F-150 hybrid designed to be "worksite generator"

[CampbellDaycrui]

The recently announced hybrid F-150 has been designed allow the system to be used as a "worksite generator". There is also talk of future diesel hybrids in years to come. Having an integrated Smart generation system in your tow vehicle that can power your fiver while quietly idling away has the potential to be a game changer for those who dry camp.
Removing the genset from the RV removes the noise and vibration as well as the possibility of theft if you use a portable: they would have to steal your truck! All your refueling issues would go away too if you had a decent fuel capacity. The only downside would be removing power from the RV when you took the TV on a ride.
With a large enough battery capacity one could power an RV for hours before the engine kicked on to charge the pack. The ability of modern Lithium batteries to discharge at a high rate without harm would allow the pack to start several a/c units simultaneously while running the microwave, making toast and drying your hair.

[CharlesinGA]

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

[CharlesinGA]

CharlesinGA wrote:

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.

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, 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.

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

[CharlesinGA]

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.

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, and when you select B (max regenerative braking) it will not maintain 45 mph down a 10% grade, constantly loosing 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.

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

[CharlesinGA]

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.

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, and when you select B (max regenerative braking) it will not maintain 45 mph down a 7% grade, constantly loosing 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.

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

[mlts22]

A half-ton is one thing, but this hybrid tech needs to be on the 3/4 and one ton Fords. A F-350 hybrid with the heavy torque at 0RPM is a nice alternative to a diesel.

[CampbellDaycrui]

I'm 63 with an electric car and a garage full of electric bicycles and I can't wait to dump my noisy vibrating diesel with its herky-jerky transmission for an electric motor!

[Yak]

As a 61yo Ford tech, I hope I'm retired before this comes about

[2012Coleman]

pnichols wrote:
2012Coleman,

That "Experience without good judgment is worthless; good judgment without experience is still good judgment!" statement in your signature is absolutely outstanding.

Why thank you!

[pnichols]

2012Coleman,

That "Experience without good judgment is worthless; good judgment without experience is still good judgment!" statement in your signature is absolutely outstanding.

[2012Coleman]

DrewE wrote:
While the hybrid battery can produce prodigious amounts of instantaneous power, I would be shocked if Ford installed an inverter that could supply anything approaching 12 kW. (For one thing, they would call it a "whole-house power failure backup generator" rather than a "worksite generator" if it was a large inverter.)

If you respect electricity, you won't be shocked! 😛

I googled F150 hybrid generator and saw several recent articles that mentioned a work site generator. They are investing 700 million in the Flat Rock plant to build it along with hybrid version of the Mustang. Model year debut is said to be 2020. My brother works at this plant and confirmed that this is what he has heard.

[pnichols]

Hmmm .... it looks like that in addition to work truck owners Ford personnel have been reading RV forums.

We have a Ford V10 chassis based small motorhome that has a built-in generator for the coach. For years now during no-hookup parking/camping - even though our built-in generator is quite quiet - we sometimes merely idle the V10 to deliver a quick charge to the RV batteries or air condition the interior because the V10 idles way quieter than any generator. For battery charging or air conditioning the built-in generator consumes 0.3 to 0.5 gallons per hour and the idling V10 consumes around 0.7 gallons per hour, so our occasional use of the idling V10 consumes more fuel during short runs in situations where low noise is very important.

Of course the upcoming F-150 power supply option will supply way more power than our V10's alternator or it's cab air conditioning system - but the overall concept for camping use is similar to what we have been doing in our RV for years.

[wa8yxm]

Well.. I'd have several questions myself. What is the HP of the Liquid fuel engine in the F-150H? If used in "Generator" mode what is the GPH (Gallons per hour) burn rate.

My 5500 watt ONAN sucks about 1 GPM average in use... This powers not only the converter but the Air Conditioners, water heater, Microwave, and Fridge as well with power to spare.

The old Genrac 1000 I had which grew legs and walked off.. Well a gallon woudl run that puppy all day and it had just enough output to feed the Progressive Dynamics 9180 (Which I can break out) and charge the batteries. It did not hold a gallon of gasoline.. or just a gallon.

Worked great

[CavemanCharlie]

Turtle n Peeps wrote:

KD4UPL wrote:
Apparently no one cares about this idea. Why do I say that? Because GM came out with this probably 10 years ago on their Silverado hybrid. You could pull 120v AC power off of those trucks to power stuff while parked. But, I sure haven't see many people talking about, writing stories about, or using them over the years. It's rare to even see one on the road.

I agree.

Ford had this almost 50 years ago. Although the below example was not on the truck engine it never caught on.

It doesn't make a bunch of sense to idle a 100 HP engine when a 5 HP engine will do.



Plus there are several idle laws on the books in many states for diesel trucks.

Maybe,, But these days with advanced computer algorithms built into pickup engines you could shut down some of the cylinders and even change the valve timing to make that big engine act like a much smaller one.

(Before some points out that this has been tried before and did not work well I want to point out that I said "with advanced computer algorithms" . I'm not talking about the dreaded Cadillac V8-6-4.)

[hone_eagle]

There is a guy on the web using chevy volt battery pack (from junkers)to power his motorhome ,the goal is to dry camp with everything powered including both air conditioners .