I agree it's more complex which is why long term it doesn't make sense. But short term, it does address the biggest concerns of traditional truck buyers.
I thought the same as you, did it, lived it, won't ever do it again. The inherent complexities of combining both systems outweighs the marginal gains you achieve. You lose the frunk, you are dealing with fuel and oil changes. Your battery is small so you go through its life cycles much quicker. As you stated, for heat, my EREV forces the engine to be on when it goes below freezing (so all of winter). So no more savings then. Because the engine is also small, it takes forever to heat up the rad to warm the battery. In the meantime you get a "low propulsion" warning and your cabin takes forever to warm up. If anyone of all these complex moving parts go down, you aren't going anywhere but getting towed to the few specific dealer mechanics that know that system (ie. be prepared to pay) because nobody else wants to touch it.
What vehicle are you talking about? The Volt or the BMW i3? Both are pretty terrible examples of generator integration.
I have a Cadillac ELR, which essentially is the 2nd gen Volt architecture. I am not really sure why you say it's a terrible example of generator integration. Everything I mentioned would apply to even the hypothetical best integration (and remember we are talking Dodge here).
People will buy whatever works for them.
200 miles in the cold might be a bit optimistic. Heck, I'm lucky to get 1.8@70-75mph here in Eastern NC even when it's warm. I think charging speed and efficiency will be important going forward v the GM route of throwing in the biggest battery you can find. It's no secret that the lightning rates pretty much at the bottom in terms of efficiency and charging for road trips. I would take a 15min stop to get back from 10% to 80% compared to 40-45min now. As it stands, a 15min charge only gives you about 30% or ~70 miles for me at interstate speeds on a nice day. Luckily I don't road trip much and my longest drives are usually about 120 miles which the Lightning is perfect for.
- Don't forget the fuel system/tank weight plus any other equipment needed between the Generator and the BEV system.
- The range is not infinite on gas. It has the same limitation as battery. Once you use up your fuel source you need to stop to recharge/fuel. The difference is just the amount of range you need before stopping. My family can't go more than 180 miles without needing to pee. Range isn't an issue for us, or most people. Our trucks also precondition themselves in the cold via AC Power, or via Battery should you choose to do so. Now, if the arguement is that it takes longer to DCFC than to fuel, my response would be: "Currently".
Besides the range being substantially lower when on gas alone, as I mentioned, it could be even worse than that. Of all the BEV's I've driven, when the battery is depleted and you are running on gas alone, you lose substantial propulsion power. Fine for a car, but the point of this thing is to tow your RV long distances running solely on tank after tank of gas alone.
Yes it's all speculation until we see some real world tests. But they've said the generator is 130 kW. That should be plenty for towing even at highway speeds uphill, I would think. But we'll see.
Oh... I never knew that they released some numbers. Not sure if 130kw is good or not though. lol. Probably not for accelerating/passing with a load but if it can bank some reserve for those times, maybe good enough. Really needs some independent real world testing as we mentioned. I would also want to know how noisy it's going to be. Are you only getting that type of power with the engine blaring at full blast and what kind of range are you looking at if you are only using gas? So many questions. To give up on the long range version is telling me it's not as rosy as the marketing department has been dishing out. You would think the long range version would be the one to keep in this type of application.
Lightning uses about 25kW continuous at 2.4m/kWh.
Sounds pretty impressive then. If they can get twice to four times the amount of power needed to tow 14000lbs from a small supplemental generator engine. I wonder why we aren't putting that engine in our superduties. Don't even need any batteries, just that engine and 2 small electric motors. I look forward to seeing TFL's reviews on this monster of a machine. Starting to sound like another company that promised 500mile range for 39k, until it wasn't.
It's actually less efficient to have an engine drive a generator to power electric motors than to just have the engine power the wheels directly.
I read a book in the late 90s where the author argued that hybrids are the worst option from an engineering standpoint. I forget the name and the author, but it was interesting since a lot of this was theoretical at that time. With a hybrid you have the complexity and weight of two propulsion systems. As you mention, a small battery pack will get thrashed, and a small gas engine will also get thrashed when that battery runs low. However vehicle sales aren't based purely on engineering... there's economics, psychology, and sociology to throw into the mix and so we have seen far more hybrids sold than pure EVs.
