edatoakrun
Well-known member
From the OP:
“In fact, a true ICE ”range extender” for a BEV is not a bad Idea, It's just that current designs are all abysmal failures, from the point of energy efficiency and driver utility. Putting an ICE drivetrain in an EV, whether in series, parallel, or any other hybrid configuration, is not advisable, IMO. Invariably, you will get an overweight, overpriced, underperforming vehicle, like the Volt. It seems almost as ridiculous, to install an extremely expensive and heavy large battery pack (like the Tesla S long-range options) which is only occasionally required by the BEV driver.”
Well the concept of a trailer mounted range extender, posted, either a 30 kWh or larger hydrocarbon–fueled generator, or a large battery pack, more or less converts a BEV into either of the undesirable options above, a very large battery pack BEV, or a series hybrid ICEV. And I think you probably will require a trailer–mounted unit, if you either want a 30 kWh (series hybrid sized generator) or a larger-than 20 kWh add-on battery
The good news, or course, is that it’s only temporary, and you could theoretically set up rental networks, so that the (very?) high costs could be spread out over many users, and the efficiency penalties would only occur during the time of usage, Allowing cost and energy efficient BEV use at all other times.
But I believe these are among the least likely directions vehicle evolution will take. It is currently fairly cheap and simple just to rent a specialty vehicle for a particular task. Will range-extender trailer rentals ever prove superior to just renting the vehicle you require?
Maybe I should have premised the OP with the comments I have made many times on other threads. I believe BEVs are currently superior for the majority of consumers for the majority of their needs, and will soon largely replace ICEVs (including hybrids) and that BEVs’ market dominance will be constrained mainly by how rapidly the BEV charging infrastructure is established.
But the final stage in the evolution from ICEV to hybrid to BEV, the range-extended EV, in which the ICE is reduced to it’s vestigial state, as a small, cheap generator, intended only to do it’s dirty and inefficient work when absolutely necessary, to reduce the time and frequency of BEV recharge sessions on occasional longer trips, is now the missing link in the vehicle market, in this evolutionary path. And even after the ICE is no longer required at all, when the BEV charging network is established, and cheaper longer range batteries are available, I might have no problem at all ,still filling the combustion heater tank in my BEV up (with a relatively low polluting fossil fuel) every winter, to get heat much more efficiently than through the grid-to-battery-to resistance alternative.
I don’t get it. My LEAF is a great car, but if I lived 35 miles from town rather than 25, or if winter temperatures regularly fell into the teens, rather than the thirties (in Shasta County where I live, where there is currently virtually no charging infrastructure, and little prospect for rapid future development) I wouldn’t have bought it.
And if any manufacturer had brought a LEAF class twenty-something available kWh battery pack BEV to market, with a 4 kWh to 8 kWh range extender, with only a few hundred pound, and few thousand dollar cost, penalty (both realistic, IMO) I, like many LEAF buyers, probably would have chosen it, over my LEAF.
And I also think almost every Volt buyer, would have done so...
As well as many other car buyers, who chose ICEVs and hybrids.
“In fact, a true ICE ”range extender” for a BEV is not a bad Idea, It's just that current designs are all abysmal failures, from the point of energy efficiency and driver utility. Putting an ICE drivetrain in an EV, whether in series, parallel, or any other hybrid configuration, is not advisable, IMO. Invariably, you will get an overweight, overpriced, underperforming vehicle, like the Volt. It seems almost as ridiculous, to install an extremely expensive and heavy large battery pack (like the Tesla S long-range options) which is only occasionally required by the BEV driver.”
Well the concept of a trailer mounted range extender, posted, either a 30 kWh or larger hydrocarbon–fueled generator, or a large battery pack, more or less converts a BEV into either of the undesirable options above, a very large battery pack BEV, or a series hybrid ICEV. And I think you probably will require a trailer–mounted unit, if you either want a 30 kWh (series hybrid sized generator) or a larger-than 20 kWh add-on battery
The good news, or course, is that it’s only temporary, and you could theoretically set up rental networks, so that the (very?) high costs could be spread out over many users, and the efficiency penalties would only occur during the time of usage, Allowing cost and energy efficient BEV use at all other times.
But I believe these are among the least likely directions vehicle evolution will take. It is currently fairly cheap and simple just to rent a specialty vehicle for a particular task. Will range-extender trailer rentals ever prove superior to just renting the vehicle you require?
Maybe I should have premised the OP with the comments I have made many times on other threads. I believe BEVs are currently superior for the majority of consumers for the majority of their needs, and will soon largely replace ICEVs (including hybrids) and that BEVs’ market dominance will be constrained mainly by how rapidly the BEV charging infrastructure is established.
But the final stage in the evolution from ICEV to hybrid to BEV, the range-extended EV, in which the ICE is reduced to it’s vestigial state, as a small, cheap generator, intended only to do it’s dirty and inefficient work when absolutely necessary, to reduce the time and frequency of BEV recharge sessions on occasional longer trips, is now the missing link in the vehicle market, in this evolutionary path. And even after the ICE is no longer required at all, when the BEV charging network is established, and cheaper longer range batteries are available, I might have no problem at all ,still filling the combustion heater tank in my BEV up (with a relatively low polluting fossil fuel) every winter, to get heat much more efficiently than through the grid-to-battery-to resistance alternative.
I don’t get it. My LEAF is a great car, but if I lived 35 miles from town rather than 25, or if winter temperatures regularly fell into the teens, rather than the thirties (in Shasta County where I live, where there is currently virtually no charging infrastructure, and little prospect for rapid future development) I wouldn’t have bought it.
And if any manufacturer had brought a LEAF class twenty-something available kWh battery pack BEV to market, with a 4 kWh to 8 kWh range extender, with only a few hundred pound, and few thousand dollar cost, penalty (both realistic, IMO) I, like many LEAF buyers, probably would have chosen it, over my LEAF.
And I also think almost every Volt buyer, would have done so...
As well as many other car buyers, who chose ICEVs and hybrids.