Engine swap.

I've never heard of a swap for an electric motor. It sounds very expensive.
Just a guess but, the battery bank will probably weigh considerably more than a full fuel tank.
You could buy a lot of gasoline for the price of the conversion.
It does sound like an interesting project but, would it be practical or cost effective?

There was a company that build a batch of EV E450s to use for Long Beach public transit. It works ok for stop-and-go use, but the physics of pushing a brick wall through the air don't lend well for EV use on the highway yet. For a viable EV motorhome, the efficiency of the chassis and aero need to be dramatically improved, and even then, a lot of batteries won't go far.

The Thor ACE is one of the worst designs for reducing drag because of the "forehead". The Thor Vegas and Axis are the best, actually allowing Thor to meet greenhouse gas limits for a Class 3 chassis.

You ace with it's Cd around 1.3 and frontal area estimated to be 86 sq. ft, would require 160 kW (including ~10% for driveline and accessory losses) to drive down a flat highway at 60 MPH.

The battery back from a Tesla Model X has a capacity 100 KW/hr. You'd only be able to drive your motorhome around 37 miles before needing a recharge. Assuming no headwind, hills, using heat etc.

For a usable range, you would need about 10 Model x battery packs. But each one weighs 1200 pounds. And your existing cooling system might not be large enough to reject the heat of 10 of those packs charging simultaneously. Using a 240v charger (to utilize campground power), you'd need 120 hours to recharge your battery bank to drive another 370 miles. Plus you'r need a 2nd pedestal to power the house while your chassis charges.

carringb wrote:
There was a company that build a batch of EV E450s to use for Long Beach public transit. It works ok for stop-and-go use, but the physics of pushing a brick wall through the air don't lend well for EV use on the highway yet. For a viable EV motorhome, the efficiency of the chassis and aero need to be dramatically improved, and even then, a lot of batteries won't go far.

The Thor ACE is one of the worst designs for reducing drag because of the "forehead". The Thor Vegas and Axis are the best, actually allowing Thor to meet greenhouse gas limits for a Class 3 chassis.

You ace with it's Cd around 1.3 and frontal area estimated to be 86 sq. ft, would require 160 kW (including ~10% for driveline and accessory losses) to drive down a flat highway at 60 MPH.

The battery back from a Tesla Model X has a capacity 100 KW/hr. You'd only be able to drive your motorhome around 37 miles before needing a recharge. Assuming no headwind, hills, using heat etc.

For a usable range, you would need about 10 Model x battery packs. But each one weighs 1200 pounds. And your existing cooling system might not be large enough to reject the heat of 10 of those packs charging simultaneously. Using a 240v charger (to utilize campground power), you'd need 120 hours to recharge your battery bank to drive another 370 miles. Plus you'r need a 2nd pedestal to power the house while your chassis charges.

So much for that idea

At the moment there is very little available to electrify an RV. The few heavy vehicle application currently available to the driving public are marketed for short travel distances applications (school buses, local deliveries,,,) and then requires several hours if not over night to recharge.

As mentioned poor aerodynamics of an RV is a very big down check for a potential application. The very small potential market, as compared to daily drivers, isn't helping either. Give it another decade or two. More likely to see a class B followed by a class C then maybe an A after the heavy truck market and acquitted recharging stations are firmly established.

A tesla battery bank runs about 1200lb...an RV will be drastically heavier.

There are some city buses that are electric but they have average speeds of around 20-25mph and peak speeds of 45mph. That means wind resistance is negligible and they get a lot of regeneration from braking.

Wind resistance increases with the square of speed, which means you will require drastically more power to run for even a couple hours and regenerative braking will be negligible (if you can even find a retrofit system). Then it will take a very long time to recharge (campgrounds, rightfully, will consider charging substantially more if they catch you charging the battery bank).

It's basically, not practical for a new build. For a retrofit, it's really bad.

Designing an electric RV is one thing but building it will be really expensive.

I hope this is just a spammer testing the board as there is no possible conversion at this time.

Bill.Satellite wrote:
I hope this is just a spammer testing the board as there is no possible conversion at this time.

We aren't that far away though. Winnebago is now building an EV (powertrain by Motiv systems) F53, for "short-range, fixed-based" operations.

https://winnebagoind.com/products/specialty-vehicles/2019/all-electric/overview

This uses 3x BMW i-series batteries, which are rated up to 127kW/hr each. Still not enough for RV use, but the platform development is done.

https://www.motivps.com/products/epic-f59/

Bill.Satellite wrote:
I hope this is just a spammer testing the board as there is no possible conversion at this time.

Anything is possible. Maybe if Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos got together they could come up with enough money to do a conversion. :)

It would probably be cheaper to buy an electric truck and convert it to a MH than it would to convert a Thor Ace to electric.

Any Conversion would have to be for 49 states. California would be OFF the list. California is now cutting back electricity and asking for voluntary shut downs of electricity AND mandatory shut downs in certain areas. When I see these reports, WHAT about the People and Companies that rely on ELECTRIC vehicles in those areas in California???? Yes, Solar and Wind is the way to go:S. NO PROBLEMS WITH THAT:h Doug