Winnebago Electric Motorhome on a F-53 chassis

valhalla360 wrote:

Biggest issue is manufacturers aren't going to build just for the RV market...one option for MH would be a lot of city buses have gone hybrid If they could put the drivetrain in a MH that might work...only problem is those drivetrains are significantly more expensive than a standard diesel...it works for a city bus running 16hr per day every day where they can justify it based on fuel savings but for a MH that might do 5000miles per year mostly freeway (where hybrid doesn't gain you much), I suspect it would be a tough sell outside of those who just want to prove how green they are.

Hybrids are much more useful for city busses than motorhomes primarily because city busses spend all their life in stop and go driving, with unusually many stops and starts. The main reason a hybrid setup increases efficiency is that it recaptures a good portion of the energy lost when braking and can use that later to accelerate, rather than just dissipating it all as heat. Steady highway driving produces far more limited improvements.

In some areas, all electric city busses have been used for decades, albeit powered by overhead trolly cables rather than a battery. Of course that is only practical where you have the trolly wire infrastructure in place over all the roads you might need to traverse.