Yep. I remember the outrage among the automotive press when the Volt wasn’t a series hybrid as promised.
The problem GM faced is the same reason range extenders like SenorBeef described in the OP don’t really exist. The scenario where you’d want a range extender is one where you’re on a long trip, cruising long distances on the highway. And if you’re going to have an engine running at a constant speed while you’re driving 75mph, it’s much more efficient to just hook that engine up to the drive wheels rather than suffer losses via energy conversion.
Makes sense to me. The PHEV was a good approach when EVs weren’t quite ready. I loved my Volt and later my Prius Prime. For most driving, we didn’t use any gas. However, neither compare to the simplicity and efficiency of our full EVs. If you want a gas option to avoid EV issues, frankly a pure Hybrid is probably the logical solution. For those of us who can switch to EV, the PHEV is completely unnecessary complication. (I had range anxiety after 40 miles in my Volt, even if it wasn’t rational. With full EV, I have never once worried about my range.)
The Ford F-150 Lightning is an interesting example: It’s a pure EV with a long range, but you can also get a gas generator that fits in the bed like a snap-on toolbox. You can remove it and save weight and bed space when not needed, but if you are hauling a trailer or powering a big job site, you can carry the generator and charge the truck or run the job site with it.
No details yet on price and capacity, but Ford has a similar generator for the PHEV F-150, and it can produce 7.2 kW. That much power would allow you to charge the truck while driving.
I remember first reading about the hybrid concept in a Popular Mechanics magazine many decades ago (late 70s?). The description was of a series hybrid - an electric car that carried a gas-powered generator for recharging on the fly. When the first Honda Insight came out I was shocked to find out that it was what is now called a parallel hybrid.
Aha, that sounds like the limiting factor right there in widespread adoption. I was thinking the generator would be manually controllable - if you were making your normal 15 mile work commute, keep it off and go all electric, but if you were making a long trip you could flip the generator on from the start. And even if it couldn’t supply enough energy to keep you at highway speeds, if it could supply some significant fraction then it could potentially dramatically extend your range.
But if regulations end up limiting it to only kicking on after the battery is depleted, that eliminates a lot of usefulness.
7.2 kW is equivalent to 9.7 HP (if I got my units right). This is certainly not enough to move an F-150 in real-time… especially if it’s carrying a 100 kg generator ! I’m sure it could be used to top up the battery (at rest or possibly in motion), but then range would be limited by… the gasoline tank of the generator.
I didn’t think too much about it, other than that the F-150 has approx a 150 kWh battery, which gives it a range of over 300 miles. So that’s 50 kWh per 100 miles. If you are driving 60 mph, you are using about 30 kW per hour. So yeah, the extender won’t increase the charge on your battery while cruising on the highway, but would extend your range by about 25%.
But in the city, in stop and go traffic, the generator could build battery charge.
I suspect the most popular use of that generator would be for shore power for an RV rig. If you are parked somewhere for an extended stay ( a remote job site, for example), you could run the generator during the day to not just power your tools but charge the truck battery. Then at night you could run all the appliances, heat or AC you needed right off the truck battery. 155 kWh would run a trailer’s power for a week or more.
I recently bought a '21 F150 Powerboost. The battery is rated at 35 KWH. It can drive the truck without the gas engine running. On a 25 mile long local trip, with stop and go conditions, it might say I’ve gone 5-7 miles on electric power. The built in inverter generator is rated at 7.2 KW. I’ve used it to power a welder as well as an air compressor.
There’s a review on you tube where a fellow used it to power his camper for a few days and used around 6 gal of gas.
But for private cars the focus seems to be on extending and intensifying the supply of charging points : then again, we’re a much smaller country and car journeys are much shorter on the whole.
Yeah, no one wants a sedan now, the secure trunk storage of a sedan doesn’t offset the other advantages of different from factors.
The other problem is that despite how good the concept was, it just looked like any random ICE car, something the manufacturer actually lampshaded in commercials. I think a big factor in the success of the Toyota Pious (whoops, Prius) was the unique looking design; it screamed “Look at how righteous I am!!! I’m driving a hybrid !!!”
I wonder the environmental impact of a fleet of plug-in hybrids with small batteries that would run on electric in town and gas out of town, vs putting in huge honking batteries in every car for the one or two times a month you take a road trip.
The other reason I read that Chevy stopped selling the Volt was that it took the dealers too much time to explain the concept of a plug-in hybrid vehicle to the customers. But it seemed to me that after spending all that time and money developing the technology, if the big problem was that it was a sedan, why not adapt the technology in an SUV or pickup truck?
The electric motor is 35 kW, but the battery is only 1.5 kWh. 5 miles on that seems pretty optimistic for a truck, but maybe at low speeds it could be done. I’d guess the controller is using the motor for, say 0-15 mph, which isn’t going to be all the time but in stop-and-go traffic might be significant.
On the other hand, Toyota outsold GM in the US this year, and their top seller was the Camry. Maybe Ford just thinks the competition is too tough. Sedans may not be the largest market these days but there’s still plenty of demand.
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