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

I wonder how hard it would be to attach a diesel powered pusher trailer for highway trips? EV around town, without the weight of the ICE and, with the trailer attached, long range diesel for extended trips. I know I could haul a generator to feed the EV battery, but with the extra step of mechanical to electricity, there is an extra loss of efficiency. Better to drive an axle directly from the engine. The trailer hookup could be rigid, side to side, with hydraulic cylinders on each side to tilt the trailer for turns.

Forget the generator idea. All mass produced electric vehicles are immobilized when the charger is plugged in.
A mass production EV would have to be modified and/or reprogrammed to allow for charging while moving.

Easier to just ask to borrow my (or your neighbor, friend, uncle) Prius.

WOW! Thanks! I see the idea is not new. I'm thinking of a pusher-trailer, not a generator-trailer.

I already have the Prius, but it's not a plug in, and even those won't go the hundreds of miles without a plug in every couple of dozen.

Get a plug in hybrid.
The 20 to 30 Mike range most of them have should eliminate almost all gasoline usage.
Not like there is much weight difference between an EV and a hybrid.

There's no point in forcing an EV to go long distances. It's not the right tool for the job. People can do it if they want, but it's their time wasted.

I think you are missing the point. I'd like a plug in EV, like a Nissan Leaf, but I don't see the need to haul the ICE around town. I'm looking for a solution that allows me to keep the ICE in the garage until needed for highway trips. Thus, the pusher trailer. Anything with an ICE and transmission with enough HP to push the car at 75. A double mounted hitch with, maybe, one drive wheel. Maybe, even a puller trailer.

Leave the prius parked and get a leaf.
When it gets cold you don't really want to drive the leaf. Trust me.

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

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

Maybe this is the best idea....IF they went commercial...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOA_i2qAQq0

That's nice. To be helpful to my usage patterns it would have to help on the freeway more than anything.

If the pusher was only for cruising near highway speeds, and most small cars need less than ten hp for that, then it could be set up like cruise control. the EV drivetrain controls the speed. All acceleration is done with the EV components. Once at speed the pusher kicks in to maintain speed while the EV parts coast. We don't want to regen at cruise, but on descents and deceleration only.
A small wrecked motorcycle would seem to be about right. A two wheeled trailer would introduce all kinds of dynamic driving problems like jackknifing, off center traction, etc. a puller(tractor?) would need to be steered. But a small motorcycle frame, center mounted on a strong receiver hitch just might work. Some kind of lift to pick the wheel off the ground would be nice for maneuvering and at tolls.

Since most EVs and hybrids are front wheel drive, why not use a small motorcycle engine/transmission mounted in a beefed up Harley frame, mounted to the car by a strong receiver, and remove the rear wheels and suspension? Motorcycle rates at the toll booth? Motorcycle registration rates?

I am confused by your statement in post number 6. Your Prius will drive across the country on the gasoline engine alone. As will a Volt or any other hybrid thus the only reason I would ever consider owning one. The trick is to use less gasoline and more electricity thus the savings.

The “trick” is to live where a car isn’t needed.

The problem isn’t the tool. A gold-plated posthole digger isnt the answer.

The context (society) is that the cities are dangerous (the specifics of who lives there) and the resulting ethnic cleansing made suburban sprawl the WRONG “solution”.

In the meantime a turbodiesel car in an insulated garage is the “answer”. Electric cars and hybrids won’t change it.

I've blundered my way to the answer: Convert my standard traction battery to a Lithium Ion battery so that I can do my daily driving on stored electricity, and never burn gas until I take those long trips.

I had wondered if the ICE could be left in the garage until needed, thus lightening the weight for EV only operation.

A turbodiesil in an insulated garage is an improvement in mileage, but the potential savings is offset by the higher price of diesel, and pollution is still there.

That would be a solution if the original goal was a hybrid, but those already exist. If the quest is to create a "Modular hybrid" take that one step further and have a light empty rear section with no drive for local trips. But if the goal is to add range to an existing small EV, substantially redesigning the chassis seems out of scope.
The toll comment was to avoid doubling the fee with a third axle. My uncle tours on a Harley with a "large suitcase" sized trailer and pays more in tolls than a four wheeled box truck.

A thought just occurred to me. Thinking of those tiny trailers that connect tandem trailers for highway travel in the trucking industry. What if there was a range extending diesel axle module for EV delivery trucks that could be left behind when they reach the city.

And that is my original idea. A range extending ICE trailer (or maybe a hitch mounted 20 HP ICE driving the rear tires through a power takeoff) that can be left in the garage until needed for highway trips, the EV not needing to drag all that weight around town on short EV range trips.

Keep the efficiency of electric at home, but add the ICE to turn the car into a Hybrid for extended range when needed.

The problem with that "trick" is that you're condemming yourself to a pretty miserable life.

