EVs Are Great Around Town, But.......

[Angel And The Wolf]

You guys just don't want to tackel the proposition?

[Frank Lee]

It's intriguing but I think the dynamics of a powered trailer are difficult, especially here where the roads are snowy and icy for the next four months. And it seems nice to try to have one vehicle do it all but let's face it, almost everybody who isn't an urban apartment dweller has multiple vehicles anyway, so the easy way (?) is to have a local ev and a long distance ICE.

I agree that generator systems' built-in inefficiencies make them unattractive. Put that ICE power straight to the road.

I'd like to be able to add ICE power to the wheel(s) of an ev via removeable unit, not necessarily a trailer. How to best do that is a good question. P.S. But then have to lug all that heavy, presumably useless ev equipment with on the road trips? Bleah. Completely swap out ev/ice? Doable, but more effort than it's worth? Leave the ev stuff but remove the heavy and space-consuming battery pack to insert the ICE? Hmmmm

Would you have to buy two licenses, one for the car and one for the trailer?

[niky]

A trailer generator is all kinds of inefficient. Weight. Aero. Etcetera.

Better to have a portable diesel generator you can stick in the trunk. Still won't solve the range problem without you having to stop to recharge for an hour or two. Not without some hack.

Be nice if you could wire it up so it could directly power the drive motor during a cruise. The last Chinese PHEV I drove did that... ran exclusively on the EV drive motors at low speed, so when the battery was depleted, the gasoline motor ran as a generator to run the drive motors directly (and very slowly). A dedicated compact 5-6kw generator could at least give you crawling ability when you run out of battery without costing or weighing too much.

[Frank Lee]

A generator generator is all kinds of inefficient, dang it.

[Angel And The Wolf]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

It's intriguing but I think the dynamics of a powered trailer are difficult, especially here where the roads are snowy and icy for the next four months. And it seems nice to try to have one vehicle do it all but let's face it, almost everybody who isn't an urban apartment dweller has multiple vehicles anyway, so the easy way (?) is to have a local ev and a long distance ICE.

Thank you for the lengthy reply. Yes the dynamics would be difficult. We have a two car garage, but can only afford one car.

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

I agree that generator systems' built-in inefficiencies make them unattractive. Put that ICE power straight to the road.

Absolutely! ICE to Electric loses efficiency, and I don't really want to buy a diesel generator of the capacity to keep my Prius Traction battery charged while driving.

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

I'd like to be able to add ICE power to the wheel(s) of an ev via removeable unit, not necessarily a trailer. How to best do that is a good question. P.S. But then have to lug all that heavy, presumably useless ev equipment with on the road trips? Bleah. Completely swap out ev/ice? Doable, but more effort than it's worth? Leave the ev stuff but remove the heavy and space-consuming battery pack to insert the ICE? Hmmmm

You know, maybe the Prius with a 300 mile capacity battery on a trailer........

[redpoint5]

Well as post #2 points out, the topic has been discussed thoroughly, though not recently.

I'd like to see it done just because it's uncommon and an interesting engineering problem. It still doesn't present a practical solution to a problem. A pusher trailer probably isn't going to get better fuel economy than a Prius on the freeway. Even if it does, it wouldn't be useful when it's cold out because a Prius would use the waste heat to warm the cabin, but the waste heat from a pusher cannot easily be utilized. Then there is the whole hassle of it in the first place.

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by Angel And The Wolf

You guys just don't want to tackel the proposition?

Already solved. I kept my firebird after I got my leaf.
I find fast charging the leaf more useful than strapping an engine to it.

[Angel And The Wolf]

I'm thinking, maybe of the second car : https://www.smartusa.com/models/eq-pure-coupe It's cheap, and has plenty of around town range, and Keep the Prius for highway trips.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riyLR40nfyM

The only problem is that, being retired, we can barely afford to insure one car
Oh well. Who needs to take long trips, anyway?

[me and my metro]

Back in the late 90s we went the Solwest meet in John Day Oregon. We went for several years. There were people from all over the West displaying solar power ideas and self sustaining life styles. It is about 250 miles over the mountains from Eugene Oregon to John Day. This was way past the electric conversion car range back then. There were a few electric car conversion companies in Oregon back in the days before the big manufacturers caught up. One of the Eugene guys brought a beautiful electric VW rabbit conversion with a Diesel pusher running on BioDiesel. The pusher was the front half of a Diesel Rabbit and it was finished very nicely. Since the electric car would regen the batteries on the down hill portions of the trip the car was able to extend its range. Sorry I don’t have pictures any longer.

[Angel And The Wolf]

Maybe this is the best idea....IF they went commercial...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOA_i2qAQq0