at least turn off the blinkers… my god that little 1500w is gonna take a while, probably better to get a rope and pull it by hand while the generator runs. That way you can cover a mile while it recharges a half mile of range per hour.
Yes, it does. I have a 18 kW/hr battery in a new Rav4 Prime and the Level 1 charger on a 120 VAC 15 amp outlet charges at 12 amps, leaving almost enough juice left for a block heater in winter. Takes almost 12 hours to charge the 18 Kw battery. Does 42 miles on a charge, before the 2.5L gas Atkinson engine cuts in, although it starts up and stops for higher loads if the A/C is working, since that is run off the traction battery. Not too bad to charge overnight, or if I am lazy, just charge it on the fly with the gas engine. I can also charge it with my Yamaha 1800 watt inverter generator, but that takes twice as much gas than just using the 2.5 L hybrid gas engine. Would never ever buy a pure BEV.
The Toyota Rav4 Prime weighs 2 tons and gets 42 MPG on gas alone. And goes 0-60 in 5.6 seconds. It is a very impressive piece of engineering. But I fear the day that things quit working, as perhaps over engineered. Should probably build a faraday garage, as it would be a brick when the computer and electronics doesn’t work.
Interesting practical car. The Prius Prime is similar ( only 23 mile EV range).
And it is apparently very reliable. Plus you Rav 4 has a 150,000 mile battery warranty. If you use the schedule charger, so that it reaches full charge just before scheduled driving, the battery may last far longer.
I am not certain why one would charge the main battery with the motor? There must be efficiency lost in the process.
Toyotas battery management doesn’t allow full charge. That’s the main reason why their batteries have such a long lifetime. What really strains a battery is full charge or emptying it to the bottom (also Smartphones warn you, that you should avoid below 15% load, because it costs you battery-lifetime).
What you see in Toyotas battery stat as “full and empty” is in reality just between 40 and 80% of the battery capacity. EVs have the battery as only energy source and need to allow 0 – 100% charge to get sufficient range, while Hybrids can keep the battery in comfortable optimum range. That’s why Toyotas batteries are really long lasting. The first Prius was launched in 1997 and you still find lots of reports from 1st Gen Prius driving with original battery without noticeable performance loss.
Gerald, the Prime has two electric motors, the larger one at plus 18 kWH gives a 40 to 50 mile range.
Do you think that one as well is never fully charged? An online Toyota mechanic explained that it is ok to charge to 100 percent ( according to you 80 percent) if you use the scheduling app, which sets it to reach full charge just before driving. He said letting it sit at full charge is what shortens battery life.
Gerald, you are mostly correct, in that the Toyota Prius/RAV4 Prime battery cannot be fully depleted, as when it says empty, it is still really has 20%-30% charge. This is for 2 reasons, such as battery longevity as you allude to, but also so that when you are out of ‘juice’ and the gas hybrid engine starts, the computer will still be able to access that remaining 20%-30% of the battery to work in full hybrid mode, and the battery is starting to be recharged by the engine when available. So when you step on it, you still get the full 302 Hp from both the gas and electric motors even though your dash says you are empty on electricity.
Also, when charging in EV Charge Mode, the gas engine will only charge to 80%, which I believe is also to protect the battery from overcharge condition. Plus, the last 20% is much slower than the first 80% of the charge, so perhaps is self limiting to the 80% charge. But you are mostly correct in that Toyota limits charge points in the voltage of the battery, for longevity. Toyota is also very secretive about the exact limits, and not even their dealer level trained Hybrid mechanics know these exact numbers, as the local Toyota hybrid mechanic is a friend of mine, and is frustrated about how much even Toyota will tell him. It is all in the computer, and can be changed via software update, just like Telsa did when the hurricane was bearing down, so they gave their users a software update that allowed the Telsa to drain the battery down fo another 50 miles of range. And then a week later they update the on board computer back to their previous voltage set points.
Charging is key to longevity, and not fully charging it and leaving it sit. Seems best to leave it at 50% if you have to park it for a month. Same for heating and cooling, and ensuring the fan to the battery compartment doesn’t plug up with dirt or a seat cover. The batteries do have liquid cooling and heating as well.
The hybrid has other advantages like no alternator, no starter, no belts, brakes last forever due to regenerative braking. Hybrids make a lot of sense, especially saving money on fuel if you have reasonably priced electricity and a daily 40-50 mile commute. Best of both worlds. And the Atkinson gas engine is 41% efficient.
I charge the battery with the motor for several reasons. If on a long highway trip, I will charge it up for before getting to the city, as that is where you get the most efficient return of regenerative braking in stop and go city driving. Plus I use it off grid with a 1500 watt inverter for my remote properties. I figure my gas cost is about .35 cents kW/h. I also have a Millar Pro 300 diesel welder that can charge 6.6 kW with the Level 2 charger, which only takes about 2.5-3 hours, so I sometimes use that if I am doing something else with the welder, and to save hours on the gas engine, which seems to charge at about 4-5 kW at just an idle RPM, which I also do. Very quiet, can hardly hear it, and is all auto start/stop when the traction battery voltage drops.
But yes, a very interesting practical vehicle, especially having 1500 watts of unlimited electricity available anywhere I am off grid, as long as I have gas, or the 2 kW solar array is putting out some amps as well. So far, the most value from a vehicle I have ever bought over 50 years.
Yep, I got one as well. Living in Southern California, energy going through the roof, having .5 acre and a nice pool for the many hot days, I installed solar. ( when in Rome, you can’t fight city hall, etc…) Was looking at an 8 year solar pay off.
