Long trip/Overlanding/Remote use case…

[Deleted member 3316]

So much this.

Was out exploring on the mountain bike early this week and we ran into a guy camping in the middle of nowhere with his generator blaring non-stop. Just boggles the mind.

Using a generator to charge and EV is an emergency measure that works, but it’s not a practical plan for day-to-day use. If your game plan involves driving then using a generator, you might as well just get some kind of hybrid and be done with it.

I think I understand your objection here.

You envision needing to be parked whilst charging the battery. That is clearly suboptimal. Also you are thinking of a generic power supply generator. This is clearly suboptimal.

I envision a purpose built device like a micro turbine that runs when the vehicle is moving. It would be sized to only just supply energy at maximum efficiency at or just below average draw. Possibly mounted to a tow hitch.

“Some kind of Hybrid” just perpetuates the fossil fuel industry, creating extraneous production of niche vehicles with limited options.

Also if the vehicle can accept charge from a generator whilst on the go, it could also accept charge from an auxiliary battery in a trailer or extra regen/solar from that trailer. Many options for objection handling.

Legacy manufacturer Hybrids are just slowing the transition to sustainability.

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[Deleted member 3316]

Running the generator while you were driving, for instance, would extend your range and not bother the next camp over.

This!!!!!

 

[Deleted member 3316]

Over the last few months, fuels companies such as BP and Shell are getting into it.
The thing I keep hearing is supermarkets and fast food chains. Once these guys get into it, you know the charging issue is mostly over.

Yes, once supermarkets and fast food chains get on board suburban and regional charging will be well resolved…but this thread is about remote area issues and long distance travel.

 

[charliemagpie]

If the exception is central Australia, 2-5 years rollout solves it.

If the particular place is so extreme, bring a generator if you can't wait for solar recharge.

If we find a better way in this thread, we have solved the world energy crisis.

If the exception is extreme locations where we envisage not being with cooee of a charger, and generators are scorned upon, say Mount Everest, then batteries carried by mules will do it lol (Done that, Mules carry everything)

 

[Ogre]

I envision a purpose built device like a micro turbine that runs when the vehicle is moving. It would be sized to only just supply energy at maximum efficiency at or just below average draw. Possibly mounted to a tow hitch.

I don’t think you have a good understanding of how big of a generator you would need in order to maintain overland travel in a Cybertruck. A 2.5kW generator is quite big. It’s not going to hitch mount well. Even a 1.5kW generator which would run at a deficit the whole drive is going to be quite large and would need to continue running after the truck stops to top off the battery. Either way you’d want this mounted inboard, not on the hitch.

Teslas do not currently support charging while moving so whatever you did would have to be some kind of hack or rely on an exterior battery which would add additional weight to the mix.

I do think Tesla supporting charging while driving is a super interesting thing, it would help with a lot of solutions. For example you could support a trailer with regen braking, a big solar trailer, or a generator trailer.

Ultimately, I think that last would be ideal, Tesla adding a charge-on-the-go port and letting third parties cook up how to make it work.

 

[JBee]

I think there's a few scenarios that work and some that don't.

Firstly, batteries are not an energy source, only an energy store. You only get out what you put in, so for them to work you first have to put something in them from somewhere. Likewise solar only works during the day, to convert sunlight into electricity. But daytime is also when you want to "do things" rather than at night. For maximising travelling range, a charge by day drive by night/dawn/dusk approach is likely best.

Essentially there are three combinations for traveling:
A) CT only with everything onboard for sleeping, cooking, camping and off grid charging, which offers max off road performance and range efficiency
B) CT permanently towing an off grid and off road camper trailer
C) CT periodically towing a base camper trailer which has solar charging. If base camper is of a "on-road' type it's also less likely to be going places that there is no power too.

I few guidelines to understand how the above works or not:

1) extra batteries on a trailer only offset the range loss of towing a trailer in the first place. It is very difficult for extra batteries to improve the towing vehicle range, at best the tow vehicle gets the same range as it did when it didn't tow.
2) but, a trailer has more space for dedicated solar generation, also has another spot to put a geny and fuel. Now at max area, say 6-7m long roof and two full fold out sidewalls of solar, you only get around 40-50kWh of energy, or about 100miles of towing range per day IF you leave the trailer parked and have it tracking the sun all day, on a sunny day, in outback WA.
3) You could just have a overlanding trailer and range extender, with ICE which pushes the CT along with it's own hub motors, or charges the CT whilst driving.
4)It could also have a smaller battery for camping or boosting the CT range, in conjunction with the ICE and hub motors. That way it could drive whilst charging itself, charge the CT whilst driving, and charge the CT whilst parked without the ICE running. (I don't particularly like all the losses involved but it gets kWhs in the tank)
5)Just driving the CT is by far the most efficient, and most cost effective, but also means it needs to carry a heap of solar that needs to be unfolded and parked in the sun during the day where you might prefer to be out and about having fun. It also needs to carry everything else, for your overlanding, all the time.
6) in general roof mounted solar also means parking your ensemble in direct sunlight, which makes your travel and living quarters hot. A seperate solar array, or one that is designed to shade and cool your vehicles is preferable
7) go slow for more range. Off road is harder though in that softer surfaces like sand can take 3-4 times as many kWh as a dirt road, and even a dirt road can be 50% worse than a bitumen sealed road.
8) for a ICE range extender forget a turbine (not efficient enough at that size without heat recovery) and get a simple small Obrist unit, which is about the size of a 2kW generator and fits in the frunk of a M3, but has up to 85kWe, meaning you can sustain off road performance, and charge in 2 hours or so. Also multifuel compatible, so you can run biofuels.
https://www.obrist.at/powertrain/hyperhybrid-powertrain/

