Dodge all in on electric too 500 mile range Ram

Reisender wrote:

valhalla360 wrote:

goducks10 wrote:
Geezus the whole CG doesn't have to upgrade tomorrow. Upgrade 2-3 spots for EV's and that should cover the trend for the next 5 years or whatever. Honestly how many EV'ers are going to buy a trailer to camp with anyways? Probably very few in the next 5 years.

Except, it's often the main feed to the park that is limited. 2-3 fast charging stations may require an additional 400-500amps with a main feed that is already struggling during peak summer conditions.

I can’t see the need for a fast charge station in an RV park. Fast chargers are needed for road trips. People are usually in a park for a day or more.

Jmho.

People will need to use their EV to tour even if they are there for multiple days. Very few RV parks are destinations to themselves. When the EV is on site, so are the occupants and that is when they want and need the RV to be powered. The need to have the RV connected and the EV charging is almost always going to be simultaneous. The notion you can juggle connecting one and not the other wouldn’t work for the vast majority of people.

valhalla360 wrote:
Most fast chargers are in built up areas.

Sure utilities love to charge for expanding the grid...problem is RV parks aren't so profitable to be able to absorb six figure upgrades for the main feed in most cases.

Often enough the upgrade of the main feed is brought in by the utility as part of the rate structure.
If the business plans to lose money on deals they will soon be out of business. I will leave that to the business owner to decide if they want to move forward.

valhalla360 wrote:

Reisender wrote:

valhalla360 wrote:

Reisender wrote:
I can’t see the need for a fast charge station in an RV park. Fast chargers are needed for road trips. People are usually in a park for a day or more.

Jmho.

Full timers...parking for a day or more is very much true but even there if it's a 30amp site, they may struggle to refill the battery bank...particularly if they take the truck out sight seeing during the off day.

Working stiffs with a week off frequently drive 500-750 miles and get up the next day to do it again...think a Chicago area family doing a week in Florida.

Yah that wouldn’t work for sure on a 30 amp site. Even on a fifty amp site an overnight charge would be marginal on a truck battery. I suppose the alternative there would be to either charge before shutting it down for the day or go to a fast charger in the morning.

If it was me in that kind of a regular use situation I would probably go with a diesel with those kind of distances. Our coach had a huge tank. Our old powerstroke could go a long ways on a tank. Great truck. Then again a long day for us was like 600 kilometres soooo. :).

Cheers.

Sure, we could get away with a 500mile range as we like to keep travel days down around 100-200 miles and usually do not travel multiple days in a row.

But we also recognize that we are far from the typical RVer, so if this discussion is about changes to the larger RV world, even a 500mile range truck (not towing) is going to have a very limited market as an RV tow vehicle.

Yah could be. I’m pretty sure we are probably not in the norms either as when we are touring we like to be on the road at 11 and off the road by 1 or 2. Although I would say there are a lot of weekend campers here that are on the road by 5 on Friday night and setup and camping by 7 with the first beer well on its way to the recycling bin. But we live in a place where if you travel two hours you probably passed 20 amazing camping and hiking areas.

But yah. EV tow vehicles will work for a certain crowd. Not everybody.

Cheers.

Reisender wrote:

valhalla360 wrote:

Reisender wrote:
I can’t see the need for a fast charge station in an RV park. Fast chargers are needed for road trips. People are usually in a park for a day or more.

Jmho.

Full timers...parking for a day or more is very much true but even there if it's a 30amp site, they may struggle to refill the battery bank...particularly if they take the truck out sight seeing during the off day.

Working stiffs with a week off frequently drive 500-750 miles and get up the next day to do it again...think a Chicago area family doing a week in Florida.

Yah that wouldn’t work for sure on a 30 amp site. Even on a fifty amp site an overnight charge would be marginal on a truck battery. I suppose the alternative there would be to either charge before shutting it down for the day or go to a fast charger in the morning.

If it was me in that kind of a regular use situation I would probably go with a diesel with those kind of distances. Our coach had a huge tank. Our old powerstroke could go a long ways on a tank. Great truck. Then again a long day for us was like 600 kilometres soooo. :).

Cheers.

Sure, we could get away with a 500mile range as we like to keep travel days down around 100-200 miles and usually do not travel multiple days in a row.

But we also recognize that we are far from the typical RVer, so if this discussion is about changes to the larger RV world, even a 500mile range truck (not towing) is going to have a very limited market as an RV tow vehicle.

time2roll wrote:

valhalla360 wrote:
Except, it's often the main feed to the park that is limited. 2-3 fast charging stations may require an additional 400-500amps with a main feed that is already struggling during peak summer conditions.

Yes and that would be part of the install if that is what the business determined was the best and most profitable plan.

Take a look at a fast charger area. Virtually all have a main transformer dropped right there for what is needed.
Don't forget the utility actually likes to expand their business. Not an issue.

