Charging While Driving Works w/ Gas Generator in Bed (Range Extending for F-150 Lightning)

[tearitupsports]

I have a few questions and notes:
How many hours can a small generator like this actually run at full output (from a maintenance standpoint)?

Can your charging hack work with DC charging?

It would take about a 40kW or higher generator to basically run the truck indefinitely, but AC charging only maxes out 19kW (for older truck versions). There are DC charge options at 25 kW or higher though.

The westinghouse 20kW generator uses about 2.1 gallons / hour at full load. At 1.8 miles / kWh and not counting electric conversion losses that calculates about 36 miles added per hour and around 17 mpg.

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[ZSC100]

I have a few questions and notes:
How many hours can a small generator like this actually run at full output (from a maintenance standpoint)?

Can your charging hack work with DC charging?

It would take about a 40kW or higher generator to basically run the truck indefinitely, but AC charging only maxes out 19kW (for older truck versions). There are DC charge options at 25 kW or higher though.

The westinghouse 20kW generator uses about 2.1 gallons / hour at full load. At 1.8 miles / kWh and not counting electric conversion losses that calculates about 36 miles added per hour and around 17 mpg.

These are great questions, anything is possible with money? The economics of this are simple, if you can afford to own a Lightning for your every day driver and a ICE truck for road trips then you aren't interested in this at all, in fact you probably view it as dumb.

So, in that same line of thinking, if you can afford an ER truck you might also think the above way, so the difference $$ spread here seems to be around $10k, at least that's where my economic brain goes. So, neglecting all the other logistics and issues with a bigger generator, we're stuck with the fact that any generator over the portable 10kW size quickly becomes an issue in more way that one, weight, size, cost, NVH affects, fuel capacity.... For this to be practical it needs to be something someone can throw in the bed easily / quickly and take off on a weekend road trip. These are just some of my thoughts, but I welcome others.

I'm actually thinking now after reading comments that a 2nd J1772 port in the bed is the way to go. Using an off the shelf EVSE, even the Ford mobile one is just one less cost of the modification hardware to the end user. Martin argued this should be a bring your own generator offering, but after hearing the standard (open frame) generator he was like, Ohhh fuck this, I value my silent lightning over ANY range extension,, LOL He swung a bit far the opposite way IMO, but I'm with him mostly on the NVH issue, which I why I immediately ordered the inverter generator yesterday.

As for how long can any generator can last at load, I think you'd be surprised. I've got 40hrs on that Ford open frame generator at 7kW and it's still like brand new, oil change every 2000hrs is probably a good idea.

 

[BluesClues]

Send it.

 

[CavRider]

These are great questions, anything is possible with money? The economics of this are simple, if you can afford to own a Lightning for your every day driver and a ICE truck for road trips then you aren't interested in this at all, in fact you probably view it as dumb.

I am in this camp except for everything bolded there. I find your investigation very intriguing and most certainly not dumb. I assume a majority of EV owners (and potential owners) are not positioned as I am and I believe a range extender sort of solution would be helpful in easing adoption.

As I pointed out in an earlier post I do have at least one use case that renders the Lightning well short of ideal if not downright useless just as it is. No doubt I could try to hunt up an RV park in the region of the Ash River or else a resort with an open 220V circuit who would be willing to sell me some electrons. But when I put the boat on the hitch of my tow vehicle I prefer to fit the description "fisherman" and not "EV pioneer". Therefore I will be following along your investigation with great interest even though I have no immediate need.

Edit: I should add that IMHO without substantial government funding I really doubt there are any DCFC locations coming to the area of Voyageurs National Park anytime soon. Maybe a destination charger though. Even that would be a huge help.

 

[ctuan13]

Redacted post by Martin from FB:
***Martin Rebuilds Tow Rig Update / Charge While Driving News***

TLDR - In short:
-Charge while driving works

Some of you know me know and know I am huge Ford and particularly Lightning fan. I run Martin Rebuilds and host the Tech Charged podcast with Christopher Bowe and Jace Craft-Miller. Over the last couple years I've have several Lightnings at the shop and have clocked nearly 100k miles towing all over the nation and Canada. The Lightning is hands down the best towing truck (under 10k lbs) I have ever owned. This is coming from owning multiple brands and sizes of every truck made and I still stand behind my belief that the Lightning is the best. In fact, we just bought a "new to us" 23 ER Lariat max tow for the shop but a change is needed.