Given the above I think the best non-ICE solution is a time of use one with a CT overlander camper hybrid setup and no trailer. If you can come back to base for a longer lunch, you can charge from a 20-25kWh "solar backpack" you can leave somewhere in the sun. You can then do it again in the evening to get the full solar range. The solar backpack could be hitch mounted and you could pick it up with the CT air suspension. Could be a drive to rollout solar blanket, or batwing style fold out. Could be built to improve rear aerodynamics of CT and increase range. You can leave it at home to power your house, even if only partially unrolled.

The poor man's version would be to just have a large rollup solar blanket, that plugs into the CT directly (maybe it will come with a Solar MPPT input) and schedule your day that you are parked between 9am and 3pm for about 30kwh of charge.

 

[Deleted member 3316]

I don’t think you have a good understanding of how big of a generator you would need in order to maintain overland travel in a Cybertruck.

Careful there… neither of us know the others understanding… are you confusing charging requirements with drive requirements? You have the right idea of a generator running at a deficit to load.

I do think Tesla supporting charging while driving is a super interesting thing, it would help with a lot of solutions. For example you could support a trailer with regen braking, a big solar trailer, or a generator trailer.

Ultimately, I think that last would be ideal, Tesla adding a charge-on-the-go port and letting third parties cook up how to make it work.

This is the innovation I’d like to see because it allows a fuel powered generator (=familiarity for the less imaginative) but does not require it.

With the right gearing you could drive a hummer with a 300cc motorcycle motor. The energy capacity of off the shelf generators is not optimised for the use case we’re discussing. A MicroTurbine or other cycle running at its optimal energy conversion rate can be physically quite small.

 

[Crissa]

That's why rating charging by miles per hour is useful, though specific to the vehicle and use.

-Crissa

 

[Deleted member 3316]

So much in this post to discuss! This part is the most compelling so I’ll start here.

Could be built to improve rear aerodynamics of CT and increase range. You can leave it at home to power your house.

Improving aero coupled with its own energy could make it range neutral (maintain 500mile+ autonomy), but the utility at home might be worth it’s own thread.

The post

https://www.cybertruckownersclub.com/forum/threads/official-cybertruck-trailer.5559/#post-114063

discusses fit out of a trailer but not all the advantages a powered trailer presents.

A trailer with a structural battery pack (direct from Model 3/Y or Robotaxi) might be comparatively expensive but it would provide all the advantages of a mega pack whilst at home.

1. Energy independent home (coupled with solar array when home)
2. Income from grid services/arbitrage,
3. Extended range,
4. Energy independence whilst Overlanding/camping. (When coupled with solar array)
   

The income of FCAS/arbitrage whilst home could offset the expense of such a large battery.

This might be seen as a niche product but it could provide a generalised solution to many edge cases.

The in vehicle technology needed to implement it would enable other innovative solutions, magical fuel cell technology, hyper efficient solar, eFuel generators.

 

[JBee]

Re Solar backpack:

Something like this but with more roof area for solar by making a version that has a little longer modules, and fits snugly up against the back of the CT :

You can then have the solar panels on each part, or unfold across the top creating a separate solar roof, or use the whole assembly just for solar using a scissor rack setup. Could use 400W modules, which are 1700x1000mm. 10 Sunpower Maxeon panels would be 4kW and 400mm thick and weigh 400kg though... for about 50km range.

 

[Deleted member 3316]

The questions arise:

What is the weather where you're going? This changes what kinds of energy are available there. And what kind of energy you're going to be expending.

How much travel vs how much time stopped? The longer you're camped, or willing to be stopped, the better that Solar or Level 1 & 2 charging appear. 18 to 30 miles per hour charging (for a truck) isn't so bad if you're going to be hiking or sleeping for ten hours.

How far between camps? This is the ultimate range question. Will there even be a place to plug in along that route? There are more places to plug an RV in than to refill a gas can, but more places to refuel a gas can than there are DC charging stations.

The one advantage of EVs for remote work is they're more fuel agnostic. They don't care what the generator runs on, per se.

-Crissa

I really like this response.

The problem I would like to see solved is the worst case scenarios of what you outline. These edge cases are currently solved by an integrated internal combustion engine.

