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Old 01-22-2013, 07:43 PM   #109 (permalink)
bennelson
EV test pilot
 
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Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Oconomowoc, WI, USA
Posts: 4,435

Electric Cycle - '81 Kawasaki KZ440
90 day: 334.6 mpg (US)

S10 - '95 Chevy S10
90 day: 30.48 mpg (US)

Electro-Metro - '96 Ben Nelson's "Electro-Metro"
90 day: 129.81 mpg (US)

The Wife's Car - Plug-in Prius - '04 Toyota Prius
90 day: 78.16 mpg (US)
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I was driving home today, and got a reminder that there are ALREADY commercially-available diesel-electric plug-in hybrid trucks that I see nearly every day!

The local school bus company owns 14 hybrid busses. Here's one I took a photo of at a traffic light.



The best part is that they solar-charge them! The car port that they park under has a giant grid-tie PV array that nets out to how much power the busses use through the year. I believe the bus is THIS ONE, in case you are interested.

I also dug through my box of misc EV components and found that DC/DC converter. It's rated at 15 amps at 12V, and has an output voltage adjustment, so I should be able to turn it up into "12V battery charging range".

It's a brick that's about 8 x 2.5 x 4 inches and will run on 110-330VDC

I think 180 watts should be enough for a truck DC/DC converter. Regular headlamps are usually 55 watts each. Taillights and radio can't take much power. I'm not sure how many watts the heater blower runs, but if I was in EV mode anyways (and thus using the DC/DC instead of the alternator) I'd probably just be using a seat heater.

There's always the possibility of converting to HID or LED headlights as well, which should also lower the 12V power load.




I guess technically, this is just a power supply, but it can run on either AC or DC.
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Last edited by bennelson; 01-22-2013 at 07:49 PM..
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