Getting the Rav 4 prime is looking good. I am retired and can charge it off the solar most days. I still drive a fair amount. The excess KWH my system produces only got reimbursed at 2.6 Cents per KWH. Now 80 percent of that goes into the RAV4, earning a gas mileage equivalent of about 50 cents per KWH. Plus a 10 to 20 cent per KWH discount from the utility for the EV, plus federal and state rebates. ( hey, I voted against this stuff every time)
Bottom line solar will be paid off in 4 to 4.5 years, and all savings combined plus sale of current car, plus 7 year residual value of RAV4 verses residual value of current car if I kept it for 7 years, plus monthly fuel savings and utility savings, plus rebates, all adds up to 7 years from now being a break even point if I had kept the same car I have had, and it had needed no repairs.
Plus, ya, the Rav is pretty sporty (5.6 to 60) when stepped on.
…I am not certain why one would charge the main battery with the motor? There must be efficiency lost in the process.
I’m wondering if you mean it would be be more efficient to charge the main battery from a remote motor say a Westinghouse turbine ina power station a few hundred miles away. Am I missing something? cheers Mike
Here in New Zealand, if you charge an electric vehicle from the grid, it is likely that the electricity comes from coal (or rather, displaces other electricity usage which must then come from coal). Coal usage has increased under the current Labour administration (as it did under the previous Labour administration). Labour are the party of coal:
c. 70% of our electricity comes from hydro and geo-thermal. But the balance is made up from fossil fuels. When the current administration came to power, they banned future oil and gas exploration in NZ (which in practice means importing more coal to power the grid).
So those who advocate for EVs in NZ are advocating for increased fossil fuel use. Specifically coal.
Well, Australia’s hard, black, high BTU, low S coal that iisn’t going to China is available and abundant. China by contrast is forced to rely on its own soft, brown, low BTU, high S, high soot coal, producing more CO2 and real pollution per BTU.
n.n
June 19, 2021 3:51 pm
Two Teslas. One battery. Sharing is caring. There is also Burning Tesla.
TonyG
June 19, 2021 4:16 pm
I think some of us suggested this a week or so ago…
dk_
June 19, 2021 5:08 pm
The WUWT page shows up blank for me regardless of what I do to turn off blockers and look at source. Here’s the one I thought you might be referring to: https://youtu.be/wPGolithIbo [skip to about 5:00 minute mark]– this guy has had a LS (Chevrolet)-powered Tesla for a while now. Funny project.
Must be a chrome thing. Microsoft has replaced their quirky engine with Google’s. Firefox is not showing anything. I’ll skip it for now, bring it up on my kindle, maybe, later.
I shut off Edge as much as possible.
Same thing here with Firefox and uMatrix. BUT if you right click in that blanks space, “This frame” shows up. Open the frame in a new tab and Bob’s your Aunt Sally.
Same for Safari…and Chrome. Says not available…don’t have permission to view. Maybe geo locked for location, but first time I think this happen to me here.
I don’t see how it is Geo locked as I could view it on my phone earlier but not my PC and both using Firefox and I now can’t view it on my phone either so maybe they geo locked it later.
To everybody who cannot see that content: Relax, be careful of what you are willing to give away to see multimedia with content that can be easily inferred from the comments and so forth…
It’s just a stupid joke in the bigger scheme of things, anyway, unimportant, and seemingly behind some non-open source coding. Caveat emptor and all that.
A bit like the car I observed at a local farm store , gas generator strapped to the trunk lid , powering a 120vac window AC mounted in the rear passenger window …
Hmm, mount the ginny on the luggage rack on the roof, or the bike rack on the front or back, plug her in and you’re good to go!
Jeff Alberts
June 19, 2021 5:49 pm
Now they have a really expensive Volt.
Ron Long
June 19, 2021 5:56 pm
The Tesla driver/owner appears to think everything is normal, having a gas Honda generator in your trunk is ultimate virtue signaling. Of course he paid double for that Tesla for virtue signaling, and is undergoing a lot bother, but, hey, it’s virtue signaling.,
Exactly. How stupid do you have to be to not realise that if you need a petrol generator as emergency backup then you should have just got a petrol car instead? Don’t these moron’s have a single working brain between them?
Steve Case
June 19, 2021 6:20 pm
Oh I want an electric car. No I’m not going to take one on the great American road trip to Yellow Stone, but around town? Oh yeah! Charge it up in your garage, and zip around town to the grocery store et cetera, I doubt that can be beat. We just bought a hybrid, and wow! So far several trips from Milwaukee to Chicago have been fantastic. Nothing but smooth acceleration, no clunking gear changes. It’s a dream to drive.
All electric, no difference, so far I’ve driven a Tesla and a Cooper Mini electric. But I wouldn’t attempt to drive one from Milwaukee to Chicago and back on one charge.
However, the new hybrid has no fewer than 14 buttons on the steering wheel??? My current Hyundai has one, the horn. Does anyone you know use cruise control in town? No you don’t, so why have cruise control on a car that realistically only goes a little more than 100 miles on a charge?
You can make fun of the people who run the battery dry out in the sticks all you want, but in the real world, a car that will reliably run errands around town is desirable.
The forgoing in somewhat confusing, but the reality is that an all electric second car for everyday driving makes a lot of sense. If I actually get one, maybe I might change my mind, but so far, that’s not the case.
“Does anyone you know use cruise control in town?” I do on the freeway all the time it keeps me at a constant speed. I did both coming and going to a office I don’t normally work 21 mile trip back to the office another 21 mil trip. Adjusting the cruise control allowed me to stay in a bubble where a good part of the trip no cars with a hundred feet.