Charge While Driving News - As some of you know, I have been working with Zachary Scott Carpenter and Patrick Cheung on a generator that can charge the Lightning while driving down the road. Last week Zach had a very successful test logging over 700 miles running a Ford branded generator while running down the highway at 70mph. It was able to move the efficiency from 1.8 mi/kwh to an impressive 2.3 mi/kwh adding 50 miles of range out of a measly 7kw ford mobile charger. With a much larger generator we expect to nearly double the Lightnings range. See the chart below for what to expect at different speeds and generator sizes.

Genset test upside - The range added will only be limited by 2 factors, 1. How much generator you put in. 2. How big the on board charger in the Lightning is. The 2022 and 2023 Lightning have 80 amp charging so you will see up to 19kw added which means over 500 miles of range. The 2024+ Lightning has 48 amp charging so we expect to see 350 miles of range.

Genset test downside - In the interest of honesty and transparency, which is the core value of my YouTube Channel, the biggest downside I have with the generator is the noise level. To be fair, we tested this with a really loud generator and a lot can be done to quiet these things down. Inverter generators are much quieter and sound proofing can be added to reduce the noise.

My Take on Range Extending - With the shop getting more busy, increasing the volume of towing coupled with several long distance vacations a year, the need for a longer distance tow rig is real. For me, the best 2 things about the lightning are the quiet cabin and the incredible power. Those 2 things are THE reasons I have stayed with the lightning for so long. With that said, my opinion is adding a generator to the truck takes away from the Lightning experience so we have decided to change our tow rig. Instead of trying to add a generator to the Lightning or range extending it, we are going to a larger battery truck.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am Zach the electrical engineer talked about in this post and I met Martin in Joplin the day after this test:


I just got back to Tulsa and put almost 1000mi on my truck driving while charging @ 7kW.

I am not as concerned with the noise as Martin suddenly was when he took a drive with me, but I AM 100% positive that an inverter generator with sound attenuation is a must for this project. We're still not sure how we'll release this to the public, what will be included, what we'll be selling, or what generator we'll be doing the final testing with, but I have ordered this generator:
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Westinghou...ane-Natural-Gas-Inverter-Generator/5016661947

I am also proceeding with programming many features like auto generator start/stop based on speed, modification/real time calculation of the GoM, generator fuel level reporting on the infotainment screen, full control to configure the charging rate at all times, and more. I should have more updates this weekend and more testing.

Please don't clog this thread up with stupid comments and/or safety Karen worries. Martin and I are both engineers and will fully test every aspect of this mod before we release anything to the community. I want this to be a technical brainstorming discussion and hear some other's perspectives. Martin can get on here and post his range extending estimation spreadsheet soon. Thanks, ~Zach

Thank you so much for this post! And also thank you yo being committed to giving us the info to implement this safely ourselves. There have been past forum members who have also devised systems for charging while in motion, and have frustratingly gatekept the info.

I look forward to your updates!

 

[P-38]

This is awesome!

I'm interested for towing purposes to just stretch it a little more or when I need a fast trip but it's 0F outside.

 

[tls]

If this is truly accomplished, I’m intrigued. The video shows nothing of value, though. It’s just a generator charging a truck while the truck is parked. Show us the view from a go-pro on the side of the vehicle showing the EVSE plugged in while driving, that will at least begin to be believable.

I have zero interest in a gas generator.

I’d install ~120 kWh of additional battery into a camping trailer and use that to charge while on the road. Install a CCS1 charge controller into the trailer and I can DCFC charge both at once when there are enough open stalls or from the truck’s Pro Power while the truck is charging.

What would you use for a charge controller? I see a couple of options that are commercially available, one from LegacyEV.com and one from OpenInverter.org, but they seem like they're more kits than off-the-shelf solutions - all the LegacyEV options seem to require integration with a host computer via CAN, while the OpenInverter board is just a board - you even have to supply your own contactors.

 

[tls]

How would you then pull a boat trailer?

 

[Jseis]

One of the most comical discussions I’ve read. Like the story of the new Model T owner buying a makeshift trailer to tow his horse & hay to extend his err… range. . Yee Haw !

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

What would you use for a charge controller? I see a couple of options that are commercially available, one from LegacyEV.com and one from OpenInverter.org, but they seem like they're more kits than off-the-shelf solutions - all the LegacyEV options seem to require integration with a host computer via CAN, while the OpenInverter board is just a board - you even have to supply your own contactors.

Good question. I haven’t had the time lately to look at more recent COTS solutions. The Openinverter option is intriguing, but it’s just the control board. There are other COTS solutions out there. But...

