Places like Australia has some seriously large distances, with some of the most isolated populations on earth.
Sure it's a small market (most Australians live in their state's capital city), but there needs to be some consideration for those that need serious range. The issue is frequently mentioned when talking about banning ICE vehicles.
Toyota Landcruiser's with auxiliary fuel tanks (over 240 litres) are the workhorses in outback Australia.
Stuff like this is always brought up. And while it is true in principle, it doesn't change the above statement. Almost 90% of Australians live in cities and average distance driven per day by Australians is 30-40km. There will always be a small, single digit percentage market for long haul transport that needs alternatives. But the mass market doesn't need better EVs. That's why range has stagnated over the past years. Noone is willing to pay twice as much for slightly less inconvenience once every 6 months. Sure, if we had a working breakthrough battery that could deliver twice the performance for the same price it would be great, but in reality it would only be great for about 5% of personal traffic.
Yeah, more importantly: until cities are 100% EV, I wouldn't worry about rural. Realistically, we can probably just never worry about it: there are far more cars used in cities then in the country.
In a case where you're trying to get emitted CO2 to zero, you'd probably prefer to just subsidize ethanol and renewable diesel to manage super-long haul to get their - too many tractors and other equipment we also need to run.
In Mexico and Singapore, Nissan introduced the Epower technology which is a hybrid in which the combustion part only serves as generator. All the driving machinery is electrical, and both the mpg and range are great.
In hindsight I think it's an obvious technooogy: the conplexity of the combustion generator is pretty low, doesn't need gearbox, pistols, cylinders and whatnot. And the fuel tank still gives good range NY recharging the battery.
Got a Kicks with this tech, and so far it has been pretty good for both city and the road (5 hr drives to the beach!)
Every other manufacturer calls this a series hybrid or electric with range-extender.
They have cost challenges - because if you want to drive one at a constant 80 mph on the freeway, you need at least ~50 horsepower of gasoline generator, ~50 horsepower of generator ~ 50 horsepower of generator inverter, ~50 horsepower of motor, ~50 horsepower of motor inverter.
Turns out all of that costs and weighs a lot more than just 100 horsepower of gasoline engine for a similar size car.
Cars like the BMW i3 with range extender undersize their gas engine and generator to save money and weight, yet are getting sued because in worst case conditions (driving up a mountain heavily laden), sometimes the car runs out of battery power and has to rely on gasoline alone, leading to a top speed of only 20 mph - not really usable!
California has bizarre regulations regarding range extenders.
I also don’t see why 50 hp is a good target. The oldest Model S cars can drive on the freeway (at moderate speed) using maybe 25 kW (33 hp). So a 25 kW generator would allow indefinite freeway driving at moderate speed. But almost no one does this except maybe long haul trucks that trade drivers.
IMO the right way to think of it is: a 25 kW generator will almost fully recharge the battery in under 4 hours. If you drive uphill or fast for two hours, and you run that generator, you have an extra 50 kWh. If you want to drive 10 hours (shudder), that’s an extra 250kWh — you should avoided about three long charging stops, so maybe one actual level 3 stop gets you there even if you drive moderately fast.
And you can stop for the night (or sightseeing or whatever, as long as you park outdoors), and you’ll be fully recharged afterwards. I would appreciate a 5kW onboard generator for this purpose!
Tiny engines (ie. sub 20 horsepower) have pretty poor efficiency, and tend not to meet modern emissions requirements (since they haven't been developed with automotive use in mind).
Nobody is putting much R&D into new engine designs.
Lots of countries have laws saying an engine in a car can't be running without a driver present.
For all those reasons, tiny range extenders on large batteries don't tend to exist.
Instead you get moderate or large range extenders paired with smallish batteries (ie. total range 50 miles). And they still have trouble if you drive fast, heavily laden, up a hill, on a hot day for more than the battery capacity.
Yes, but you also have the extra weight of the second engine - and you have to transform that mechanical energy to electricity before the electric engine transforms it back to mechanical energy again, which is lossy. So all in all I think it makes sense for long range/remote areas, but I rather would have a fuel cell as a range extension. (which has its own downsides of course)
I like the idea of one-way rentals of towable generators. Think a U-haul like model, where you pick one up at a gas station near your origin, and drop it at your destination. Now if EV makers would just allow charging while driving..
You can rent a pretty near CDL sized truck from UHaul/etc for little trouble. This would represent less than the upfront cost of a truck from the companies POV. They’d only need to worry about the chance people don’t reuturn the batteries. That seems unlikely given the same people would have given all their info up front and are highly likely to need a battery in the future. Vehicle rentals are far more risky and still a daily occurrence.
I’m 100% certain the market could exist. Probably the difficult part is car manufacturers supporting it and possibly some engineering problems (low probability of problems I think).
According to the page, you can't plug in these vehicles, is that right?
Chevy Volt was conceptualized as a serial hybrid iirc, but the engine drives the powertrain at higher speeds so it's not a pure serial hybrid. Mazda has a rotary engine based serial hybrid / range extender out or coming out too I believe.
Sure it's a small market (most Australians live in their state's capital city), but there needs to be some consideration for those that need serious range. The issue is frequently mentioned when talking about banning ICE vehicles.
Toyota Landcruiser's with auxiliary fuel tanks (over 240 litres) are the workhorses in outback Australia.