My neighbour just bought a Honda hybrid and going over the Rimutakas, which is a winding incline both ways, he had to set it in sports mode which disabled the electric. The same for passing, otherwise it was too sluggish.
Indeed. There are situations that EVs are perfect for (such as the short urban trips you describe) Unfortunately they’re not much use for other situations (such as long haul trips and extreme cold/heat environments) for those a good old fashion fossil fueled vehicle will be a much better option.
Someday soon, it will be illegal to drive from Milwaukee to Chicago without a special permit.
CD in Wisconsin
June 19, 2021 6:28 pm
Video of a Tesla owner in Utah who can’t get his car recharged. Guy seems a lot more patient with and tolerant of what he goes through than I would be. 13 minute video….
If only there was a way you could build the gasoline generator into the engine compartment, to save cluttering the luggage space with a separate generator…
There should be a law that every BEV has to have at least some type of mini ICE, maybe at least a compact 6-8 kW genset for emergency charging, and perhaps to provide thermal heating in the winter or A/C in the summer. A bit of a range extender, and you could reduce the battery weight by a similar weight. Would be equivalent to a Level 2 charger.
Would never be completely stuck as long as you had a 4-5 gallons of gas. This build out of 50,000 new charging stations is going to cost a fortune, and probably be powered by diesel generators, as you will need a lot of sub stations, transformers and new distribution lines to power all that up, especially the high current fast chargers for a Tesla.
Not a hybrid with a complicated variable transmission, but just a little speciality built in generator (or even a mini gasoline fuel cell) for basic charging and/or thermal heat for winter or running a A/C compressor. I would have thought Elon Musk would have thought this through.
I think hybrids are a good idea, but I wouldn’t buy a plug-in hybrid. I would buy one that ran off an ICE and let the engine do the battery charging. That way I’m not tied to an electrical outlet and all the hassle of charging the vehicle.
For a taxi/Uber, that would make the most sense, as you shouldn’t be stoped long enough to charge it anyway. It is also a fair bit less expensive for just the gas hybrid without the built in on board charger and has an even smaller battery than a plug-in. The regenerative braking in the city is the attraction, or mountain driving and getting back some regeneration on the down hill.
At some locations I don’t want the hassle of plugging it all in, (like visiting friends in another city) as it is a smallish battery and unless it is a free charging station like an Ikea store I would also never to pay to use a commercial public charging station, as some charge a flat rate to plug in before figuring kW’s for payment and you get ripped off for 18 Kw/h which should cost something like $2-$3 and the flat basic park fee is $5-$10 before figuring the kW/h. So then I just use gas, as about the same price anyway.
The pure hybrid or even a PHEV is a smallish battery compared to a pure BEV so the cost of electricity isn’t much anyway. The only advantage to a plug in is if if you have that 40 mile commute and can easily charge at home or work and use mostly electricity, which is a fair amount cheaper than gas, especially the last 4-5 months.
I only bought my PHEV for being able to hook up my own 1500 watt inverter, as all EV’s have a DC-DC converter to run the 12V system (lights, radio and most everything else) in the car already with a 12V battery, so can hook into the 12V battery side, and in Ready mode, the main traction battery is always keeping the 12V battery charged and the engine starts automatically to charge the larger hybrid battery when the voltage drops on the traction battery. Great for off-grid, or if the power is rolling back outs. Affectionally known as ‘demand side management’. Just a giant self charging UPS. This is the main attraction for me.
Car manufactures have been doing this for years.
I just went out to my 2010 Silverado, popped the hood and there it was. A gasoline powered engine turning an alternator charging a battery to supply power for the trucks electrical devices. And here is the bonus. The leftover mechanical energy from the ICE actually propels the truck through some kind of fancy dancy thing called a drive train or something. LOL
Tow a generator & hook it up to the trailer’s wheel-axle for recharging. There ya go. 😉 😉
Sara
June 19, 2021 7:35 pm
Dumber than one of the following:
a box of bent nails
a can of tuna and no can opener
buying a book titled “Write Your Own Story” and you open it to find blank pages, and want your money back
buying a frozen fish at the store and turning it loose in the nearest lake (yes, I do know someone who did that, and didn’t understand why the fish didn’t swim away.)
I’m more and more convinced that These People were dropped off here by space aliens who don’t want them returned.
I’m such an unhandy man that you give me a hammer and every nail I use becomes a bent nail regardless of how not bent it was before hand.
Gunga Din
June 19, 2021 7:43 pm
So….what goes around comes around?
Gunga Din
June 19, 2021 7:46 pm
Maybe they should design a Tesla with a built in gas generator?
If they’re self-crashi…er…driving, why not make them self-charging!
mikebartnz
June 19, 2021 8:50 pm
That is interesting. I saw the video on my phone earlier but now on my PC it has been disappeared.
Forrest Gardener
June 19, 2021 8:56 pm
I can’t see the bit that’s funny but my guess is that somebody has converted a Tesla into a diesel electric vehicle. So what is so funny about reverting to a proven technology. Apart from the hypocrisy that is.
Quote “I can’t see the bit that’s funny”
That is not saying you couldn’t see it full sop it is saying to me that you just couldn’t see the humour.
Now you can see how things can get misconstrued when things aren’t worded properly.
That Tesla driver one I am sure is the start to the one that was originally posted at the top here but we don’t see the part where he pulls a generator out of the boot. I do suspect that the generator he did pull out wouldn’t have done the job though.
With that Facebork one it did two hours work and then took eight eight hours to recharge using a bloody big diesel generator.
He could have done eight hours work using about the same amount of diesel with no down time.
Insane.
