Portable windmill, that can be erected as needed, as a backup for the other systems.
Steve
When we were looking at cars, Mrs. Goofy really wanted the Kia Plug in hybrid. That would be mostly electric for shorter trips around town, but with hybrid - and hybrid mileage - for longer trips. Unfortunately they only had black interior models, which is a no go in our geography, so she ended up with a Hyundai Tucson, a hybrid that always uses gas. It gets almost 40 mpg, but probably 95% of her driving is local and our electric rates are very low, so that would have been nice.
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That’s one of the other things I like about our Teslas. Despite living in south Florida, where it is indeed quite hot for half the year, they all have black seats (afraid of too much visible dirt on white seats), but being able to turn on the A/C a few minutes before entering the car alleviates that problem and makes it quite pleasant to enter the car even in full sun. I also keep the A/C on when I have perishable groceries in the car while at a subsequent errand.
Our other EV (Nissan Leaf) doesn’t have that capability, so most errands in that one must have the groceries last or just only a grocery run.
A cooler in the car solves that problem. You can get one that folds up so when not in use it takes up minimal space.
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I have a few of those. And we use them periodically. But to be really effective they need those ice blocks in them. For longer errands I’ll take them. But I still leave the A/C on with groceries in the car inside the cooler bags, that’s because here in south Florida, a car sitting in the sun for even 5 minutes gets devilishly hot inside. There is also an outfit that makes refrigerators for the Tesla subtrunk, but they are kind of pricy and I would only consider it if I did lots of long trips.
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As most as money people died in the hurricane Rita evacuation as were killed by the hurricane itself. The reason is the freeways were stop and go and people simply began to run out of gas, increasing the gridlock as people abandoned their cars. Local gas stations quickly sold out.
However, EVs do not suffer a range penalty in stop and go traffic, and might even see a range increase over regular freeway driving. Had modern EVs been available then and if you had started the evacuation with an EV and full charge, most likely you could have driven the entire way to a safe distance on a single charge. If you did have to recharge somewhere and regular chargers were unavailable, you likely could have at least found a place to trickle charge.
In that instance anyway, an EV would have been the superior vehicle to have.
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Yes, that’s a good point. We have Gasbuddy.com to tell us where the cheapest gas station is and ChargePoint and ChargeHub to tell where the cheapest EV charging station is.
The question is, “How often are you in the situation where gasoline is cheaper, and does it make financial sense to carry around an ICE and fuel tank to take advantage of the pricing delta?” If I’m only making one or two long trips a year where I’m using a Supercharger, I doubt the additional cost of a hybrid vehicle would make sense.
intercst
Having the refrigerator in the truck limits its usefulness. You need in-cabin access.
The Xiaomi SU7 Ultra is the first 4-seat, 1500 HP vehicle with sub 2 second 0-60 acceleration with a rear seat beverage cooler.
intercst
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Also download the PlugShare app. It is quite good and updated by users regularly. They also have user ratings for the various EV charging sites.
It doesn’t HAVE to be in the subtrunk! It can be in the car as well. It just FITS in the subtrunk when you need the rest of the space in the car for other stuff.
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It isn’t that simple…but yes it costs a bit more.
However, since there is both a gas engine and an electric motor, the gas engine can be smaller and more efficient gas-only mpg. During high acceleration situations both the engine and motor are used. (This assumes an overall drive train like a Prius that can use both)
In addition there is no starter motor, since the electric drive motor is used to spin up the gas engine before a spark is applied (thus the usual quiet gas engine startup and no cold cranking noises). This adds to longevity a bit.
The 12v aux battery in every car is also smaller since it isn’t used to crank the engine; the bigger drive train battery starts the engine. The 12v battery still must be good to start the car computers.
Mike
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Not necessarily. If there are two options:
- PHEV - Let’s say Prius Prime, has a 13.6 kWh battery costing $2000 and a small IC engine costing $2000 plus associated parts around it costing $1000, and an electric drive motor costing $2k, and a transmission costing another $1000. So the main drivetrain components cost a total of $8,000.
- BEV - Let’s say Tesla model 3 RWD LR, has a 74kWh battery costing $11,000 plus an electric drive motor costing $3,000. The main drivetrain components cost a total of $14,000.
You can see that in this scenario, the BEV, with only one electric drive motor, costs more than the PHEV with both an electric drive motor and an IC engine and a transmission. That’s because in order to have reasonable range, the BEV requires a much larger battery. And batteries are still quite expensive. As battery prices drop, this differential in price will drop, and BEV prices will drop commensurately. And when that happens, PHEVs will become less attractive price-wise.
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The engine and drive train in a typical ICE car costs about $9,000, according to Google.
The advantage for a hybrid is that the gas engine can be much smaller, and doesn’t have to perform such a wide range of things (including, of course, the transmission and gearing) from slow creeping to high velocity highway and gear changes which constantly ratchet the engine up and down.
A compact, gas engine that has only one job: run at a constant rate to provide electricity to the battery, is far cheaper than a typical (ICE) engine. Smaller, lighter, and because the electric motors are more than twice as efficient, uses less fuel to boot.
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This isn’t correct. It depends on which type of hybrid. The Prius Prime that I used as an example does have a transmission (a CVT) because the gas engine can be used to drive the wheels.
The BMW i3 REx is an example of a series hybrid that you describe here, where the gasoline engine is solely used to charge the battery, and the electric motor (powered from the battery) is solely used to turn the wheels. About 10 years ago, there was a Fisker Karma that was a series hybrid, I still very rarely see some of those parked around here. I think the Chevy Volt was a series hybrid as well. And before I forget, Stellantis recently announced a “Ram 1500 Ramcharger” that is mostly a series hybrid, oddly enough, they chose a V6 engine to charge the battery, I would have thought that some sort of 4 cylinder would be sufficient for that task.