I would like to see the ubiquitous proliferation of BEV that has the capacity to take advantage of fuel agnosticism.

Remote communities shouldn’t need a fossil fuel generator; a solar and storage system is much more likely to be the better economic decision. It should be reasonably easy to over build the system to support transient through traffic.

For remote area travel, it would be interesting to see if a network of solar installations functioning similarly to fuel depots could be implemented either by government, local communities and/or Automotive clubs/organisations.

As an example the Canning Stock route (1850km)is currently only traversed with an internal combustion solution. The Canning is interspersed with small communities that will in all likelihood transition to sustainability but there is a 1000km uninhabited stretch that could be divided in two with a solar array, battery, and water maker to create a little oasis. The challenge could be financing, maintaining and protecting from vandalism.

I could imagine that this would need some dedicated automotive club support (🥹)or government management (). I just know that initially it would be a very challenging business case to prosecute.

 

[Crissa]

Some of Tesla's Superchargers - including their mobile disaster response ones - are megapacks plugged into solar and generators.

But some of the early EV charging were little level 2 charing under solar canopy designs that didn't need site permits.

-Crissa

 

[ldjessee]

I am not sure what people think about how remote places are... but if their are people, 90+% of there time (or more) there is going to be electricity these days.

There are very few places that you can go 250 miles and not find electricity, if you do not count the oceans, Greenland, Antartica, etc.

And on the edges of the Sahara (if taken liberally), there is electricity, and some of them in the last 10 years being solar.

Take this power station as example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouarzazate_Solar_Power_Station

And if you have watched the Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman motorcycle series and others, you can see remote is not as remote as you think and electricity is more common than many people who have never been there think.
A Nissan Leaf drove from Europe to Japan thru Mongolia.
https://www.auto123.com/en/news/nissan-leaf-electric-trip-8-countries/65054/
"A large portion of the trip took Kaminski away from large urban centres and their concentrations of recharging centres – a main goal of the exercise. The trip took some 90 days in all, including 60 days of actual driving."

Now, when I travel some places, I am just traveling thru, visiting a few places along the way, other times I travel to a destination to do and see things at that location.

Given several of the suggestions, traveling every other day (or 2 out of 3 like the Leaf did) would give you chances to enjoy the locations, charge slowly (from the grid, solar, small windturbine on a mast you erect temporarily, etc) and see the sights. You can go the trailer option or eBikes or EV motorcycles for local, nearby sightseeing (assuming terrain and weather are compatible).

 

[HaulingAss]

7) go slow for more range. Off road is harder though in that softer surfaces like sand can take 3-4 times as many kWh as a dirt road, and even a dirt road can be 50% worse than a bitumen sealed road.

Any *hard* dirt or gravel surface, travelled at 25 mph is going to return a *lot* more range than the smoothest highway travelled at 70 mph. An EPA 500-mile range Cybertruck could go 600-700 miles on a hard dirt or gravel road at 25 mph.

To give you an idea of just how far that is, it's 24 hours or more of non-stop driving! All bets are off if you need to run the A/C or heater continuously.

 

[Deleted member 3316]

I am not sure what people think about how remote places are... but if their are people, 90+% of there time (or more) there is going to be electricity these days.

There are very few places that you can go 250 miles and not find electricity, if you do not count the oceans, Greenland, Antartica, etc.

And on the edges of the Sahara (if taken liberally), there is electricity, and some of them in the last 10 years being solar.

Take this power station as example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouarzazate_Solar_Power_Station

And if you have watched the Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman motorcycle series and others, you can see remote is not as remote as you think and electricity is more common than many people who have never been there think.
A Nissan Leaf drove from Europe to Japan thru Mongolia.
https://www.auto123.com/en/news/nissan-leaf-electric-trip-8-countries/65054/
"A large portion of the trip took Kaminski away from large urban centres and their concentrations of recharging centres – a main goal of the exercise. The trip took some 90 days in all, including 60 days of actual driving."

Now, when I travel some places, I am just traveling thru, visiting a few places along the way, other times I travel to a destination to do and see things at that location.

Given several of the suggestions, traveling every other day (or 2 out of 3 like the Leaf did) would give you chances to enjoy the locations, charge slowly (from the grid, solar, small windturbine on a mast you erect temporarily, etc) and see the sights. You can go the trailer option or eBikes or EV motorcycles for local, nearby sightseeing (assuming terrain and weather are compatible).

Thanks @ldjessee some really interesting insights.

In Australia there are plenty of trips where you can drive 500miles without a hint of civilisation. Then when you do find some semblance civilisation it would unlikely be connected to a national grid.
What I intended with this thread was addressing the difficult edge cases. The onerous ones that coal rollers would mic drop.

What are the solutions to make trips in these areas analogous to the current experience of carrying all the required fuel and not waiting for the vehicle to be ready for the next leg.

Some changes are obviously required but a transition away from fossil fuels will need to address these use cases directly.

I think infrastructure will play a large part but other innovative solutions that mimic the status quo need to also be considered.

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