I just had this vision:
Millions of Teslas parked together, connected by electrical umbilicals, all the cars working in unison to supply enough energy to build just one more Tesla. This “pure-bred” will then be the “offspring” of Tesla cars.
All the Gang Green Tesla owners will climax as one, as they, vicariously through their electric cars, have successful procreative sex…
The link I posted was from Facebook Messenger. It still works in Messenger, but stopped working here… Thanks for the YouTube link. I’ll update the post.
🍻
Giordano Milton
June 20, 2021 4:39 am
Please don’t use these video loop images. They’re just annoying.
Philo
June 20, 2021 7:58 am
Why go through all the rigamarole for an all electric car? Even with the subsidies they are over priced. – subsidized by the average worker who can’t afford them.
The only real solution, if you really need one, is a high efficiency hybrid. Several of the Toyota hybrids and several others are getting over 50mpg on decently and suiuseful cars.
At 50+ mpg is approaches diesel efficiency without all the REALLY negative pollution of a diesel. That puts the all electric car, the high efficiency hybrid, and the diesel very near to par with each other on overall efficiency.
The electric car hides it’s overall efficiency in the fictitious “eMPG” from the EPA. The EPA regulation falsifies the actual efficiency by directly equating the energy in fossil fuels to an amount of electrical watts- conveniently hiding the power losses in production, generation, and transmission. They also don’t include the associated emissions and damage caused by the mining, refining, transportation, and illness and loss of life from treating the workers as near slaves.
The only electric car that is truly efficient is one drawing power from a nuclear reactor that recycles its own fuel until it is nearly completely reacted.
Jo Darr
June 20, 2021 8:04 am
At the end of the video . Alex says “No ones charging their Tesla with a gas generator” Guess what .. Most everyone is charging their Tesla with a gas generator. It’s a Natural Gas generator at the Electric utility
TRM
June 20, 2021 3:03 pm
The are finally admitting that Ian Wright was correct. Electric for off the line max torque and gas or diesel to run the generator. Think of your car like a diesel-electric train. Especially the constant stop and go, five ton trucks like trash, recycling, etc.
Way back when I first heard the term hybrid technology for cars my first thought was they were building an electric motor driven by a gen set like trains do.Basic engineering to design an ICE to run effectively and efficiently at a specific RPM rather than over an entire range of RPM then let the electric motor run over the entire range of RPM.
Imagine my surprise when I had an opportunity to sit down and read how car companies actually designed hybrids. Not at all what I expected. WUWT is full of smart people, was I wrong in thinking a gen set would be more efficient than the current hybrid setup? I’ve had engineering courses but am not an engineer by training so I know I could of missed something here.
Kentlfc
June 21, 2021 12:37 am
Or you could be like Rich Rebuilds on YouTube who after rebuilding a Tesla (with two busted ones), got shafted by Tesla for not using approved repairers to rebuild it and now can’t use Tesla “Superchargers” whilst on the road.
He is currently fitting a GM LS V8 (Corvette motor) to a Tesla.
As usual like a lot of YT channels, it can be a little over the top.
Dean
June 21, 2021 3:08 am
Interesting showing the real world issues with these sorts of vehicles.
Petit_Barde
June 21, 2021 4:01 am
The next brillant step would be to replace the tesla motor with a diesel one and the 800kg of batteries with a 50l tank.
Jean Parisot
June 21, 2021 11:36 am
Since your carrying propane for the trailer – is there a propane conversion kit for a pure sine wave, lightweight genset?
OK, one gallon of gas, three hours of time, the Tesla goes 12 more miles. This is not a pretty picture! 12 MPG, three hours to go 12 miles, I’ll take the horse sir, my Tesla for a horse!
Or just hook up a team of old nags to pull the Tesla. Now that would be funny! Would give a newish look at what real old ‘horsepower’ is.
Romeo Rachi
June 22, 2021 1:39 pm
The same channel shows a Tesla being charged by a Ford F150 PowerBoost hybrid truck. It is really quite good at what it does. They also show it running all sorts of other items.
To me, that set-up makes way more sense that a full electric vehicle. You have the ability to drive on gas as well as electric and you don’t need a generator because your truck is one. Definitely worth a watch…
yarpos
June 22, 2021 8:52 pm
I can see these guys setting fire to themselves in some remote location as they top up the generator while its still running during a marathon charge.
Didnt see a calculation on how much full would be required to keep that thing running on full load for 14 hours+ hours (hint:it will be more than they want to carry) Never mind at least your sine wave will be pure.
Better yet, tow a diesel generator behind you on long hauls.
at least turn off the blinkers… my god that little 1500w is gonna take a while, probably better to get a rope and pull it by hand while the generator runs. That way you can cover a mile while it recharges a half mile of range per hour.
Well within Tesla pickup tow weight:
https://www.cat.com/en_US/products/new/power-systems/electric-power/mobile-generator-sets/1000032453.html
Of course industrial-strength gasoline powered generators are also available.
Or even with a Model S:
https://insideevs.com/news/322619/tesla-model-s-tows-a-generator-long-distance-on-a-trailer-video/
Although towing with a sedan might void your warranty.
1.5kW would take a lot of time to recharge a 60kW ranged battery.
Yes, it does. I have a 18 kW/hr battery in a new Rav4 Prime and the Level 1 charger on a 120 VAC 15 amp outlet charges at 12 amps, leaving almost enough juice left for a block heater in winter. Takes almost 12 hours to charge the 18 Kw battery. Does 42 miles on a charge, before the 2.5L gas Atkinson engine cuts in, although it starts up and stops for higher loads if the A/C is working, since that is run off the traction battery. Not too bad to charge overnight, or if I am lazy, just charge it on the fly with the gas engine. I can also charge it with my Yamaha 1800 watt inverter generator, but that takes twice as much gas than just using the 2.5 L hybrid gas engine. Would never ever buy a pure BEV.
