Electric motorhomes are coming: a new RV powered by solar panels and 91 kWh battery pack - Electrek
https://apple.news/AwY8vjiwbS1eu5jnJaCfKiw
The Germans came up with an electric motorhome. It has a range of 100 miles. The solar panels are 3kw and the motor uses 91kw to go 100 miles.
It's a neat idea.
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100 miles might work in Europe where things are closer together, but I can put on 100 miles before breakfast...
Unless they can get the batteries to recharge while I eat my Grand Slam I'll have to wait on this just a bit.
Richard
Quote from: richard5933 on September 18, 2017, 05:18:01 PM
100 miles might work in Europe where things are closer together, but I can put on 100 miles before breakfast...
Unless they can get the batteries to recharge while I eat my Grand Slam I'll have to wait on this just a bit.
Richard
100 miles wouldn't really work, even in Britain. Having to wait 30+ days to recharge to drive the next 100 miles is most amusing. Lands end to John o groates in Britain is about 750 miles. To drive from end to end of the country would thus take about 7 1/2 months!
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"but it lacks the functionalities of a motorhome"
Probably No AC and do you have to poop in a hole in the floor?? ;D
You could just start up a big old stinky noisy generator.
JC
Quote from: muldoonman on September 18, 2017, 05:45:13 PM"but it lacks the functionalities of a motorhome"
Probably No AC and do you have to poop in a hole in the floor?? ;D
Oh, come on - nobody wants a motorhome like THAT!
I got no problem pooing in a bag and tossing the bag out the door :p
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I too doubt that this will attract too many buyers over here. Perhaps decades from now when such technology will likely improve we'll see more acceptance. Perhaps some RV dealer may bring one over to display at an RV show to see if it'll generate much interest. (Pun was intended) If you really have a kick about 100% electric vehicles, there are some 100% electric skoolies that are just starting to come on the market. Wait for them to get old and see how they hold up then get one and convert it your own way.
CNG, natural gas are very clean combustion engines. In LA where I am right now, they use commuter buses, mostly MCI 102s, with a bay full of CNG tanks to give 800 miles of travel for their daily routes, lvmci...
Quote from: CrabbyMilton on September 19, 2017, 03:51:52 AM
I too doubt that this will attract too many buyers over here. Perhaps decades from now when such technology will likely improve we'll see more acceptance. Perhaps some RV dealer may bring one over to display at an RV show to see if it'll generate much interest. (Pun was intended) If you really have a kick about 100% electric vehicles, there are some 100% electric skoolies that are just starting to come on the market. Wait for them to get old and see how they hold up then get one and convert it your own way.
Yes, I've read about them. On short routes of 100 miles or less, they make an awful lot of sense. Many standard routes are 30 miles.
I drive Special Needs (aka the not-so-short bus) so my routes are longer. Typically 50+ miles twice a day.
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Covering it in solar panels was clearly a mistake if it makes people imagine you have to wait for 30 days for the batteries to recharge...
Jeremy
Quote from: Zephod on September 19, 2017, 08:45:41 AM
Yes, I've read about them. On short routes of 100 miles or less, they make an awful lot of sense. Many standard routes are 30 miles.
I drive Special Needs (aka the not-so-short bus) so my routes are longer. Typically 50+ miles twice a day.
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The BLUEBIRD VISION is the one that comes to mind that will be offered in 100% electric soon.
I still can't help but wonder how many of these will end up with gasoline or diesel engines swapped in if someone gets stuck in the snow and burns up the motor or whole unit. Or if they decide that the extra cost to repair or replace the electrical components isn't worth the hassle to save some money on fuel and please the green crowd.
Quote from: Jeremy on September 19, 2017, 09:30:08 AM
Covering it in solar panels was clearly a mistake if it makes people imagine you have to wait for 30 days for the batteries to recharge...
Jeremy
Especially if half the panels won't even face the sun. There's even a panel facing downward. Strange, last time I checked the sun it was above me.
Seriously though, that thing's just a cynical joke. What's the point?
John
100 miles- whoa!
I have a friend from the old country who worships Elon Musk and is an advocate of lecky power.
He's an arm chair admirer of technology and very academic.
