Impressed with MPG in old rig
We bought an olde Bounder, 31.5' with the V-10 chassis and 73k on it last summer late. We spent a lot of time getting it ready for the season over the winter. The motor has an original Banks Power Pac...
Forum Discussion
Mr.Mark wrote:
I would like to see a real 'hybrid' RV which I think is not too far in the future. With the battery power we have available now, it might work.
Our fuel efficient generators could keep the battery bank charged up while going down the road.
MM.
That is called a perpetual motion machine.
The losses on the generator coupled with the hybrid drive system losses, plus the losses from carrying all the extra weight of the batteries would undoubtedly result in far LESS efficiency.
A Tesla, which is a very small aerodynamic (certainly compared to a motorhome) 4,000 pound vehicle goes about 300 miles on a 1,200 pound battery. For comparison purposes, that is about 1/3rd of its weight is battery. Given the size and aerodynamics of a brick, errrr, I mean motorhome, they would need many, many, many tons of batteries to get anything close to practical range.
As a thumbnail calc, if a motorhome is ONLY 5 times less aerodynamically efficient than a Tesla, plus parasitic drag which is exponentially increasing, plus the weight difference, I think a Class A would need something in the order of 80,000 pounds of batteries to get a 300 mile range.
Oh, BTW, the cost of the batteries alone would pay your fuel bill into the next millennium.
