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

[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.

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[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 !

 

[Firn]

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.

The difference between towing and non-towing is likely to be closer to 35kw per hour.

 

[Firn]

Range is important in many situations. Having a 16 hour drive i have done 20 times take 20 hours was brutal. Owning a trailer and knowing I have an hour of charging for every hour and a half of driving makes it highly impractical.

This is not converting the truck to a hybrid for day to day use, its providing options for specific use cases

 

[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.

 

[NW Ontario Ford Lightning]

I have toyed with the idea of making a frame for the truck bed to hold 3, 15kWh 48v server rack packs, about 650 lbs. Connected to a typical inverter, this could provide 12kW AC charging source - but how to allow charging while driving is beyond me.

The 3 packs at 45kWh of energy storage, or about 2 hours discharge at 12kW/h rate.
Recharging using a typical inverter's internal charger would need 5 - 6 hours without thermal management systems. So doesn't get you anywhere unless the 45kWh is the difference between reaching a grid source charger or not reaching it.

A bigger used-EV battery pack set into a trailer between the frames might make a lot better sense.
60-75 kWh potentially.

 

[ZSC100]

I have toyed with the idea of making a frame for the truck bed to hold 3, 15kWh 48v server rack packs, about 650 lbs. Connected to a typical inverter, this could provide 12kW AC charging source - but how to allow charging while driving is beyond me.

The 3 packs at 45kWh of energy storage, or about 2 hours discharge at 12kW/h rate.
Recharging using a typical inverter's internal charger would need 5 - 6 hours without thermal management systems. So doesn't get you anywhere unless the 45kWh is the difference between reaching a grid source charger or not reaching it.

A bigger used-EV battery pack set into a trailer between the frames might make a lot better sense.
60-75 kWh potentially.

This is a cool idea; like the Tesla powerwall you'll lose some efficiency going to AC then back to DC, but it does fit the model of bring your own generator very well. Also you've got the sizing down perfect (hopefully on purpose) regardless of truck options as all trucks can charge at 11.5kW. If you actually have this equipment and want to test this I'm game.

This also fits another use case that I recently discovered very nicely. A routine round trip just beyond the truck's range where you have a few hours of time at your destination that you can let the truck charge.

I have two such routine situations. For work I drive to a location about 100 miles away once a week. There is no public charging directly on my route and no charging at my destination. I'm always at my destination for at least 4 hours. I'm going to be testing this within the next week, running the generator from when I leave Tulsa until I leave the destination earliest, should be about 6 hours of charging 7kW so around 40kWhr added.

 

[hturnerfamily]

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 !

actually, it was his new BAKER ELECTRIC back in early 1900...

and, for further 'interesting' anomalies in the automotive world:

"In the mid-1910s, a Detroit Electric upgrade battery pack (with Edison’s nickel-iron cells) cost $600 all by itself. This didn’t matter much to wealthy folks such as Clara Ford, wife of Henry, who found her husband’s product dirty and noisy and instead drove a succession of Detroit Electrics from 1908 to 1914."

see... even our wives have something to say about this : )

 

[NW Ontario Ford Lightning]

This is a cool idea; like the Tesla powerwall you'll lose some efficiency going to AC then back to DC, but it does fit the model of bring your own generator very well. Also you've got the sizing down perfect (hopefully on purpose) regardless of truck options as all trucks can charge at 11.5kW. If you actually have this equipment and want to test this I'm game.

This also fits another use case that I recently discovered very nicely. A routine round trip just beyond the truck's range where you have a few hours of time at your destination that you can let the truck charge.

I have two such routine situations. For work I drive to a location about 100 miles away once a week. There is no public charging directly on my route and no charging at my destination. I'm always at my destination for at least 4 hours. I'm going to be testing this within the next week, running the generator from when I leave Tulsa until I leave the destination earliest, should be about 6 hours of charging 7kW so around 40kWhr added.

Lets discuss !
I have this equipment:
3-12kW SRNE 120/240 inverters (two of these run my home and business, one is Spare)
10 - 304Ah 48V LiFePO4 (15kW each) rack batteries

But I don't know how this can charge while the truck is moving ? Your bed-attached J1772 port idea has my attention - since it could plug and play with several options for alternative power.

 

[Yellow Buddy]

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

*I need to watch your videos more. Some initial thoughts..

For normal driving, I'm ok with 4-4.5 hours of range my Lightning ER gives me and would likely not need a generator. That's good for 250-300 miles normally before I need to stop.

For towing, this seems very usable. Especially since I already have a spare ti-fuel generator in the basement that hasn't been used for years. I've been considering pulling my propane tanks off my trailer tongue, I could easily place the generator there and insulate it. It would remove some of the noise and vibration being off the bed, further from the cab, and having essentially the tailgate in between. The wiring would have to be extended and sorted out...very interesting concept.

For towing, and with a 2022/80A that would extend me to 250-300 mi of towing. Ideal? No, I'd prefer for that to be on electric, but for an -as needed - case, that's not bad.

 

[jdmackes]

What excites me the most about this is the potential to add an additional battery pack in the bed for when it's needed, especially if there's one people could get from junkyard evs or something that would fit well in the bed. I'd prefer that over a generator, but obviously the cost would be higher. Either way, this discussion is very interesting and I'm excited for the potential!

 

[Brent@ANParts]

So basically this turns the Lightning into an almost diesel electric locomotive (or a Fisker Karma). This would be amazing for long road trips, especially if you can use the generator for camping off-grid.

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