Enter extended-range EVs—or EREVs. Think of them as electric cars with an onboard gas-powered generator. Yes, they have small gasoline engines, but those don’t drive the wheels. They’re just there to top up the battery.
The “Harvester” range extender will feature a four-cylinder engine acting as a generator, likely sourced from Volkswagen, the automaker behind the brand’s revival. Keogh said it’s a “good, high-output four-cylinder that packages well.” The engine won’t have a turbocharger
I would put both of the above vehicles into the hybrid class even though the generator doesn’t drive the wheels.
I’ve long argued that this is the preferred solution for plug in hybrids. The gas engine should be an emergency or otherwise short range extender. You don’t need a transmission this way - you just need an exhaust system.
I own a plug in hybrid electric vehicle. My state taxes it like an EV (full EV surcharge for the registration fee), it tends to wear through tires like an EV, and my office lets me park it in the EV charging section as long as I’m actively plugged in and charging. For most of my driving, it acts like an EV, but in the dead of winter or when I need to take it on road trips, the gas engine kicks in.
People who complain that it’s not a “real” EV and therefore bad for the environment frequently don’t seem to want to acknowledge that the affordable available alternatives that met my family’s needs at the time I bought it weren’t “pure” EVs, but rather less-electrified gas powered cars.
Likewise, the market these EVs with range-extenders likely serve is the market of people that want to electrify their driving, but who can’t go “pure” EV for one reason or another. Could be a lack of charging infrastructure at home and/or work. Could be a lot of up-and-back day trips where destination and near-route charging isn’t all that great. Could be a cold climate dweller where the winter range losses cause issues. Could be good-old-fashioned fear of range anxiety, but still wanting most of the benefits of driving electric…
Net - in the grand scheme of things, if electrification is really the way to go for driving, such vehicles should be celebrated, not scorned. In their absence, the people buying them would likely be buying a less-electrified alternative.
Stationary engines are more efficient than normal vehicle engines because they run at a constant optimal speed. Since they only charge batteries there is no need for a second drive train. One downside is no regenerative breaking. I think this is an ideal alternative that even Tesla might endorse. Certainly much better than dual drive train models.
Stationary engines are more efficient than normal vehicle engines because they run at a constant optimal speed. Since they only charge batteries there is no need for a second drive train. One downside is no regenerative breaking. I think this is an ideal alternative that even Tesla might endorse. Certainly much better than dual drive train models.
I think this is a Yes.
My view, OF COURSE IT IS!
If BEV vehicles are to dominate the 95% of use cases, AND this is the most efficient way to transport individuals who cannot/will not be able to use mass transit, then this is a perception problem, not an engineering problem.
Perceptions can change slowly in the background while the on-board generator kicks in.
Of course, the captain’s view above is the correct answer: Use the MOST efficient power generation and transmission. That would appear to be nuclear in an ideal world. Reality is… complexer.
And it will occur…eventually…assuming a people’s EV [$25K] is developed.
Until then many folks with limited means will drive used IC or hybrid vehicles.
Today, my drive in to the office took substantially more charge than usual. Temperatures were in the teens, and it was aggressively snowing. As a result, the only way to keep my windshield clear was to run the defroster, which burns through charge very quickly. In addition, due to several wrecks on the highway and typical alternate routes, my GPS re-routed me through parts of town I don’t normally see, and the total commute time was roughly triple my normal time on the road.
Probably because a lot of people with electrified vehicles burned through more charge than usual, I was unable to get an EV charging spot at the office parking lot. So my drive home tonight will likely involve around 15 gas-powered miles of the total 20 mile journey.
At about 40 MPG, that’s roughly 0.375 gallons. The Costco near my house currently has gas for $2.769/gallon. If I were to fill up tonight to cover that gas use, it would cost me about $1.04 in gas.
By contrast, the EV charging spots at my office cost $0.25 per KWH to charge. My car is reporting a 30% state of charge, and it usually takes somewhere close to 12KWH to fill my battery from its “gotta shift to hybrid mode” charge level (which is reported as 0% in the app that tells me the car’s state of charge). So my best estimate is that if I had gotten an EV charging spot at the office today, it would have taken 8.4 KWH and cost me $2.10.
That’s not exactly an apples to apples comparison, since my home electric isn’t free and I’ll have to recharge more at home that I would have if I had been able to top up the car at the office. Still, it’s consistent with what I regularly see with this car, which is that its efficient hybrid operations when on gas power make driving on gas roughly comparable from a cost perspective as paying to charge at a non-free public charger…
PHEV and EREV (or any combination of driving full EV with some gas backup option) are good solutions for many when a EV only car is too expensive or won’t work for them.
The only negative is that some people bought these to get incentives (rebates or car pool stickers) and rarely, if ever, charged the batteries from the grid…cheating the system.
