Chevy Volt as toad and battery system for RV

[Rbertalotto]

How about using a Chevy Volt as a toad and tapping into the enormous lithium ion battery as part of your 12v system. Built in generator as you drive around exploring. Enough juice to run your AC.
GM should work on this. They would make a killing!

[John___Angela]

Heres my 17.6 KW battery bank. 🙂 Technically Angelas. Best and most fun car we have ever owned. and possibly the quickest off the line. 🙂

[John___Angela]

Rbertalotto wrote:
Are you running your AC on your batteries. Motorhomes have a size limiting factor as to how much Solar you can mount and how many batteries can you carry. Lots of folks have real aversion to running a generator. The LI pack in a car might be enough to get your AC through a night, and driving around the next day would charge the battery pack for another night. Granted, not in its current form. But with some modifications or new designs I would think it would be doable.......No?

Depending on the vehicle I guess. A smart car electric is a 17KW battery. It will run your AC for about 15 hours. A TESLA on the other hand will run it for DAYS depending on the model you choose.

[John___Angela]

Rbertalotto wrote:

Myself I would not attach a li bomb to the side of my house. A bank of lead acid batteries would be much safer and cheaper if you want to go that route.

1865...."I would never run a gas line to my house"

1888...."If you run electricity to your house it will burn down!"

1900...."Man will never fly"

:B 😉

Too funny. I would be a lot more concerned with dragging around a tankful of gas. Lots of car fires with gas hitting something hot as the cause. LI fires in vehicles are rare. The few that have occured have usually been after a colision or testing. I love my EV. Its been almost a year, time to top up the washer fluid. 🙂

[MRUSA]

Possible, yes. Economically feasible, not very likely in our lifetimes. The development cost would be too large to be paid off by the relatively small number of RV's that could afford it.

[Rbertalotto]

Are you running your AC on your batteries. Motorhomes have a size limiting factor as to how much Solar you can mount and how many batteries can you carry. Lots of folks have real aversion to running a generator. The LI pack in a car might be enough to get your AC through a night, and driving around the next day would charge the battery pack for another night. Granted, not in its current form. But with some modifications or new designs I would think it would be doable.......No?

[Gjac]

I got exited about this concept when I first bought my MH. I knew I was going to dry camp a lot and was looking at the Prius as a tow car at the time. Unfortunately I found out that it could not be towed 4 down. Each year I would check on the new electric cars and none could be towed. My next thought was to just add more batteries to the tow car and just use them to power the MH. I usually put as many miles or more on the tow car as I do on the MH so it would see a lot of charging. As history showed after 11 years of traveling/ camping I have never needed the extra power.

[Rbertalotto]

Myself I would not attach a li bomb to the side of my house. A bank of lead acid batteries would be much safer and cheaper if you want to go that route.

1865...."I would never run a gas line to my house"

1888...."If you run electricity to your house it will burn down!"

1900...."Man will never fly"

:B 😉

[Rbertalotto]

Unfortunately towing the Volt 4 down would destroy the transmission. there is no way to freewheel the electric motor separate from the ICE. Owner's manual doesn't even recommend towing w/ front wheels on a dolly since it rides so low. Although it would make a great run around vehicle while at camp. No gas to worry about, plug in to 30 or 50 amp an you're charged in a couple of hours.

Not suggesting we would use a car right off the lot. This would be a modified version of the volt.

[Seamutt]

Tesla does not make money on the products it sells, it makes money from the taxpayer paid subsidies. Myself I would not attach a li bomb to the side of my house. A bank of lead acid batteries would be much safer and cheaper if you want to go that route.

As for using your car to power the grid, well as a retired grid operator there is enough problems already integrating what little solar there is already to the grid let alone the car powered idea.

[J-mans_Dad]

Unfortunately towing the Volt 4 down would destroy the transmission. there is no way to freewheel the electric motor separate from the ICE. Owner's manual doesn't even recommend towing w/ front wheels on a dolly since it rides so low. Although it would make a great run around vehicle while at camp. No gas to worry about, plug in to 30 or 50 amp an you're charged in a couple of hours.

[TakingThe5th]

I thought about this on a much smaller scale where I would take along my 36 volt golf cart and be able to add it to the rv battery bank without rewiring and/or moving batteries around. Just dreaming at this point but I thought of adding wiring for three 12 volt taps that would go to three separate inverters which would feed three separate circuits.

Of course with the Volt you would need a rack to hold your inverter farm and a load center larger then the one found at the 'ol S&B, but perhaps we are only dreaming.

[1492]

Moved from Technology Corner

[Rbertalotto]

The Tesla will have an option to supply back up electricity for your house from the car. I have a SolarCity system at my house and I was interviewed as to whether I'd be interested in such an option. They are going to install a LI system in my house this fall so I can get rid of my generator for backup.
Everything we are discussing is possible. Just depends on the market. You're pulling a toad, might as well use it for more than s grocery getter

[fitznj]

I was reading something similar to the Nissan article above that in Germany?,
they are working electric vehicles being the "power" source locally. So instead of have 1 big power station distributing power to homes, each house in a village would use their car to tap into the local grid and supply the grid with electricity. Almost like having hundreds/thousands of mini-power stations - similar to how small local solar farms are doing it now.

It's not a huge leap to use your electric/hybrid car to power the RV; When the batteries run low, drive around and recharge the Lion batteries. Lithium batteries can tolerate high current and get recharged pretty quickly. DC-DC converters are easy, so that problem has been solved.