The Toyota Rav4 Prime weighs 2 tons and gets 42 MPG on gas alone. And goes 0-60 in 5.6 seconds. It is a very impressive piece of engineering. But I fear the day that things quit working, as perhaps over engineered. Should probably build a faraday garage, as it would be a brick when the computer and electronics doesn’t work.
Interesting practical car. The Prius Prime is similar ( only 23 mile EV range).
And it is apparently very reliable. Plus you Rav 4 has a 150,000 mile battery warranty. If you use the schedule charger, so that it reaches full charge just before scheduled driving, the battery may last far longer.
I am not certain why one would charge the main battery with the motor? There must be efficiency lost in the process.
All the Best…
Toyotas battery management doesn’t allow full charge. That’s the main reason why their batteries have such a long lifetime. What really strains a battery is full charge or emptying it to the bottom (also Smartphones warn you, that you should avoid below 15% load, because it costs you battery-lifetime).
What you see in Toyotas battery stat as “full and empty” is in reality just between 40 and 80% of the battery capacity. EVs have the battery as only energy source and need to allow 0 – 100% charge to get sufficient range, while Hybrids can keep the battery in comfortable optimum range. That’s why Toyotas batteries are really long lasting. The first Prius was launched in 1997 and you still find lots of reports from 1st Gen Prius driving with original battery without noticeable performance loss.
Gerald, the Prime has two electric motors, the larger one at plus 18 kWH gives a 40 to 50 mile range.
Do you think that one as well is never fully charged? An online Toyota mechanic explained that it is ok to charge to 100 percent ( according to you 80 percent) if you use the scheduling app, which sets it to reach full charge just before driving. He said letting it sit at full charge is what shortens battery life.
Gerald, you are mostly correct, in that the Toyota Prius/RAV4 Prime battery cannot be fully depleted, as when it says empty, it is still really has 20%-30% charge. This is for 2 reasons, such as battery longevity as you allude to, but also so that when you are out of ‘juice’ and the gas hybrid engine starts, the computer will still be able to access that remaining 20%-30% of the battery to work in full hybrid mode, and the battery is starting to be recharged by the engine when available. So when you step on it, you still get the full 302 Hp from both the gas and electric motors even though your dash says you are empty on electricity.
Also, when charging in EV Charge Mode, the gas engine will only charge to 80%, which I believe is also to protect the battery from overcharge condition. Plus, the last 20% is much slower than the first 80% of the charge, so perhaps is self limiting to the 80% charge. But you are mostly correct in that Toyota limits charge points in the voltage of the battery, for longevity. Toyota is also very secretive about the exact limits, and not even their dealer level trained Hybrid mechanics know these exact numbers, as the local Toyota hybrid mechanic is a friend of mine, and is frustrated about how much even Toyota will tell him. It is all in the computer, and can be changed via software update, just like Telsa did when the hurricane was bearing down, so they gave their users a software update that allowed the Telsa to drain the battery down fo another 50 miles of range. And then a week later they update the on board computer back to their previous voltage set points.
Charging is key to longevity, and not fully charging it and leaving it sit. Seems best to leave it at 50% if you have to park it for a month. Same for heating and cooling, and ensuring the fan to the battery compartment doesn’t plug up with dirt or a seat cover. The batteries do have liquid cooling and heating as well.
The hybrid has other advantages like no alternator, no starter, no belts, brakes last forever due to regenerative braking. Hybrids make a lot of sense, especially saving money on fuel if you have reasonably priced electricity and a daily 40-50 mile commute. Best of both worlds. And the Atkinson gas engine is 41% efficient.
I charge the battery with the motor for several reasons. If on a long highway trip, I will charge it up for before getting to the city, as that is where you get the most efficient return of regenerative braking in stop and go city driving. Plus I use it off grid with a 1500 watt inverter for my remote properties. I figure my gas cost is about .35 cents kW/h. I also have a Millar Pro 300 diesel welder that can charge 6.6 kW with the Level 2 charger, which only takes about 2.5-3 hours, so I sometimes use that if I am doing something else with the welder, and to save hours on the gas engine, which seems to charge at about 4-5 kW at just an idle RPM, which I also do. Very quiet, can hardly hear it, and is all auto start/stop when the traction battery voltage drops.
But yes, a very interesting practical vehicle, especially having 1500 watts of unlimited electricity available anywhere I am off grid, as long as I have gas, or the 2 kW solar array is putting out some amps as well. So far, the most value from a vehicle I have ever bought over 50 years.
Yep, I got one as well. Living in Southern California, energy going through the roof, having .5 acre and a nice pool for the many hot days, I installed solar. ( when in Rome, you can’t fight city hall, etc…) Was looking at an 8 year solar pay off.
Getting the Rav 4 prime is looking good. I am retired and can charge it off the solar most days. I still drive a fair amount. The excess KWH my system produces only got reimbursed at 2.6 Cents per KWH. Now 80 percent of that goes into the RAV4, earning a gas mileage equivalent of about 50 cents per KWH. Plus a 10 to 20 cent per KWH discount from the utility for the EV, plus federal and state rebates. ( hey, I voted against this stuff every time)
Bottom line solar will be paid off in 4 to 4.5 years, and all savings combined plus sale of current car, plus 7 year residual value of RAV4 verses residual value of current car if I kept it for 7 years, plus monthly fuel savings and utility savings, plus rebates, all adds up to 7 years from now being a break even point if I had kept the same car I have had, and it had needed no repairs.
