Ultimate road trip vehicle
 

I had a thought and I wanted to see if anyone thought it was feasible. I have a 1993 extended cab ranger 5 speed 4.0 2wd and I want to eventually make it the ultimate roadtrip vehicle. The part I'm wondering about is possibly making it a hybrid. I've built a few muscle cars but never anything electric. My thought was to put an electric motor on the driveshaft (my truck can be dinghy towed according to ford) and just drive with it with the engine off until the batteries need recharged, then start the truck and drive it to use the electric motor to then recharge the batteries. I know theres a lot more to it then this, it's just a simple explanation of the idea. If I had about a 50 mile range then I could drive to and from work for a couple of days on a single charge and use no gas, then on long trips alternate between gas engine and electric to decrease fuel use. Just wanted to get thoughts on feasibility of doing it, I know it wouldn't be cheap, but it's still cheaper than buying new.

Same concept as one of our forum founders

https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthre...uck-36840.html

I also recommend looking at what hoopie did

https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthre...uck-34935.html


That said besides hoopie there are no completed and successful hybrid conversions listed on diyelectriccar.com
Which is the source for how others have converted.


For simplicity an in-line Motor like Ben has coupled with a $900 Chevy volt battery, charger, controller, dcdc, brake booster, manual steering rack plus the “gas pedal sensor” would be what you need at a minimum.

Good Luck

Considering that a Prius V is only 12-milimetre wider than your Ranger (well, at least according to Wikipedia), something similar to what Hoopie did with his Chevy or what Bill the Engineer is doing with his Firebird might work well for you.

Looks like another one and done guy

I consider the Prius to be the ultimate road trip vehicle. Sure, it can be tricky maneuver up steep rutted logging roads, but the thing gets such good fuel economy, plus you can sleep in the back.

Why would you think of a Ranger as a good road trip vehicle, regardless of whether it's hybrid or not?

If your aim is to travel long distances with great fuel economy, I don't think you're going to do much better than a 1st gen Insight. For highway driving at non-insane speeds, 700+ miles on a tank is pretty normal.

Yep. In 4 1/2 years, I've saved well over $1000 in hotel costs (15 nights and counting).

I guess the possibility to use a camper shell might provide more comfort to sleep, plus it might still haul more camping gear than in a Prius.


It was developed when compact trucks were in fact somewhat compact, to the point that many modern compact cars are outsizing it, even the Prius. And it still has a lot of room for improvements to both aerodynamics and drivetrain.

Hmm. What's your current avg. mpg. I have a 2001 Ranger that pretty easily gets 30 mpg on the freeway with just a little cautious driving. Try to keep it at 60 mph or below. Not that hard to do. Big rig speed limit here is 60 so I just tuck in behind the slowest one I can find. A 50 mile battery is going to cost a bit in weight. You figure the Chevy Volt has around a 35 mile electric range on its 16+kwh pack. That pack comes in at around 400 pounds. Plus the weight of whatever motor and associated controls you need. I like the other guys' idea of plopping the Ranger body down on the Prius frame. I wouldn't do it myself because I have too short of an attention span. But it does sound like fun.
JJ

What do you need to know about ranger conversions?

They are aerodynamic bricks, I'm getting 430 wh/mile at highway speed so perhaps 40 mi per charge on a warm day.

You can lose a lot of bloat from the pack if you disassemble it, maybe 200 lbs