The cheapest option for a battery is to buy a totaled EV from an auction and extract the battery and associated equipment. Most of the necessary parts---including the charge controller---would come with the vehicle. Heck, even buying a used EV on the general market is cheaper than buying a new battery big enough for my hopes.

That said, there would be far less engineering required to use a whole home battery and serial charge via the Pro Power Onboard 30A outlet in the bed.

 

[NW Ontario Ford Lightning]

The concept:
A Lightning pulling a trailer loses too much range to be practical in places where travel trailers/boats are common, but charging infrastructure is not.

Possible solutions:
extended range battery that fits in the bed.
extended range battery that fits between trailer frame rails.
- both of above.
extended range charging via a fuel source generator (bed or trailer mounted)
- all three of above.

If the truck power consumption rate difference (between non-towing and towing) is 15kW per hour, then the extended range solution is only required to supply this difference, to maintain the non-towing range, while towing. A bed connector and software over-ride that allows charging while driving with either battery or generator energy source would open up more options.

For trailer connectors, we would want to see some type of fuse/disconnect fail-safe such that a trailer break-away switch triggers de-energized the connector. Like the charging system, the plugs should not be 'live" while connecting or disconnecting. More software stuff.

As to costs, the temporary nature of the solution required would allow for rental equipment, instead of purchase.
If the trucks had a ready-solution for energy transfer while driving, then adding a used 60kWh EV battery pack to an existing RV trailer might not be cost prohibitive.
There are some very quiet RV park rated generators available, but they are also low power output.

Questions that come to mind:
Extended battery packs require temperature monitoring/ cooling/ safety disconnect sort of stuff.
Two way charge and discharge - It would be less practical to need two charging points, while charging; ie one for the truck and separate one for the trailer. It is no simple matter to link them to one charger without other issues cropping up.
Adding heavy batteries to achieve more range ... there are practical limits.

Interesting topic,
I would like to follow along and hear what we can come up with together.

 

[Maquis]

One of the most comical discussions I’ve read. Like the story of the new Model T owner buying a makeshift trailer to tow his horse & hay to extend his err… range. . Yee Haw !

 

[ZSC100]

Have you monitored any voltage lag in the onboard inverters?

The onboard inverter is responsible for matching the pack voltage to provide charging, but pack voltage can change a fair bit under load. I'm wondering how well the inverter keeps up with those changes.

Generator? Just put a Tesla power wall in your RV!

Excellent question, I too was worried about this exact issue before I saw it working. The HV Batt voltage can swing 20+V easy from an acceleration to a regen and vise versa. I knew this an had measured it before attempting this, and one of our technical guys Pat in FL has actually charged a fleet lightning while driving with a Tesla on board charger hooked into the HV DC bus. He didn't do much testing but did have issues with the tesla charger varying it's load due to HV voltage fluctuations. He described this to me as the generator was "hunting" or surging. So I was actually most worried about this, but I have seen zero issues, and I have aggressively accelerated many times following regen at all levels of SoC, the on board charger stays right on charge power, and isn't affected AT ALL. Also, I've been VERY impressed with the on board charger's ability to recover form a myriad of issues I've thrown at it. I pretty much threw every problem at it over the past few months reverse engineering the CAN stuff, dropped frames, denied frames, mangled/changed frames, it simply stops charging, then recovers and starts again with ZERO problems. It's an extremely resilient design and piece of hardware. I was also worried about the truck not circulating coolant to it while driving, but that seems to not be an issue either. It's never de-rated that I've seen and never had an issue. This could be helped by the fact that it's a 100% aluminum enclosure and it has high airflow while driving. Sorry that was a long answer, but great question.

Absolutely, a battery system that provides AC could be used to charge with the on board charger, but you'll take an efficiency hit going to AC, then back again. I've measured this loss to be about 400W with the on board charger at 7kW charging rate. Not terrible, but not good.

If going DC battery to DC battery an intelligent DC/DC converter is in order and preferably going from a higher battery voltage to a lower one while driving. But that kind of thing would require lots of thing far beyond the scope of this particular method of charging.

 

[Jseis]

The future question will be “Hey Sonny I need to see if your using hippy off road electrons or DOT legal road juice. Can’t have you damned off-grider dead heads driving for free.

 

[ZSC100]

The future question will be “Hey Sonny I need to see if your using hippy off road electrons or DOT legal road juice. Can’t have you damned off-grider dead heads driving for free.

LOL,, farm gas in the generator for the win.

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