Plus, ya, the Rav is pretty sporty (5.6 to 60) when stepped on.
…I am not certain why one would charge the main battery with the motor? There must be efficiency lost in the process.
I’m wondering if you mean it would be be more efficient to charge the main battery from a remote motor say a Westinghouse turbine ina power station a few hundred miles away. Am I missing something?
cheers
Mike
I went to the petrol station. I put 45 litres in (~250 – 300 miles worth), I paid and left.
Time: ~10 mins.
I won’t compromise on that, time waits for no man – or woman.
Exactly, I fill my pick-up and I can travel 500 miles and do it again in 10 mins.
I figured just leave the back hatch open with generator hooked up and running and drive it away.
…or…
Need a Tesla X to tow.
No different than charging it with a coal fired power plant………
Try putting one of those in the trunk! 😉
Coal Up Your Car! (1932) – YouTube
I don’t think the CAGW zealots will go for this… just say’in.
True, True!
🙂 My math says it would take 2 hours to get enough charge to go 20 miles with that generator (2.2kW).
Mileage test:
Typical recharging time
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TcoLCTkM0ys
No problem. Pull a trailer-ed 35Kw-40Kw power generator behind it.
I wonder if that was Simon….thanks for the laugh David
Crank up the ginny while the battery is charged. Put it in the trunk plug it in and drive. That way you can keep the car charged while you drive.
Better cut vents in the trunk.
Leave hatch back open.
Greenies are worried about CO2 not CO.
Here in New Zealand, if you charge an electric vehicle from the grid, it is likely that the electricity comes from coal (or rather, displaces other electricity usage which must then come from coal). Coal usage has increased under the current Labour administration (as it did under the previous Labour administration). Labour are the party of coal:
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2021/06/labour_-_the_party_of_coal.html
c. 70% of our electricity comes from hydro and geo-thermal. But the balance is made up from fossil fuels. When the current administration came to power, they banned future oil and gas exploration in NZ (which in practice means importing more coal to power the grid).
So those who advocate for EVs in NZ are advocating for increased fossil fuel use. Specifically coal.
Well, Australia’s hard, black, high BTU, low S coal that iisn’t going to China is available and abundant. China by contrast is forced to rely on its own soft, brown, low BTU, high S, high soot coal, producing more CO2 and real pollution per BTU.
Two Teslas. One battery. Sharing is caring. There is also Burning Tesla.
I think some of us suggested this a week or so ago…
The WUWT page shows up blank for me regardless of what I do to turn off blockers and look at source. Here’s the one I thought you might be referring to: https://youtu.be/wPGolithIbo [skip to about 5:00 minute mark]– this guy has had a LS (Chevrolet)-powered Tesla for a while now. Funny project.
I had the same problem when I displayed the page using the Dissenter browser but it displayed OK on Microsoft Edge.
Must be a chrome thing. Microsoft has replaced their quirky engine with Google’s. Firefox is not showing anything. I’ll skip it for now, bring it up on my kindle, maybe, later.
I shut off Edge as much as possible.
I only use the Edge browser on the rare occasions when the the Dissenter browser fails.
I have the same issues here with Firefox, Chrome and Edge. I have some extra layers of security turned on, so that may be blocking some content.
Suddenly, this morning the link has appeared! 🙂
Same thing here with Firefox and uMatrix. BUT if you right click in that blanks space, “This frame” shows up. Open the frame in a new tab and Bob’s your Aunt Sally.
When I try your approach with Firefox it tells me it is unavailable or I don’t have permission.
Same for Safari…and Chrome. Says not available…don’t have permission to view. Maybe geo locked for location, but first time I think this happen to me here.
I don’t see how it is Geo locked as I could view it on my phone earlier but not my PC and both using Firefox and I now can’t view it on my phone either so maybe they geo locked it later.
I just tried again, and now I get a 1 pixel square image in the new tab.
To everybody who cannot see that content: Relax, be careful of what you are willing to give away to see multimedia with content that can be easily inferred from the comments and so forth…
It’s just a stupid joke in the bigger scheme of things, anyway, unimportant, and seemingly behind some non-open source coding. Caveat emptor and all that.
Good advice.
A bit like the car I observed at a local farm store , gas generator strapped to the trunk lid , powering a 120vac window AC mounted in the rear passenger window …
😉
Now that is redneck as hell right there!
Hmm, mount the ginny on the luggage rack on the roof, or the bike rack on the front or back, plug her in and you’re good to go!
Now they have a really expensive Volt.
The Tesla driver/owner appears to think everything is normal, having a gas Honda generator in your trunk is ultimate virtue signaling. Of course he paid double for that Tesla for virtue signaling, and is undergoing a lot bother, but, hey, it’s virtue signaling.,
Don’t forget your contribution via taxes transmorphing into subsidies…
Exactly. How stupid do you have to be to not realise that if you need a petrol generator as emergency backup then you should have just got a petrol car instead? Don’t these moron’s have a single working brain between them?
Oh I want an electric car. No I’m not going to take one on the great American road trip to Yellow Stone, but around town? Oh yeah! Charge it up in your garage, and zip around town to the grocery store et cetera, I doubt that can be beat. We just bought a hybrid, and wow! So far several trips from Milwaukee to Chicago have been fantastic. Nothing but smooth acceleration, no clunking gear changes. It’s a dream to drive.
All electric, no difference, so far I’ve driven a Tesla and a Cooper Mini electric. But I wouldn’t attempt to drive one from Milwaukee to Chicago and back on one charge.
