CharlesinGA wrote:Rbertalotto wrote:
You can bet the farm that the future of electric vehicles will include large scale outboard power. No question. Having a small engine that simply runs a generator that in turn charges a large battery bank is the future of electric vehicles (see Chevrolet Volt)
Tesler is already talking about your car running your house in a power outage or overnight when your solar panels are not producing.
I've been saying for quite a while.....why are we not towing electric vehicles as toads where the huge Li battery pack is the main campers power supply. Recharging during the day as you sight see and using retentive braking to charge while towing. Just makes too much sense.
Edit: on re-reading, I realize you are referring to HYBRID vehicles, not true ELECTRIC vehicles.
Can you imagine how much additional fuel your MH would expend to tow a vehicle using regenerative charging? Alot. I have a Nissan LEAF, and "regular" regenerative braking is noticable when you lift your foot off the accelerator (similar to what you feel when driving a straight shift), and when you select B (max regenerative braking) it will not maintain 45 mph down a 10% grade, constantly losing speed. Not sure what you mean by "Recharging during the day as you sight see"
There has been some consideration to using the Li batteries for emergency power, but when you are done, you have run down batteries and no way to charge them.
Nissan absolutely forbids any towing of the LEAF in any manner with any of the wheels on the ground.
The LEAF battery is 24,000 watt, and the onboard charger is 6600 watt at 240v so it takes over 3½ hours from nearly dead for a full charge, IN THEORY. I drive to work in mine, 47 miles, and it takes between 13 and 14 Kw to recharge it and about 2½ hours to do so (208v at work so it is somewhat slower charging.)
The 120v breadbox "charger" that comes with the car, is about 1400 watts so it would take all night and half the day to recharge the car. (the actual charger is built into the car and works on either 120v at 1400 watt, or 208v or 240v at wattages up to 6600. It is all depending on the available amperage. The wall unit is a sophisticated switch that checks for ground faults and then handshakes with the car about what amperage the car is allowed to draw and when all is well, the wall unit closes its internal relay to allow the car to charge.)
Tesla has much larger batteries, and require much longer charge times, unless you are "fast charging" or "super charging" at anywhere from 50,000 to 90,000 watts.
Charles
