400 mile electric RV

To be fair for those in the solar camp, from same paper....

"Whereas for solar at 5.7We m-2, 22% of Germany’s
land area would need to be devoted to commercial scale
solar to meet total primary energy consumption."

Some have determined that about 1/3 of USA would need to be covered with commercial solar farms to meet USA's current energy consumption needs.

Power density is the riddle to solve.

I'm a little skeptical that they'll be shipping this in any reasonable quantity by next year - Zeus Electric says their chassis provides 150 miles of range, so the RV manufacturer would need to triple the battery size (or add more batteries) to hit that goal.

I think we'll see RV's based on the Ford Transit electric chassis before you can buy a 400 mile range one from this company. The Transit only gives 120 miles of range, but that one way distance would handle nearly all of my weekend trips.

rlw999 wrote:
I'm a little skeptical that they'll be shipping this in any reasonable quantity by next year - Zeus Electric says their chassis provides 150 miles of range, so the RV manufacturer would need to triple the battery size (or add more batteries) to hit that goal.

I think we'll see RV's based on the Ford Transit electric chassis before you can buy a 400 mile range one from this company. The Transit only gives 120 miles of range, but that one way distance would handle nearly all of my weekend trips.

Interesting, I just went to their site and looked closely at the photos. Their class 6 truck has rear coil springs. You don't see that anywhere else...

Written by these folks:

About Robb Report

Robb Report is the leading voice in the global luxury market. Its discerning audience around the world has a shared appreciation and desire for quality, exclusivity, heritage, taste, and fine design. It is the brand the most successful people rely on to discover the ideas, opinions, products, and experiences that will matter most to them. Robb Report is synonymous with affluence, luxury,
and the best of the best. Robb Report: Luxury Without Compromise.

400 miles. BUT, THEY HAVE NOT ADDED HUNDREDS OR THOUSANDS OF POUNDS OF WEIGHT. They state "renderings" of what will make it a RV. They just have a body and drivetrain now. What happens to the 400 miles when you have the FULL BLOWN RV version? Is it going to be all electric or will it have LP appliances? ALL ELECTRIC means a drastic reduction in that 400 miles. How is it going to be Cooled? That will be a very hot box if no AC system. Water tanks and holding tanks. These add weight and decrease mileage. Me thinks this is a premature press release to try and gin up enthusiasm. They do not have a actual vehicle to be evaluated yet. Doug

dougrainer wrote:
400 miles. BUT, THEY HAVE NOT ADDED HUNDREDS OR THOUSANDS OF POUNDS OF WEIGHT. They state "renderings" of what will make it a RV. They just have a body and drivetrain now. What happens to the 400 miles when you have the FULL BLOWN RV version? Is it going to be all electric or will it have LP appliances? ALL ELECTRIC means a drastic reduction in that 400 miles. How is it going to be Cooled? That will be a very hot box if no AC system. Water tanks and holding tanks. These add weight and decrease mileage. Me thinks this is a premature press release to try and gin up enthusiasm. They do not have a actual vehicle to be evaluated yet. Doug

I think you're underestimating how large the battery would be to support that range.

The chassis they are basing it on has a 175KWh battery for 150 mile range, so presumably it's going to have a 400KWh or larger battery for 400 miles of range. They quote a "laden" range, so presumably have already taken into account weight, but I don't think weight is the largest factor in the range of an EV (you need more energy to get up a hill, but you recover much of it on the way down the other side), it's more the wind resistance.

That 400KWh battery pack is more electricity than my home uses in a month. A week's worth of cooking would have a negligible effect on range, an hour a day of a 1500W microwave and 1500W stove, would use 21KWh in a week, about 5% of the battery. Even running a 2KW air conditioner for 8 hours a day every day would use only around 112 KWh in a week, or 1/4 of the battery.

It'd be pretty affordable to operate, It would cost me less than $50 to charge that battery pack at home, a small class C with 18mpg gas mileage would use around $77 of fuel @ $3.50/gallon.

But I suspect that most people that buy what will certainly be high 6 figures if not $1M+ RV are going to take it to an RV park where they can plug in and charge the RV.

While I can well appreciate the characteristics of modern EV’s (BTW, made possible by adoption of lithium), I’ve yet to see a single competent academic study that empirically demonstrates a ‘net net’ reduction in CO2 emissions via the adoption of EV’s…Yet I’ve heard it said (by some far more knowledgable than me…) that in all actuality the opposite is what’s very true…I’d love to experience the uber performance of an EV, but AFAIK there’s never been demonstrated a net, net study that EV’s reduce net carbon emissions - Why is this?? Without any empirical evidence whatsoever that a cleaner environment is the outcome, I call this overly romanticized claim pure nonsense - admittedly however, sometimes nonsense can be the greatest source of entertainment…Should anyone be questioning the ‘conventional orthodoxy’?…Do EV’s place an additional strain on our ecosystem and at taxpayer expense?? I say that minus any scientific evidence to the contrary, we’ve once again jumped the gun (unfortunately a re-emerging pattern…).

CRICKETS…..

3 tons

They are hiding the 15 Unicorns that will actually be powering this. And they cant show them right now because Musk has dibs on them for the next mythical Cybertruck PhotoSHOP.

3 tons wrote:
While I can well appreciate the characteristics of modern EV’s (BTW, made possible by adoption of lithium), I’ve yet to see a single competent academic study that empirically demonstrates a ‘net net’ reduction in CO2 emissions via the adoption of EV’s…Yet I’ve heard it said (by some far more knowledgable than me…) that in actually the opposite is very true…I’d love to experience the uber performance of an EV, but AFAIK there’s never been demonstrated a net, net study that EV’s reduce net carbon emissions - How come?? Without any empirical evidence whatsoever that a cleaner environment is the outcome, I call this overly romanticized claim pure nonsense - admittedly however, sometimes nonsense can be the greatest source of entertainment…

3 tons

Here's a recent one:

https://theicct.org/publications/global-LCA-passenger-cars-jul2021

Results show that even for cars registered today, battery electric vehicles (BEVs) have by far the lowest life-cycle GHG emissions. As illustrated in the figure below, emissions over the lifetime of average medium-size BEVs registered today are already lower than comparable gasoline cars by 66%–69% in Europe, 60%–68% in the United States, 37%–45% in China, and 19%–34% in India. Additionally, as the electricity mix continues to decarbonize, the life-cycle emissions gap between BEVs and gasoline vehicles increases substantially when considering medium-size cars projected to be registered in 2030.

I suspect though that the comparison is much less clear with RV's because it takes a lot more raw materials to build an RV, and they tend not to be driven much (the average is around 5000 miles/year) so the emissions from the drivetrain are a smaller part of the total lifecycle emissions.

wanderingaimlessly wrote:
They are hiding the 15 Unicorns that will actually be powering this. And they cant show them right now because Musk has dibs on them for the next mythical Cybertruck PhotoSHOP.

No magic needed, here's the company that's supplying their chassis:

https://zeuselectricchassis.com/

They're a new company, but apparently have sold a few trucks, so I don't think it's all vaporware.