He will reject out of hand, my direct experience of having employed ex Elon Musk employees and my indirect interactions via the industry.
Well, my friend suggested that an Electric RV makes sense. He has zero experience of RVing, thinks driving 50 miles is a huge distance and says things like- 'well folks will have to adapt their lifestyle".
We don't have much time off in the USA, and I'm not about to wait even an hour while I charge my power pack each and every time.
Electric- toads?
Now that's different.....
Quote from: CrabbyMilton on September 19, 2017, 09:47:44 AM
The BLUEBIRD VISION is the one that comes to mind that will be offered in 100% electric soon.
I still can't help but wonder how many of these will end up with gasoline or diesel engines swapped in if someone gets stuck in the snow and burns up the motor or whole unit. Or if they decide that the extra cost to repair or replace the electrical components isn't worth the hassle to save some money on fuel and please the green crowd.
Blue Bird made some battery school buses some years ago. They were, how shall we put it, "less than successful". Beaumont CA had one that was eBayed for scrap value after only a few years of use. Mind you, it used heavy FLA batteries, hardly a recipe for success. Let's hope that BB learns from their mistakes.
John
My district actually put a refurb engine in a 1988 short bus. The thing is so old it probably contravenes every piece of schoolbus legislation. Given the choice between $10,000 to fix an electric bus or $2,000 to convert it to diesel, I'd convert to diesel too At the current rate of $2.75 a gallon, $8,000 would buy 2941 gallons of diesel and allow the bus to run for approximately 25,000 miles or round about a year.
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There's nothing remotely wrong with electric power in principle, especially for large and heavy vehicles like motorhomes. Trains weighing thousands of tonnes are powered by electric motors and travel huge distances at high speed every day
The problem is where to get the electricity when you don't have overhead wires, but that's something that will be solved in time. Carrying large, heavy, low capacity batteries with you can ultimately only be a stop-gap measure, unless some chemical quantum-leap is coming - which seems unlikely. What's more likely is that the problem will be solved by a combination of huge infrastructure investment (induction charging from the road surface, microwave charging from roadside dishes, battery swap-out facilities at every 'gas' station), and alternative ways of producing electricity on-board - such as chemical fuel cells or multi-fuel turbines.
It's all gonna happen and we'll all be driving electric vehicles eventually, no matter how much people laugh at the concept and say "Not me!" now. People on horseback laughed when the first steam-powered vehicles arrived, and people driving steam-powered vehicles laughed when internal combustion engines were invented. And so on.
Jeremy
(And of course everything will change again the day they either figure-out how to make hydrogen in a cost-effective way, or how to make nuclear fusion work)
Much of these things will happen but it may take many more years. Yes, locomotives are electric but they have have a good old reliable diesel spinning the generator. It would cost a few fortunes to convert railroads to all electric with overhead wires and a few more fortunes to maintain them. I don't think customers who use the railroads to receive and ship commerce will be to thrilled with that.
BTW, I was happy to learn that AMTRAK's newest locomotives have CUMMINS engines. :) :) :) :)
Britain has been using diesel electric engines such as the intercity 125 for decades. France etc leapt ahead with 100% electric trains.
Of course, with a big vehicle, it might be possible to get it to run from an RTG power supply. I think 238PuO2 is in short supply though.
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Almost all of the UK rail network is fully electrified now, although even some of the main lines have only been completed within the last 15 years or so, and at huge cost. Diesel electrics such as the IC125 are still being used in some parts of the country though
Jeremy
And the majority of electricity produced in the US and Canada is by burning coal :o
JC
It's neck and neck right now, between nature gas and coal. Both fossil fuels with hydro and nuclear making up most of the rest.
Nuclear is the ideal solution since it's clean and quiet. But you just say the word nuclear and people hide in the basement and scream.
Quote from: lostagain on September 20, 2017, 07:36:35 AM
And the majority of electricity produced in the US and Canada is by burning coal :o
JC
Actually, electricity produced by coal in the US is considerably lower than it was only a few years ago:
2012 - 92%
2016 - 30.4%
Richard
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/US_Electrical_Generation_1949-2011.png (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/US_Electrical_Generation_1949-2011.png)