You can't drive to the grandparents on the other side of the state... You can't do most of the things that I do with my cars... Until this changes, these battery powered cars are good for the metro areas only!
Surely there must be a way to throw a diesel-powered generator on the bed of that Cybertruck and use it to range-extend the vehicle. I have no idea what the efficiency of that would be but perhaps someone with gas-generator experience knows how much charging can be done per volume of fuel, and what size generator you would need to keep up with the current drawn from the battery. In a pinch, you would never be out of juice... no more range anxiety. And when you can charge up from the grid you do that.
I'm guessing running the Tesla (or DeLorean) on the fuel-powered electric generator wouldn't be as efficient as directly driving a car on fuel. Then again, you would be charging up batteries with it so whether you are moving or standing still, that generator will always be going towards charging you up which can allow you to use that energy later (again assuming you pick a generator with an output greater than you are consuming as you drive the vehicle).
Any back-of-the-envelope calculations by someone who knows the output of a generator and the fuel used per kWh of electricity produced? Apparently Tesla batteries have somewhere between 60-100 kWh capacity. I'm looking at a 2200 Watt generator on Amazon and it says something like this:
Truepower technology provides clean, stable power ideal for sensitive electronics, tools and appliances while the 1.2 gallon fuel tank allows 10.75 hours of run time at 25-Percent load.
So does that mean 25% load on a 2200 W generator is 550 W? So it could deliver 550W for 10.75 h on a 1.2 gallon fuel tank? How does this translate to trying to charge a Tesla? Apparently it can take up to 4 full days to charge up a Tesla fully on 120V outlet.
Fun fact, I once got stranded at home with my conventional gasoline powered car because a freak storm knocked down multiple high tension transmission lines into the region. None of the gas stations in town had power to operate the gas pumps so there were no stations within range of the fuel I had in the tank who could sell me fuel. Thankfully I had nowhere to go.
A plug in hybrid wouldn't have been any better, my power was out for almost two weeks, I had nowhere to plug it in.
A plug in hybrid wouldn't have been any better, my power was out for almost two weeks, I had nowhere to plug it in.All you need are some solar panels at home and a smart inverter that can do backup.
I predict at least a few solar inverter manufacturers will team up with EV manufacturers to allow the use of EVs as energy storage for a solar backup system.
A friend of mine had a DeLorean for a while, he's always buying and selling weird random cars, fixes them up, drives them around for a while, some he keeps, others he sells or trades later. Anyway he said the DeLorean was somewhat disappointing, it was underpowered and not very exciting to drive, not very practical either however it sure does look cool. Those PRV V6 engines were dogs, Volvo used them for a while and their reputation was marred for many years after that. They built some really excellent engines of their own but chose some of the worst 3rd party engines they could find for some models. The V6 was thirstier, less powerful, less reliable and harder to work on than their turbo 4 cylinder. The first time I saw one I thought some incompetent gearhead had done a ridiculous engine swap, the thing sat far forward with a huge gap between the engine and firewall.
I don't think anybody buys a vintage 1200 mile car to drive it, that DeLorean will be a garage or trailer queen.
A plug in hybrid wouldn't have been any better, my power was out for almost two weeks, I had nowhere to plug it in.All you need are some solar panels at home and a smart inverter that can do backup.
angry blobs
So accurate!
https://jalopnik.com/photoshop-reveals-how-all-modern-cars-look-the-same-5938235
Or the gas stations could have had backup generators and then I'd be just fine with my conventional car, but it's not worth it for most people to buy a cheap backup generator given the rarity of long outages so how is it worth it to buy a solar installation that can function as backup power? Most grid tie solar installations shut down if power is lost.
That V8 swapped DeLorean looks like an absolute blast, it really shows what the car could have been, it should have had either a turbocharged V6 or a smallblock V8 right from the start. Sounds like the gearbox is not really up to the task though as he said not to floor it in 5th. I really cannot grasp why they chose the specific engine that they did, I'm a huge Volvo fan but I've never been able to spot any Volvo influence in the PRV. I can't think of a lot of really good V6 engines but they chose one of the worst I've ever dealt with.