Most fast chargers are in built up areas.

Sure utilities love to charge for expanding the grid...problem is RV parks aren't so profitable to be able to absorb six figure upgrades for the main feed in most cases.

valhalla360 wrote:

Reisender wrote:
I can’t see the need for a fast charge station in an RV park. Fast chargers are needed for road trips. People are usually in a park for a day or more.

Jmho.

Full timers...parking for a day or more is very much true but even there if it's a 30amp site, they may struggle to refill the battery bank...particularly if they take the truck out sight seeing during the off day.

Working stiffs with a week off frequently drive 500-750 miles and get up the next day to do it again...think a Chicago area family doing a week in Florida.

Yah that wouldn’t work for sure on a 30 amp site. Even on a fifty amp site an overnight charge would be marginal on a truck battery. I suppose the alternative there would be to either charge before shutting it down for the day or go to a fast charger in the morning.

If it was me in that kind of a regular use situation I would probably go with a diesel with those kind of distances. Our coach had a huge tank. Our old powerstroke could go a long ways on a tank. Great truck. Then again a long day for us was like 600 kilometres soooo. :).

Cheers.

valhalla360 wrote:
Except, it's often the main feed to the park that is limited. 2-3 fast charging stations may require an additional 400-500amps with a main feed that is already struggling during peak summer conditions.

Yes and that would be part of the install if that is what the business determined was the best and most profitable plan.

Take a look at a fast charger area. Virtually all have a main transformer dropped right there for what is needed.
Don't forget the utility actually likes to expand their business. Not an issue.

valhalla360 wrote:

Reisender wrote:
To your last paragraph. The charge rate is adjustable on our car from 5 amps to 48 amps. 120 or 240. So power sharing is possible. I don’t know about other EV’s. As well, the portable EVSE (charge cable) that comes with the car plugs into a 14-50 receptacle can only go to max 32 amps at 240 volts and 24 amps at 120 volts (if used on a TT30 30 amp site).

Not an expert.

Cheers.

The problem is how does the campground police the charge rate?

Assuming this is just your standard 50amp pedestal with no internal logic, if they come in with a 300amp-hr battery bank on fumes and want to head out in the morning, good luck charging at 5amps and if they can get away with it, they will be pulling as many amps as the pedestal will provide.

With the KOA approach it’s easy as the pedestal has a separate J1772.

In the case of a standard pedestal we have just been requested to plug in either the RV or the EV. No perfect solutions. But it works. Rule breakers? Well, that’s always going to happen.

Jmho. Not an expert.

Reisender wrote:
I can’t see the need for a fast charge station in an RV park. Fast chargers are needed for road trips. People are usually in a park for a day or more.

Jmho.

Full timers...parking for a day or more is very much true but even there if it's a 30amp site, they may struggle to refill the battery bank...particularly if they take the truck out sight seeing during the off day.

Working stiffs with a week off frequently drive 500-750 miles and get up the next day to do it again...think a Chicago area family doing a week in Florida.

monkey44 wrote:
Can someone explain to me the actual time in minutes or hours, whatever. How long is a 'fast charge'. Assume you have a three quarters batter discharge on a trip. How long does it take to recharge that battery.

People keep saying fast charge and quick charge which no definition in time.

Not to argue 'gas vs electric', just comparing time to fill tank vs time to charge when you are on a trip that's more miles than a battery will take you and you need a charge somewhere, wherever that exists.

500miles on an empty non-aerodynamic pickup is likely going to require more than double the long range tesla battery bank, so let's assume 250kwh battery bank.

A 30amp@120v RV outlet can put out on a continuous basis around 3kw, so it's going to be maxed out for around 83 hours (worst case scenario). If your RV it pulling an average of 1500w to run the air/con and other house loads, it could be upwards of a 160 hours.

A 50amp@240v, can put out around a little less than 10kw continuous, so about 25 hours but again house loads will increase that.

Of course, if you come in with the battery bank at 50%, it's less time but other than for short local trips, I would expect to see upwards of 80-90% of the battery used in a more typical scenario.

Dedicate fast charging stations can go much faster depending on the type and technology of the vehicle. Upwards of 200-250kw are possible on the fastest (so an hour or so) but it's hard on the battery packs to force feed them at such high rates. Usually, it's reserved for filling to 75-80% full.

Also, fast charging stations are quite expensive, as in 6 figure $$$$ per station expensive and out in rural areas it can be higher as half a dozen charging stations, may require a very large power feed. 6 - stations putting out 250kw each translates to a power feed capable of a continuous output of around 12,500amps.

A new park near a major high voltage power feed, it's expensive but doable. A remote park that struggles to get enough power for the fifty - 30amp sites it currently has not a chance they can make the numbers work to be installing high speed charging stations and 20-30% EVs expecting to charge off their existing grid will cause them major problems during peak periods.