However, the new hybrid has no fewer than 14 buttons on the steering wheel??? My current Hyundai has one, the horn. Does anyone you know use cruise control in town? No you don’t, so why have cruise control on a car that realistically only goes a little more than 100 miles on a charge?
You can make fun of the people who run the battery dry out in the sticks all you want, but in the real world, a car that will reliably run errands around town is desirable.
The forgoing in somewhat confusing, but the reality is that an all electric second car for everyday driving makes a lot of sense. If I actually get one, maybe I might change my mind, but so far, that’s not the case.
“Does anyone you know use cruise control in town?” I do on the freeway all the time it keeps me at a constant speed. I did both coming and going to a office I don’t normally work 21 mile trip back to the office another 21 mil trip. Adjusting the cruise control allowed me to stay in a bubble where a good part of the trip no cars with a hundred feet.
My neighbour just bought a Honda hybrid and going over the Rimutakas, which is a winding incline both ways, he had to set it in sports mode which disabled the electric. The same for passing, otherwise it was too sluggish.
Indeed. There are situations that EVs are perfect for (such as the short urban trips you describe) Unfortunately they’re not much use for other situations (such as long haul trips and extreme cold/heat environments) for those a good old fashion fossil fueled vehicle will be a much better option.
Someday soon, it will be illegal to drive from Milwaukee to Chicago without a special permit.
Video of a Tesla owner in Utah who can’t get his car recharged. Guy seems a lot more patient with and tolerant of what he goes through than I would be. 13 minute video….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcopc5bxSRg
They can have my ICE care keys when they pry them from my cold dead hands…
If only there was a way you could build the gasoline generator into the engine compartment, to save cluttering the luggage space with a separate generator…
There should be a law that every BEV has to have at least some type of mini ICE, maybe at least a compact 6-8 kW genset for emergency charging, and perhaps to provide thermal heating in the winter or A/C in the summer. A bit of a range extender, and you could reduce the battery weight by a similar weight. Would be equivalent to a Level 2 charger.
Would never be completely stuck as long as you had a 4-5 gallons of gas. This build out of 50,000 new charging stations is going to cost a fortune, and probably be powered by diesel generators, as you will need a lot of sub stations, transformers and new distribution lines to power all that up, especially the high current fast chargers for a Tesla.
Not a hybrid with a complicated variable transmission, but just a little speciality built in generator (or even a mini gasoline fuel cell) for basic charging and/or thermal heat for winter or running a A/C compressor. I would have thought Elon Musk would have thought this through.
I think hybrids are a good idea, but I wouldn’t buy a plug-in hybrid. I would buy one that ran off an ICE and let the engine do the battery charging. That way I’m not tied to an electrical outlet and all the hassle of charging the vehicle.
For a taxi/Uber, that would make the most sense, as you shouldn’t be stoped long enough to charge it anyway. It is also a fair bit less expensive for just the gas hybrid without the built in on board charger and has an even smaller battery than a plug-in. The regenerative braking in the city is the attraction, or mountain driving and getting back some regeneration on the down hill.
At some locations I don’t want the hassle of plugging it all in, (like visiting friends in another city) as it is a smallish battery and unless it is a free charging station like an Ikea store I would also never to pay to use a commercial public charging station, as some charge a flat rate to plug in before figuring kW’s for payment and you get ripped off for 18 Kw/h which should cost something like $2-$3 and the flat basic park fee is $5-$10 before figuring the kW/h. So then I just use gas, as about the same price anyway.
The pure hybrid or even a PHEV is a smallish battery compared to a pure BEV so the cost of electricity isn’t much anyway. The only advantage to a plug in is if if you have that 40 mile commute and can easily charge at home or work and use mostly electricity, which is a fair amount cheaper than gas, especially the last 4-5 months.
I only bought my PHEV for being able to hook up my own 1500 watt inverter, as all EV’s have a DC-DC converter to run the 12V system (lights, radio and most everything else) in the car already with a 12V battery, so can hook into the 12V battery side, and in Ready mode, the main traction battery is always keeping the 12V battery charged and the engine starts automatically to charge the larger hybrid battery when the voltage drops on the traction battery. Great for off-grid, or if the power is rolling back outs. Affectionally known as ‘demand side management’. Just a giant self charging UPS. This is the main attraction for me.
Thanks for all the info, Earthling2.
Car manufactures have been doing this for years.
I just went out to my 2010 Silverado, popped the hood and there it was. A gasoline powered engine turning an alternator charging a battery to supply power for the trucks electrical devices. And here is the bonus. The leftover mechanical energy from the ICE actually propels the truck through some kind of fancy dancy thing called a drive train or something. LOL
Tow a generator & hook it up to the trailer’s wheel-axle for recharging. There ya go. 😉 😉
Dumber than one of the following:
I’m more and more convinced that These People were dropped off here by space aliens who don’t want them returned.
I know a few of those Alien infiltrators
“a box of bent nails”
I’m such an unhandy man that you give me a hammer and every nail I use becomes a bent nail regardless of how not bent it was before hand.
So….what goes around comes around?
Maybe they should design a Tesla with a built in gas generator?
If they’re self-crashi…er…driving, why not make them self-charging!
That is interesting. I saw the video on my phone earlier but now on my PC it has been disappeared.
I can’t see the bit that’s funny but my guess is that somebody has converted a Tesla into a diesel electric vehicle. So what is so funny about reverting to a proven technology. Apart from the hypocrisy that is.
If you can’t see the humour in that. Especially the way it was introduced your last name must be Gump.
No. I mean I can’t see the image or video. Think twice before you resort to insults.
