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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.
The Tesla 120V outlet assumes a 20A outlet, so you can get up to 2400W RMS out of the circuit. Running a generator that long would take the equivalent of a couple tanks of fuel for a normal car.... It's just never going to be a workable solution. This is why EV's will never be a viable option for a majority of the USA due to how rural it is, but it is a great solution for the cities. I had been hoping that we would see a truly rugged offroad vehicle with a hybrid drivetrain, but unfortunately the EPA regulations have driven the automotive industry down the drain and all incentive for true innovation is gone - It's all regulatory compliance nowadays. This is why they are now considering pushing everything to a subscription based model (i.e. you no longer own your car) in order to preserve profitability and reduce liability because they can control the lifespan of each vehicle and force it to be returned immediately when a regulatory violation is discovered. It's a shame. -
This has been hashed out lendlessly already. Electric cars are commuter vehicles primarily, there are vast numbers of people who use a car to commute to and from the office and drive around town. For longer trips they either use a second car which most families in the USA have already, or they rent something just like I rent a truck once or twice a year when I need to move something big. If you don't commute or don't have a place to park and plug in at night then an EV is not for you. Likewise if you are a tradesman with a pile of tools and materials you need to haul to jobsites a compact sedan or hatchback s not suitable, that doesn't mean they are not suitable for many other people or that it wouldn't make sense to own one in addition to your work truck.
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Also not good if you need a vehicle to drive more than X miles in Y time (due to the charge time) whether Y be 1 day or 3 days; A no0go if you have any concern about being able to drive anywhere or getting stranded anywhere if the power goes out due to storms, etc; The list goes on. EV's use case is in large metropolitan areas, where their use is restricted within those areas, and those areas have power generation abilities to charge them no matter what. Hybrids are the way to go for the USA but unfortunately the EV dementia continues!
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Hybrids and EVs are not mutually exclusive.
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.
Millions upon millions of people commute to a job less than 30 miles a day and live in multiple car households, these are the people at whom electric cars are targeted and there is still a HUGE untapped market. Nobody with any sense is saying that EVs will replace all cars. Like pickup trucks they are vehicles built for a specific purpose, they're not a one size fits all replacement. If an EV won't meet your own needs you simply don't buy one, easy as that. If it meets the needs of someone else then what's the problem?
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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.
And that's why a plug in hybrid is the best for those who want to be prepared. -
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.
In the 40 years I've lived in this region I can remember twice I had no power for over a week so I never had a need for a backup generator. -
Every place I have ever lived has suffered power outages several times a season. This is due to the majority of the power lines being above ground. Burying them for most of the USA is not feasible for various reasons. Every time there is a major storm, there are significant outages, these usually make the news nowadays as the media loves anything that sounds negative or bad.
I don't know how many of these new "plug in" hybrids have gotten rid of the separate battery used for starting the engine, but as long as this battery is charged, you don't need to worry about plugging it in as you will be charging the HV battery whenever the engine is running, whenever you are using regenerative braking, etc. You can jump start them from another car just like a gasoline vehicle. -
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 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.
No. This is the most ridiculous statement! Do the math!
"Oh, well, my battery died, and I'm at the campground, and it's cloudy, so I'm going to have to wait a few weeks, maybe a month or two before I have enough juice to get home"......
Sorry, not trying to be mean, just do the math
Edit: Here's some math
Assume a good solar panel... 15 watts per square foot? In bright sunlight.
Assume the car needs 85kWh for a charge, and let's assume... 80% conversion efficiency from the panels to the car? That's probably high but oh well.
So you need about 106kWh.
Let's say you have a thousand square feet of solar panel. A huge panel array! In bright sunlight you should get 15kWh from these panels and you *should* be able to charge in 7 hours? Well, you probably won't get 7 hours of bright direct sunlight unless you're in specific geopraphical areas, but it's a day more or less, if it's not raining. Or snowing. Or cloudy. Etc.
Ok, so nobody has that much panel. Let's say it's your typical 100W outdoor panel, you could afford half a dozen of them. So you have 600W. Well, it's going to take almost 180 hours... Of direct sunlight. So let's say you get 8 hours of that per day, you're looking at... 22 days? Now if it is cloudy, it's, what, twice that? Or more? If it's raining or snowing, even worse?
It's not feasible, not practical, and not going to be any time in the relatively near future. -
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.
That's why engine swaps exist...
I don't think anybody buys a vintage 1200 mile car to drive it, that DeLorean will be a garage or trailer queen.
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Thanks for putting the thread back on track, I don't think hijacking it to discuss EVs was a good idea (looks like any discussion about cars these days would invariably end up in a purely EV vs non-EV discussion... sad days.
