Electric Motorhome. Concept in Europe.

I want to see a multi KW propane based fuel cell. That would make an electric RV practical. Chevy produced a few fuel cell powered Equinox vehicles - a 100KW hydrogen fuel cell (about the size of a large microwave) powering a 100 horsepower electric motor. Hydrogen storage was/is a problem - stored at 10,000PSI, with a 200 mile range. Scaling to a RV sized system shouldn't be a problem - UPS developed & uses some fuel cell based delivery trucks.

For me, the problem is storing & obtaining hydrogen. If a large propane based fuel cell was possible, and developed, the combination of propane & electricity would work well for RVs. It wouldn't be cheap - the fuel cell Chevy used cost $1,000,000.00 each...

Fizz wrote:
Henry Ford re-invented the car.
How many of you would have told him “Get. a horse”

And Henry Ford didn't put out a bizarre car where the driver sat on the hood facing backwards. If his prototype, showed that people would have torn him a new one and been completely right to do so.

The issues are all very rudimentary and easily found prior to building a prototype.

Fizz wrote:
Henry Ford re-invented the car.
How many of you would have told him “Get. a horse”

He didn't reinvent the car, he streamlined the production of it. Big difference. He built on what had been done before and improved on it.

Henry Ford re-invented the car.
How many of you would have told him “Get. a horse”

My guess is it is highly monitored, lots of current and temperature sensors to see what produces what and where. There are a bunch of articles on this including French and German articles. Many indicate it is a fairly complex test bed. Probably a fun project.

But it's an ill-thought prototype. Yes, you have to start somewhere, but it doesn't mean you have to re-invent the wheel.

It's a prototype.
Everything starts out that way. Your flat screen started out as black & white tube, Your phone. Light bulb to LED.
Model A to motorhome. Tube to transistor to integrated chip.

Curious minds will be watching and thinking of the future and how to capitalize.

This unit got discussed a couple week back. It's a total joke and the designers are completely incompetent (I hope so because otherwise, they are completely dishonest.)

Let's pretend the 3kw peak output is real. Typically you get about 4hr or the rating or about 12kwh per day. The battery pack is 91kwh, so it's going to take almost 8 days to do a full charge...assuming you don't use any electricity for house loads.

So you say, just plug in at the campground: It's geared towards Europe and when we camped there last, the electric was metered. You put a 50cent/euro in the box for every 1 kwh. Ignoring the time spent sitting there putting coins in the slot, that's around 45euro to fill up. That will buy you around 10gal of diesel which should meet or beat the per mile price.

Well maybe it will give you a boost when driving at noon: At freeway speeds, that little 107hp motor is probably putting out 100hp. 3kw is about 4hp, so it's only around 4% of the demand. It's going to have a negligible effect on range in the best of conditions. Early or late day driving, you won't get nearly 3kw, so it will have far less effect.

As others have pointed out, lots of solar panels with some on every side and even panels on the front facing down are going to result in never getting close to the rated output.

Also, good luck trying to keep that heat sink cool. Most camping is done in the summer when it's hot and a completely black exterior will just soak up the heat.

This was clearly developed by someone who had no idea what they were doing.

This isn't trying to be mean, it's pointing out the flaws in a horrible design. Misguided stuff like this probably set back the option more than it advances it as it demonstrates the limitations rather than the possibilities.

They may be a fairly well known RV company, but that doesn't mean they know squat about solar power and the best way to apply it. It just means they know how to design RV's, and from what I've seen designing an RV doesn't mean you're qualified to work with LEGO's.