Quote:
Originally Posted by aerohead
Added weight of the trailer will induce runaway speed if not compensated for with braking which kills otherwise useful kinetic energy.
Without the trailer,the little air drag present is enough to discourage runaway,and I don't lose fuel energy to braking.
|
In this situation, you don't really lose fuel energy or efficiency to braking.
There simply wasn't anything to be gained when you can come down the mountain using engine braking or aerodynamic braking with the engine off.
But you still had to drag the trailer up the mountain first.
Quote:
|
As a 200-pound plug-in hybrid battery range-extender trailer,with 400-pounds of extra Li-on batteries, the trailers inertia and momentum could be 'harvested' with an EV.
|
There's a limit to that as well - the uphill part would have drained them to as low as the conditioning software will let it, but once the batteries are full, the harvest is over.
And these batteries too, have to be dragged up the mountain first.