuously "top off" the batteries as long as it's running.

The generator is out of an RV, so it's already DOT approved for use in vehicles. It runs on propane, so emissions are no worse than cooking burgers on your home gas grill.

The car uses about 7Kwatts while cruising at 35 mph. The generator is rated for 3Kwatts, so, if I am driving 35mph half the time, and at stop lights, going down hill, and off the accelerator the other half of the time, the battery level should stay pretty even.

Real world tests will show how well it actually works or not in the end, but it's off to a good start. I just got the engine to run on it's own (using scrap parts from a gas grill!)