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Thread: Electric Cars

  1. #61
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    Quote Originally Posted by roger wiegand View Post
    You can apparently also charge some/many/all(?) EVs by towing them in gear with their wheels on the ground. No idea how efficient that might be.
    Well, 100% efficiency (not gonna happen) would mean a 50-mile tow for 50 miles of charge. Wonder how AAA feels about that?

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  2. #62
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    Ford ev pickup is rumored to have an optional generator in a toolbox like shell in the bed.
    When the Nazi Submarine on display in Chicago was captured the batteries were dead. The US navy towed it long enough to run the motors backward as generators to get something in the batteries.
    Bill D

  3. #63
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    Quote Originally Posted by roger wiegand View Post
    This is starting to be a thing in EV intensive areas. AAA apparently has vans with portable charging equipment and at least one startup has paired with a big towing company to outfit its trucks. Charging would presumably be done from a big battery on the tow truck, taking advantage of the very fast charge rates possible with a DC-DC charger. 10 minutes is plenty to add 40-50 miles of range to a depleted car. An onboard generator could recharge the rescue vehicle while it drives around, assuming it is an ICE vehicle. Otherwise it would need to return to base to be re-charged periodically.

    You can apparently also charge some/many/all(?) EVs by towing them in gear with their wheels on the ground. No idea how efficient that might be.
    Interesting. It would take a very large battery on the truck. A generator, if it produces high enough voltage and current could, I suppose do that. To put this in perspective, hooking up a Tesla to 115V at 15 amps only adds 3 miles of charge PER HOUR.

    You could, I suppose, add some charge by regenerative braking when being towed by lightly pressing on the brake pedal while the car is being towed. Of course, if you push too hard, you are activating the brakes, which really is a pretty bad idea, so I wouldn't try that approach, at least with a Tesla.
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  4. #64
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    I would expect future tow trucks would have a large generator that could put enough of a charge in a battery for the car to get to a charger. There's no reason why the transmission couldn't have a PTO coming off of it going to a generator that would put out the same voltage and 100 amps (or more). After all the engine in a modern tow truck is hundreds of horse power. If it only takes a half hour it's still better than loading the car, chaining it down, driving to the location of a charging station, and unloading it (I assume that while driving to the charger the tow truck would also be charging it so the car could move itself into position to charge).

    But that's an ICE truck. If the future is batteries then what? A truck could put 50 miles of charge into an EV but after doing so it's battery it's battery now has 50 miles (or more since the tow truck isn't going to go as far on a charge) less in it. So the tow truck will need to also get charged back up. That's fine if people aren't dropping like flies but if it's busy then what?

  5. #65
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    It wouldn't be that hard to build an electric tow truck with two or three times the battery capacity of an electric pickup so the tow truck could charge a dead EV with enough charge to drive to a charging station and still have the majority of its battery capacity left.

  6. #66
    Our next car will be an EV. The F-150 Lightning is appealing – aside from the ability to haul tons of lumber and gardening supplies, the ability to use it as a backup electricity source has some serious value, given that it's dangerously hot or cold for at least six months of the year here and we're on a rather unreliable grid. For us, long-distance driving only happens a few times per year, and that's not often enough to justify staying on an ICE platform.

    All of that is secondary to the fact that ICE vehicles will be hard to buy and fuel in about a decade, so debate about whether people will switch to EVs is not a "yes or no", it's a matter of how much inconvenience people will put up with and for how long before they bite the bullet and go electric.

  7. #67
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    I do not think that ford pickup can carry tons of stuff unless it is high density. Just not enough to put it. A station wagon has a bigger cargo area.
    Bill D

  8. #68
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alan Lightstone View Post
    Interesting. It would take a very large battery on the truck. A generator, if it produces high enough voltage and current could, I suppose do that. To put this in perspective, hooking up a Tesla to 115V at 15 amps only adds 3 miles of charge PER HOUR.

    You could, I suppose, add some charge by regenerative braking when being towed by lightly pressing on the brake pedal while the car is being towed. Of course, if you push too hard, you are activating the brakes, which really is a pretty bad idea, so I wouldn't try that approach, at least with a Tesla.
    Actually, read a bunch of articles on this. Supposedly no electric cars should be towed with wheels on the ground. There is a startup towing company in LA and SF which can provide charging, but they are talking about very slow rates - count on 1 hr charging time. Hard to make a successful business model with that low efficiency.

    AAA in Oregon tried a compressed hydrogen powered generator to give you 10 miles of charge max in 15 min. They abandoned the program in 2019.
    Last edited by Alan Lightstone; 10-17-2021 at 4:06 PM.