Nope. The problem is that there's too many people, no matter what sort of people they happen to be. A city full of dedicated pacifists of your preferred racial/ethnic/gender mix is still a city full of people - and even if you magically removed the people, it'd still be a lifeless conglomerations of concrete, asphalt, and steel.

Something like this:

https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...2&d=1544454843

I'm in the country and I drive a nissan leaf.
I know I'm never going to live in the city again if I can help it.

Have you ever needed to drive farther than your Battery range?

I built my own charging network and bought a portable CHAedMO unit so yeah.
But I don't want to put gas in a car a lot more than I wish I had more range.

If I was going to build one this is how I would do it.
Set a target speed and set a power base line for that speed.
Let's say 60mph. In the summer the leaf could be drawing around 15kw to maintain 60mph. When it's cold it's closer to 20kw, with a cross wind over 20kw.
Based on that I would build a leaf pusher using a 25 to 26 horsepower engine that goes on the standard trailer hitch.
I would probably also use a single wheel, single fixed speed transmission. That way the transmission would weigh almost nothing and the engine would weigh around 75lb.
Use the single speed transmission because we are assuming that the engine is needed on the highway and the the car can get up to speed under its own power.
That 25hp would provide enough power to maintain speed and give a little regen under most conditions.

Yes.

Alone in the sticks is where misery lays. Where things go to die. Man has always built cities. Get a clue.

And your blanket condemnation evinces what? Profound ignorance is the kinder, gentler response.

I don’t care what analogy is used about cities, machine or organism. Some flat work well. The reasons aren’t hard to deduce. In 5000-years plus, there are patterns.

You keep your hairshirt.

The problem is in getting around. Safely. With some protection from weather. Ruin the cities and no amount of gold-plating will convert a tremendously expensive tool into a cheap one. It’s past relevance.

.

It’s the simplest choice for low cost to the owner. First consideration always.

The electric is the higher cost. FAR higher. Needs total infrastructure built. What generating capacity will be needed to charge 100-million cars every night?

ICE doesn’t need any of this. It’s already built. And the pollution is nothing compared to fifty years ago. Thus a non-starter.

Electric is for those who want others to pay for their feel-goods. DIY, or it’s bull****. The pollution generated by every aspect of electric cars on a national isn’t trivial. It’s nasty as hell.

Will you be joining the military to adventure in Africa or Far Asia to TAKE what’s necessary? Yeah, didn’t think so. Your assumptions about national prosperity haven’t been examined, have they? Since this is where the entire argument falls apart.

Oil & coal we have. We are hardly through in discovering what it can do.

What’s the minimum one NEEDS to drive annually? The more the cities spread, the worse it gets.

A safe home in a safe neighborhood isn’t negotiable. The real problem.

.

The majority of electricity is generated by burning hydrocarbons to turn generators, but a few well tuned centralized power stations are less polluting than millions of out of tune vehicles. Diesel, natural gas, gasoline. But I don't buy "clean coal." That's just an attempt to save the economies and jobs of high coal states. We need to find processes to make non- burned products from coal, or we need to leave it in the ground.

pushers work... period
 

Angel and the Wolf, don't get discouraged by the blanket condemnations and ignorance- which is particularly interesting to find on EcoModder.. :confused:
For full detail, refer to my article on the subject; https://insideevs.com/explained-mits...xtender-story/
Suffice it to say- pushers can be simple, extremely effective, safe and stable to tow, and if used only for occasional long highway trips, deliver greater overall lifetime mpg than a hybrid with or without a plug.
A gentleman who is not active online but probably the most accomplished EV pusher EVer is currently en route to my place on his semi-annual rental property inspections from Utah to So. Cal. to B.C. Canada and back, all done with an aircooled VW engine pushing his RAV4 EV!

My second pusher trailer (and first one built from scratch by me) has recently finished engine resurrection and installation (pulled from a Karmann Ghia totalled in a 1995 collision)!
http://karmanneclectric.blogspot.com...tin-rangy.html
Some of the high school auto shop kids on this project had never dealt with points or a carburetor before, let alone valve adjustment.. I'll try to report back after road testing, which is due to happen in the next two weeks.
https://karmanneclectric.blogspot.co...rangy-ier.html

Man has always built cities because until recently he hasn't had fast transportation & communication. But as soon as those started to become available, those who could afford to do so started to move out of the cities. This even pre-dates the automobile: look at the growth of commuter railroads in the late 19th & early 20th centuries. Even before that, many of the wealthy had their country estates, and only came to Town for the "Season".

With electronic communication, nowadays there's really no reason to spend time in cities once you attain a moderate amount of money and/or professional reputation. If you personally like city life, feel free to stay there. But many of us do regard it as a foretaste of Hell, so don't expect us to join you voluntarily.

It's strange, but I've never been more alone than the times I've had to live in cities. Yes, there were people around, but I didn't know them, and they didn't know me. In the country, I might not have that many neighbors, but we know & help each other.