Quote “I can’t see the bit that’s funny”
That is not saying you couldn’t see it full sop it is saying to me that you just couldn’t see the humour.
Now you can see how things can get misconstrued when things aren’t worded properly.
Want the last word? Go right ahead.
I would like to point out that the video at the top now has no relationship to the one originally posted which did have a beautiful bit of humour.
Video unavailable
This video may no longer exist, or you don’t have permission to view it.
Tried different browsers and using a VPN to give me the USA region but:
Sooo many ways of reading this – NONE of them = Good
Original ‘whatever we were supposed to see’ is just a blank space in Firefox and Opera shows the black box message above
What about this> staged or not?
Tesla driver here does have a sort of ‘charm’ about him
Have we seen this one?
The riotously successful new JCB all-electric mini-digger, (only place I can easily find is on Facebork)
The World IS full of Muppets but maybe there’s hope, if ONLY nobody elects them as a Prime Minister or President……
That Tesla driver one I am sure is the start to the one that was originally posted at the top here but we don’t see the part where he pulls a generator out of the boot. I do suspect that the generator he did pull out wouldn’t have done the job though.
With that Facebork one it did two hours work and then took eight eight hours to recharge using a bloody big diesel generator.
He could have done eight hours work using about the same amount of diesel with no down time.
Insane.
Video Link is broken…for some reason.
It’s been taken down by our overlords.
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/06/14/electric-eco-bus-stranded-at-g7-in-cornwall-after-charge-points-fail/
Video Unavailable.
Still, I’m sure it was amusing.
I just had this vision:
Millions of Teslas parked together, connected by electrical umbilicals, all the cars working in unison to supply enough energy to build just one more Tesla. This “pure-bred” will then be the “offspring” of Tesla cars.
All the Gang Green Tesla owners will climax as one, as they, vicariously through their electric cars, have successful procreative sex…
err umm theres a clip missing?
Found another link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J5QA8C3S5k
The link I posted was from Facebook Messenger. It still works in Messenger, but stopped working here… Thanks for the YouTube link. I’ll update the post.
🍻
Please don’t use these video loop images. They’re just annoying.
Why go through all the rigamarole for an all electric car? Even with the subsidies they are over priced. – subsidized by the average worker who can’t afford them.
The only real solution, if you really need one, is a high efficiency hybrid. Several of the Toyota hybrids and several others are getting over 50mpg on decently and suiuseful cars.
At 50+ mpg is approaches diesel efficiency without all the REALLY negative pollution of a diesel. That puts the all electric car, the high efficiency hybrid, and the diesel very near to par with each other on overall efficiency.
The electric car hides it’s overall efficiency in the fictitious “eMPG” from the EPA. The EPA regulation falsifies the actual efficiency by directly equating the energy in fossil fuels to an amount of electrical watts- conveniently hiding the power losses in production, generation, and transmission. They also don’t include the associated emissions and damage caused by the mining, refining, transportation, and illness and loss of life from treating the workers as near slaves.
The only electric car that is truly efficient is one drawing power from a nuclear reactor that recycles its own fuel until it is nearly completely reacted.
At the end of the video . Alex says “No ones charging their Tesla with a gas generator” Guess what .. Most everyone is charging their Tesla with a gas generator. It’s a Natural Gas generator at the Electric utility
The are finally admitting that Ian Wright was correct. Electric for off the line max torque and gas or diesel to run the generator. Think of your car like a diesel-electric train. Especially the constant stop and go, five ton trucks like trash, recycling, etc.
https://www.wrightspeed.com/
Way back when I first heard the term hybrid technology for cars my first thought was they were building an electric motor driven by a gen set like trains do.Basic engineering to design an ICE to run effectively and efficiently at a specific RPM rather than over an entire range of RPM then let the electric motor run over the entire range of RPM.
Imagine my surprise when I had an opportunity to sit down and read how car companies actually designed hybrids. Not at all what I expected. WUWT is full of smart people, was I wrong in thinking a gen set would be more efficient than the current hybrid setup? I’ve had engineering courses but am not an engineer by training so I know I could of missed something here.
Or you could be like Rich Rebuilds on YouTube who after rebuilding a Tesla (with two busted ones), got shafted by Tesla for not using approved repairers to rebuild it and now can’t use Tesla “Superchargers” whilst on the road.
He is currently fitting a GM LS V8 (Corvette motor) to a Tesla.
As usual like a lot of YT channels, it can be a little over the top.
Interesting showing the real world issues with these sorts of vehicles.
The next brillant step would be to replace the tesla motor with a diesel one and the 800kg of batteries with a 50l tank.
Since your carrying propane for the trailer – is there a propane conversion kit for a pure sine wave, lightweight genset?
OK, one gallon of gas, three hours of time, the Tesla goes 12 more miles. This is not a pretty picture! 12 MPG, three hours to go 12 miles, I’ll take the horse sir, my Tesla for a horse!
Or just hook up a team of old nags to pull the Tesla. Now that would be funny! Would give a newish look at what real old ‘horsepower’ is.
The same channel shows a Tesla being charged by a Ford F150 PowerBoost hybrid truck. It is really quite good at what it does. They also show it running all sorts of other items.
To me, that set-up makes way more sense that a full electric vehicle. You have the ability to drive on gas as well as electric and you don’t need a generator because your truck is one. Definitely worth a watch…
I can see these guys setting fire to themselves in some remote location as they top up the generator while its still running during a marathon charge.
Didnt see a calculation on how much full would be required to keep that thing running on full load for 14 hours+ hours (hint:it will be more than they want to carry) Never mind at least your sine wave will be pure.
how much fuel