Long trip/Overlanding/Remote use case…

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Wind power of a scale small enough to overland would be totally impractical and would not add significnt range unless you were in a nice gale most of the time. The ones you see on sailboats don't do much more than keep the batteries from slowly draining.

The reason wind power is effective is due to the extreme scale of modern turbines. They continue to get larger and larger. Wind travels very slow at surface levels and it's impractical to get them 50-100 feet off the ground on an overland journey.
They could work at a oasis though.

Which do you think would be less susceptible to vandalism at a MW scale;
A solar installation or a MW wind turbine?

Or maybe it’s a question of vandalism risk vs maintenance schedule?

Which would be more effective and economical?
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Ranulf

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A trailer that has motors of its own combined with batteries would eliminate towing loss and possibly add more range if the car and the trailer can share power.
 
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A trailer that has motors of its own combined with batteries would eliminate towing loss and possibly add more range if the car and the trailer can share power.
An integrated trailer battery may only just offset the load on the tow vehicle. Which by itself is obviously not unhelpful, but when coupled with in wheel motors and an solar array presents quite a compelling solution.

In wheel motors on a trailer provide unprecedented stability control at all speeds, regenerative braking and unprecedented safety when moving unhitched.

Depending on the size of the array, solar has what should be obvious advantages.

As has been shared previously in this thread, the capacity to share power from and to an external source whilst driving enables new many new technologies and solutions. Snow plough, cybercat, glider winch….etc etc.
 
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An integrated trailer battery may only just offset the load on the tow vehicle. Which by itself is obviously not unhelpful, but when coupled with in wheel motors and an solar array presents quite a compelling solution.

In wheel motors on a trailer provide unprecedented stability control at all speeds, regenerative braking and unprecedented safety when moving unhitched.

Depending on the size of the array has what should be obvious advantages.

As has been shared previously in this thread, the capacity to share power from and to an external source whilst driving enables new many new technologies and solutions. Snow plough, cybercat, glider winch….etc etc.
Ive always thought A battery trailer could be useful 100% of the time, unlike my 7500lb paper weight trailer that I use 5% of the year.
The other 95% of the time my battery trailer could be plugged in to my home "VTG" and making me money in arbitrage.

Love it!
 
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Ive always thought A battery trailer could be useful 100% of the time, unlike my 7500lb paper weight trailer that I use 5% of the year.
The other 95% of the time my battery trailer could be plugged in to my home "VTG" and making me money in arbitrage.

Love it!
I’m hoping that after Cybertruck, roadster and Robotaxi/model 2, the something else is a flat bed trailer.

Completely flat profile with suspension attachment points all within the chassis frame for aerodynamics and added benefit that it could be easily bulk shipped without wheels and suspension.

Ordered with your choice of battery storage, options engineered to support maximum load for double axle. Easily customisable to various needs; from an overland camper as discussed on this thread or built out to be a car transporter or full size caravan/RV.

So many options for what at most times would normally function as a paperweight in a driveway but become infinitely more useful as mobile energy storage.
 


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I’m hoping that after Cybertruck, roadster and Robotaxi/model 2, the something else is a flat bed trailer.

Completely flat profile with suspension attachment points all within the chassis frame for aerodynamics and added benefit that it could be easily bulk shipped without wheels and suspension.

Ordered with your choice of battery storage, options engineered to support maximum load for double axle. Easily customisable to various needs; from an overland camper as discussed on this thread or built out to be a car transporter or full size caravan/RV.

So many options for what at most times would normally function as a paperweight in a driveway but become infinitely more useful as mobile energy storage.
And if you wanted too, could make your existing ICE truck a hybrid.
 

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I’m not sure this is entirely true.



The energy required is the same no matter the drive train. Electric drive trains are more efficient so EV should be better off road.
The energy required for both is the same, but the energy requirement for digging through dirt is still higher for both than compared to on-road. That means more wh per km on sandy roads than bitumen, so less range. Just like driving in the rain uses more (in a ICE up to a litre) because all the water you lift off the road and convert to water mist.
 

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They could work at a oasis though.

Which do you think would be less susceptible to vandalism at a MW scale;
A solar installation or a MW wind turbine?

Or maybe it’s a question of vandalism risk vs maintenance schedule?

Which would be more effective and economical?
Rather have solar in outback Australia. Much more reliable and available than wind. Only downside is you have to charge during the day to avoid having large storage batteries for nightime use.

Technically, you can just run a batteryless inverter and solar panels, would be super cheap, you can get 100kW of panels off the gov for free, just need to add frame and about $20k for inverters.
 

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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.
Let’s get Tesla in introduce V2H/G/L first then hopefully charging while moving will follow.
 

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I find it interesting the number of times people think that electricity is to hard to get, but all energy sources can make it, some without moving parts…
But transporting petroleum, creating those filling stations , the leaks, spills, the fact that you keep having to transport the fuel to these locations..
While solar canopy/array over and around batteries and parking/refueling location that you only have to transport to location once…
Sure, you might need to make regular maintenance trips, but probably less than a petrol truck, and a lot less mass in that vehicle, which means it is more efficient (gas, diesel, or electric)… thus, maybe the maintenance vehicle can be electric or plug-in hybrid.
A BEV that can sometimes be a hybrid is a well built plug-in hybrid…
 


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Rather have solar in outback Australia. Much more reliable and available than wind. Only downside is you have to charge during the day to avoid having large storage batteries for nightime use.