  9. #69
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    https://www.greencarreports.com/news...esla-powerwall

    The upcoming Ford F 150 lightning will be able to be used as a house battery if you get the upgraded model. Really cool idea! I had 2 Powerwalls in my last house and loved them but I think this is an even better solution. Too bad the range is so small on the F150.

  10. #70
    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Dufour View Post
    I do not think that ford pickup can carry tons of stuff unless it is high density. Just not enough to put it. A station wagon has a bigger cargo area.
    Bill D
    14 cubic foot trunk in the front (I refuse to use the word "frunk"), back seat in the crew cab, and a 5.5 foot bed. That's a lot of space. A regular 8-foot F-150 has ~77 cubic feet of bed space. A 5.5-foot version has ~53. Add in the ~14 from the trunk in the front and you're up to 67, without counting the storage space in the cab. If all you're hauling is lumber and sheet goods, it's not perfect, but if you frequently move other stuff (like a 1500 pound load of soil and plants), it's just fine.

  11. #71
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    I doubt there will be any issues getting fuel for any ICE vehicle in a decade from now unless government bans the sale of petroleum fuels. Congress is unlikely to do so as a whole lot of them would be looking for a new job after the next election. A great many businesses, farms especially, use vintage equipment they can't afford to replace. A lot of businesses would go under if they had to replace all of their ICE equipment with electric. Let's say you have a bunch of old stuff that is worth $100,000. To replace all of that equipment with electric could easily reach into the millions. A business with a few million in revenue is unlikely to be able to afford that equipment even if they can finance or lease it.

    Many of the cars bought today will still be in use in 10 years. Perhaps 20 years from now finding petroleum fuels might be an issue, but even then I doubt it will be hard to find. There might be fewer gas stations by then.

  12. #72
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    I worked at a fairgrounds in the 1990s that had passenger shuttles powered by CNG (compressed natural gas). The local natural gas utilities did this as a promotion. They paid for the gas, provided the gas compressor machine, and paid to convert the vehicles to CNG.

    Anyhow, the fuel gauges were not super accurate so the fairgrounds put a cylinder of CNG in one of the service vehicles in case a vehicle ran out of CNG. Luckily, no vehicle ran out of CNG in the ten years or so the vehicles operated. Not much different than a service vehicle with a large generator or battery to give an electric vehicle enough charge to get to the nearest charger.

  13. #73
    Recently met an elderly guy (I am 70, he was upper 80's) riding an electric bike. He was going by my house, had just completed a long up hill and was just about to start another and I said hi as he stopped at the stop sign in front of my property. Asked him a few questions about it and he let me take it for a block and back. It had all kinds of get up and go, didn't have to peddle and went about 30mph. It was made in Texas from parts that came from all over the world, he said it retailed for $3,200. He had it for a few months now. He said it reminded him of the Cushman motor scooter he had back in the 1950's. He claimed it went about 40 miles before the thing "pooped out" Said the last five miles it would barely move along. I asked where he lived and when he said the town, it was 25 miles away. I asked if he was afraid he would run out of charge and he said yes. So I followed him on my motor cycle until he made it home. (slowest trip the Harley ever took.) But I was impressed at the way it climbed the hill from my house and the next two as well. On the level, he was doing a little over 30 for most of the 25 miles. It started slowing up bad about a 1/2 mile his home. That last half mile was mostly him peddling that 85 pound bike. I was imprsesed.

  14. #74
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brian Elfert View Post
    I doubt there will be any issues getting fuel for any ICE vehicle in a decade from now unless government bans the sale of petroleum fuels. Congress is unlikely to do so as a whole lot of them would be looking for a new job after the next election. A great many businesses, farms especially, use vintage equipment they can't afford to replace. A lot of businesses would go under if they had to replace all of their ICE equipment with electric. Let's say you have a bunch of old stuff that is worth $100,000. To replace all of that equipment with electric could easily reach into the millions. A business with a few million in revenue is unlikely to be able to afford that equipment even if they can finance or lease it.

    Many of the cars bought today will still be in use in 10 years. Perhaps 20 years from now finding petroleum fuels might be an issue, but even then I doubt it will be hard to find. There might be fewer gas stations by then.
    That is another problem. The talk around here pertains to the new tractors, combines, choppers....containing proprietary circuitry (boards and other electronics).
    When these new machines go down the farmers CANNOT fix them because of the newfangled electronics.
    AND they are not standardized ie: Case is different than John Deere etc. Maybe more subsidizing in the future???

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  15. #75
    This afternoon, I heard a radio show about the changes coming to farming due to electric vehicles. The guy claimed the dependence of internal combustion will disappear, but tractors and machinery will be drastically different. Crops will be engineered to take less energy/mechanization to grow them. (already been happening)

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