Other than those, series hybrids are still pretty rare. So almost all hybrids on the road today still have transmissions (CVT or regular) between the IC engine and the wheels.
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The Volt wasn’t strictly a series hybrid.
It’s pretty clear why when you think about it - at certain road speeds it’s more efficient to drive the wheels from the gas engine than have the gas engine run at a similar RPM to spin a generator to drive a motor.
The latest Honda hybrids have a similar system. Under 45mph the electric motor produces all the drive torque. Above 45mph the gas engine can be clutched in.
Yes, I would agree with that. However I think the best way to do a series hybrid is with a battery large enough to do most of your normal driving, with the gas engine being a “range extender” - something to get you further if you don’t have the ability (time, or access to charger) to recharge the battery.
When road tripping you might find yourself using the range extender quite a bit. During normal use, not at all. And that “inefficiency” is probably fine in this case. Because, from what I’ve found with just 10 months of EV ownership, the EV is not a cost effective way to road trip anyway. Cost of electricity out-and-about while road tripping easily exceeds what I would pay in gas for our CR-V Hybrid. But charging from home beats the price of gas by 4:1, easily. Maybe more.
(At lunch today, because I have EVgo credits, I fast-charged. I added 20% to the battery at $0.59 / kWh. This is not cheap! Almost 6X the cost of electricity at home. That price is break-even with a 15mpg car. At-home prices is break-even with an 80mpg car!)
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I have seen such comparisons before. But after some thought, they aren’t really valid because a proper comparison should be between like vehicles, considering that if you need/want a certain type of vehicle, you ought to compare the options you would choose between. In my case, my previous car was a 4-door ICE sport sedan (Genesis 3.8) that I liked quite a lot, and I replaced it with a 4-door EV sport sedan (Tesla model 3 LR) that I like quite a lot. So, for me, the comparison is between those two vehicles, or between similar vehicles, like a BMW 330i or 430i. My Genesis got an average of about 16.5 mi/gal (the 3.8l engine was quite powerful, and it also came in a 5.0l engine that was even more powerful), that’s a real average because I have records of every fill up and mileage in a spreadsheet. It wouldn’t make sense for me to compare to a Corolla or a Civic because those aren’t cars that are in the same class.
So here is my real-world comparison. Typical road trip that we do every year (640 mi to my in-laws house, and another 640 back), 1280 miles total.
Genesis - Gasoline cost is 1280 / 17.5 (all highway so better than average) = 73 gallons x $2.79/gal = Total cost is $203
Model 3 - I start at 95-100% charged at home, that’s over 300 miles worth at $0.145/kWh. Then I stop and charge for 16 minutes after about 200 miles, then stop again and charge after 210 miles for 15 minutes, and then arrive at my in-laws and plug into their dryer outlet with a heavy duty 50A extension cord. So 1280 miles at 238 Wh/mi is 300kWh, and I’ll add 25kWh for wastage while sitting in car with AC on or other non-driving use of power. So I use a total of about 325kWh, 75 of that was at $0.145 (home charging), 50 of it was at $0.135 (in-laws house), and the remaining 200 kWh was at superchargers along the way at $0.38/kWh. Total cost is $93.
The EV, even while using superchargers for most of the charging is still less than half the cost of using gasoline. Even if all 325kWh were done at superchargers, it would be $123 for the entire trip which is less than the equivalent cost using gasoline.
That said, I’ve seen DCFC (DC fast chargers) from companies other than Tesla that charge way higher prices. I once saw an EVGo charger that was $0.70/kWh. And I saw a DCFC charging $0.72/kWh (don’t recall which brand, but I remember showing my wife how absurdly high their pricing was). And even worse, I’ve seen places that charge for entering the parking lot where the chargers are located PLUS a hefty amount per kWh, one place was $10 to enter, plus another $0.62/kWh, so if you add 50kWh during that charge session, you are paying an effective rate of $0.82/kWh!!! In these cases, yes, you would likely be paying more to charge your EV on a road trip than gasoline would cost. But still that’s only some of the chargers, you have to average out the cost between the $0.82/kWh chargers and the $0.38/kWh chargers that you use across the entire trip.
(On our last road trip there, we took the kids to TopGolf and they had 4 free AC chargers in their parking lot! We were there for 2 hours and charged 13 kWh while parked and playing golf. Remember the days when some places would give you a free gallon or two of gasoline while you patronized their establishment? No? Well, I don’t either! LOL.)
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Almost 2 years ago I took a trip from the Bay area to GNP (Montana) and back with lots of side trips in my Model 3. In total about 3650 miles in 2 weeks. About 45% of my charging was at hotels with free L2 charging; the remainder was at Tesla SC usually $0.33-0.38 per kwh. I spent $193…extrapolate that to about $350 if I had to pay for all electrons.
Gas in a 25 mpg car would have been about 146 gal. At the time gas in NV, ID & MT was about $3.90 to $4.30. So about $600. Almost double compared to my EV…and triple if you consider the free charging.
Also, many of the roads had speed limits of 75 and 80 mph so I wouldn’t have gotten 25 mpg in a typical car
Mike
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Apparently they’ve delayed it again, this time to 2027. I wonder if it will ever really be sold?
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a64781518/ram-ramcharger-1500-rev-delayed-again/
To paraphrase Elon Musk, “Announcements are easy. Deliveries are hard.”
The Captain
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