)
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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.
Oh is that all.
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. -
So back to DeLorean. Does anyone know if the choice of design (like the CyberTruck) has anything to do with the difficulty in working with stainless steel? Is stamping out curved body-panels difficult with stainless? Is most of the outer skin folded to shape, or are panels welded to each other? How is a stainless steel weld with respect to corrosion resistance and would it add a lot of work to polish and make appear seamless? Sorry I have no idea about stainless metallurgy and the nuances involved in working with it. I see curves on the DeLorean and the car is built on a traditional chassis I presume (unlike the CyberTruck) and so I am wondering if the material they used is thinner and easier to work with than what Tesla is trying to work with. Here is a picture from a factory assembly line:
Without trying to derail the thread again, this is a "cyber"-like sportscar that did not quite make it, the Japanese Dome Zero which looks a bit like a DeLorean (although the front end is way too pointy compared to the DeLorean's flat square face). I also don't think it is truly made from stainless although the grey model with the flat panel look does have some design features that feel like a DeLorean. Here are a couple of views:
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The body panels on the DeLorean were all stamped. And it was a huge challenge for them. The early 1981's had a fuel flap in the hood and two stamped lines. Then they removed the fuel flap for the rest of 1981. For 1982 and 83 they removed the hood lines as well. It was all due to cracking during the stamping process. I don't believe there was any welding of multiple panels.
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I suspect the style was mostly just that, style. The flat panels and angular lines looked very futuristic at the time, if you look at other form over function supercars of the era like the Countach, some Lotuses, etc there were a lot that looked a bit like that. I think the Cybertruck is fugly as heck but the DeLorean is quite striking and much preferable to the angry blobs we have today.
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angry blobs
So accurate!
https://jalopnik.com/photoshop-reveals-how-all-modern-cars-look-the-same-5938235
I don't understand why they all look angry, even the advertising touts this, they'll gush about the "aggressive styling", ok great, I don't want a car that looks angry and aggressive, I want classy and refined. Anyway, whatever.
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. -
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.
I'm going to guess that because it's used so infrequently, a generator might not work when needed unless regularly tested and serviced, a bit much to ask for the staff of a gas station. An inverter powered off one of the cars would be a more reliable bet, in fact, I have even seen such inverters being sold (way overpriced) at gas stations along highways. (Wouldn't it be ironic if the device that would let the station pull in lots of profit was sitting on one of the shelves in its store?)
The extra cost (mostly a relay and some programming, maybe larger capacitors) to make a solar inverter capable of backup without batteries during the day is quite small and really should be a standard feature. The California energy crisis would probably push things that way - a lot of customers are willing to spend a lot on batteries, but even more would rather start out with a much cheaper solution that at least gets them backup power during the day.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.
Just add a Tesla drive unit and some batteries to the front, now you have a (very fast) plug in hybrid. -
I believe the DeLorean was poorly designed and built with poor workmanship. It was a bit of a joke why they used a DeLorean in Back To The Future. But the nostalgia value surpasses those issues. Being collectable has more value than quality. We had our equivalent lemon here called the Leyland P76, built by Leyland who did not know much about manufacturing. They had no quality control and no testing - just assemble and ship including defects. But it is quite collectable now.
My dad bought one of the world's first GM Holden Monaro GTS cars in 1968 for around $2,100. It was a V8 with bucket seats and the GT stripe down the middle. The 40th produced apparently. He died in 1969. Because dad worked near home, my guess it would have had only about 5000 miles on it. Mum sold it in early 1970 for what Dad paid for it new. Now worth > $1 million as one-of-a-kind rarity (if it had been put up on blocks for the last 50 years). One with about 20,000 miles on it sold 15 years ago for $650,000.
As for me, I bought a Ford Cortina MK1 440 GT for $400 in 1983. Drove it for 40,000 miles. Sold it for $400 in 1995. I loved that car and I regret selling it. The 440 was rare in Australia and MK1's are now almost never to be seen on the roads. It is now worth $35,000 in the condition it was in, and to possibly $50,000 restored.
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I just noticed this special deal on Ozbargain and thought some here might be interested.
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/672344
88MPH: The Story of The DeLorean Time Machine.
Free Feature Length Documentary on YouTube.
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On the subject of the PRV engine:
Anyone ever wondered why, as a V6, it has an angle of 90 degrees between the two rows of cylinders while 60 degrees would be normal? Well, Volvo initially wanted a 3.6 litre V8 and the design work was mostly finished. Then came the first oil crisis and they decided a V8 would be a bad idea in Europe, so they simply chopped off 2 cylinders. The end result was what Volvo called the B27 engine: 2.7 litres, V6, 90 degrees.