Electric RV's , Tractor Trailers and Buses

[sinnombre]

sinnombre,

Thanks for the great thread today.

GM Ventures LLC, founded in June of 2010 has seeded Electric Bus Company, Proterra Inc. Imagine a full size urban transit bus with a 40 mile range and a, GET THIS, 10 minute battery top off time. Floored me when I first ran across Proterra 2 years ago!

http://proterra.com/

Not Vaporware, I repeat, This is here NOW!


http://www.gmventures.com/investment_portfolio/

Best,

Thomas J. Thias
Sundance Chevrolet-

I just found a couple of articles . One Proterra local bus has a 72 kWh battery pack and runs an 8 mile route and gets a recharge of its lithium iron phosphate battery in 7 minutes with a 240 kWh charging system .

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...d-electric-bus

I was thinking of a 200 mile range for an RV or long range bus . However , I don't know how much energy the battery would need . I wonder if 500 kWh would be enough for 200 miles ? A big rig could haul giant batteries underneath the bed of the trailer it hauls and use a range extender to improve fuel economy . I'm no engineer , but I believe a range extender generator converting electricity would probably improve fuel economy by 20- 40 %

Let's say the tractor rig had a 50 mile range battery and a range extender , and the trailer another 200 mile battery .

[Noel Park]

I live near the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. There is a unique situation there in that thousands of truck trips are made with containers to rail yards which are something like 15 miles away. Plus there are a lot of 2 axle tractors that do nothing but move containers around at the terminals.

And we have the worst diesel particulate air pollution in the country, much of which comes from said port operations. There has been a fair amount of experimentation here with BEV semi tractors for those specialized uses and a few prototypes do exist. But they remain very expensive and there has been no serious adoption of same yet.

[frankydude]

It can be made possible through the use of induction.
Burry in the asphalt some loops of cables and fit underneath
Cars or trucks an inductive loop receiver, couple that
with RFid for billing purposes and you get an electric
highway. We can even put solar panels alongside the highway
to produce some of the electricity needed to propel the
vehicles that gets electrical energy while moving.

Will that cost much? Yes, but the US sends out 600 billions
Per year on petrol dollars. Recover some of that money and
The electrified highways will pay for themselves.

Francois
B2653

[sinnombre]

I live near the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. There is a unique situation there in that thousands of truck trips are made with containers to rail yards which are something like 15 miles away. Plus there are a lot of 2 axle tractors that do nothing but move containers around at the terminals.

And we have the worst diesel particulate air pollution in the country, much of which comes from said port operations. There has been a fair amount of experimentation here with BEV semi tractors for those specialized uses and a few prototypes do exist. But they remain very expensive and there has been no serious adoption of same yet.

The article said the short range electric trolley costs $65,000 less than a diesel powered one and uses $100 electricity per month instead of $1,200 diesel fuel . I don't know about the other configurations .

[bobchr]

many people seem to be "working" on EREV electric trucks. Bob Lutz is involved in VIA motors which has started to deliver solutions based on Chevy Pickups... see http://www.viamotors.com/powertrain/

My understanding is most RV's have the guts of a heavy duty pickup so it seems that they are close to having something with the power/torque needed.

The big problem however is that RV's are usually driven long distances so getting the first 40 miles "free" would only be an advantage if the gas mileage was much better. On the flip side, RV's already get "free" power at camp sites and usually have 50A 240V connections so they already have a "built-in" infrastructure

Regardless of whether an RV or truck has a battery, all long haul vehicles can benefit from a Voltecstyle drivetrain. The system is just so much more efficient. For RV's and long haul trucks the battery doesn't have to be only electric is can also be hydraulic or compressed air. A series of accumulators and pumps with a hydraulic tank can serve as an energy storage system and can take rapid charge and discharge cycles. The industry has experience with these systems on a smaller scale and in parallel with and electric drive system long haul trucks will be getting 30 to 40 mpg in no time.