Technically, you can just run a batteryless inverter and solar panels, would be super cheap, you can get 100kW of panels off the gov for free, just need to add frame and about $20k for inverters.
Any quantity surveyors on the forum?
I’d love to see a basic costing for two vehicles arriving at an oasis stopping for an hour.

Panel array size, cost & capacity
Canopy size & cost
Inverter or controller cost… if DC could be fed In directly does it need an inverter?
Security system?
 

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Any quantity surveyors on the forum?
I’d love to see a basic costing for two vehicles arriving at an oasis stopping for an hour.

Panel array size, cost & capacity
Canopy size & cost
Inverter or controller cost… if DC could be fed In directly does it need an inverter?
Security system?
Depends on what you want to achieve?

I can tell you now that even with free solar panels, and now even free batteries from the government subsidies, with you having to pay for installation and framing, you won't have enough traffic on those outback routes to ever make a return. With or without inverters.

If you want to setup up some remote charging stations as a non profit club activity with donations you could probably make it work. If you want to set it up in areas with more traffic, it will probably work too. I made a short business plan a few years back, that outlines this if someone is interested in investing in remote EV chargers. There's a bit of gov. funding flying around, just need to find some good locations, and dollar for dollar contributions.
 

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I don’t think we’ll be able to bring the Cybertruck inside a hotel though.
Oh, I'm nearly 100% certain that we will be ABLE to bring our apocalypse vehicle inside a hotel. Straight through a wall if we have to.

But if you are asking about it being permissible that is a whole different answer.
 
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Depends on what you want to achieve?

I can tell you now that even with free solar panels, and now even free batteries from the government subsidies, with you having to pay for installation and framing, you won't have enough traffic on those outback routes to ever make a return. With or without inverters.

If you want to setup up some remote charging stations as a non profit club activity with donations you could probably make it work. If you want to set it up in areas with more traffic, it will probably work too. I made a short business plan a few years back, that outlines this if someone is interested in investing in remote EV chargers. There's a bit of gov. funding flying around, just need to find some good locations, and dollar for dollar contributions.
Yeah, this is what I’m thinking. But nothing is ever actually free. I’m wondering the actual costs. It’s not my industry and as you say it depends on priorities.

If for this hypothetical having a off grid solar charging setup that doesn’t have a megapack sitting idle for months at a time, (Or maybe it does) what are the costs for a 150kW array? With two chargers?

The throughput and popularity of the route would change each installation markedly. But a start point for the sliding scale of priorities could be interesting.

How big of a grant, or how much would a motoring club need to chip in? I imagine NRMA will likely implement something like a solar Oasis at Cameron’s corner. I might start a new thread on this. Versions of a solar oasis…from road house to camel trough.
 
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JBee

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Yeah, this is what I’m thinking. But nothing is ever actually free. I’m wondering the actual costs. It’s not my industry and as you say it depends on priorities.

If for this hypothetical having a off grid solar charging setup that doesn’t have a megapack sitting idle for months at a time, (Or maybe it does) what are the costs for a 150kW array? With two chargers?

The throughput and popularity of the route would change each installation markedly. But a start point for the sliding scale of priorities could be interesting.

How big of a grant, or how much would a motoring club need to chip in? I imagine NRMA will likely implement something like a solar Oasis at Cameron’s corner. I might start a new thread on this. Versions of a solar oasis…from road house to camel trough.
Easiest way to calculate it is on a per watt basis, and you can then multiply by however many kW you want to install.

As a guide:

PV Modules - $0.45c/W
On ground Framing - $0.15c - $0.25c/W
Batteryless Inverter ** - $0.20c/W
Electrical / installation - $0.15c - $0.25c/W

Battery - $0.35c - $0.50c/Wh

Network connection - $0.30c/W

So for an off-grid batteryless installation, using an inverter setup that can produce 415V 3phase directly from the sun without being connected to a battery or the grid would cost around $1.20 per watt of capacity. Note with this setup you have to have the EV attached during sunlight hours, and it will only charge as fast as the solar allows. You can however, by adding some more panels, over dimension the solar array, meaning your output could be at max inverter capacity for 4-6 hours of the day. You save a bit of money that way.

For an off grid battery system the calculation is more complicated, in that you have to know how much storage capacity you want, by knowing how many EV's you expect to charge per day, and how big each of their batteries are. Note the price of the battery is in Wh not W, because battery prices are by storage capacity, not by power capacity. Typically, most batteries allow for 1C charge and discharge rates, which is convenient to calculate, in that a 1kWh battery can also charge/discharge at 1kW, without damaging it's cycle life.

The same solar array described above would supply the power regardless, but the battery would give you the option to time offset when EV's could be charged, and how fast each EV could be charged, or how many EV's could be charged at the same time. It could be connected to the same off-grid inverters above, even at a later time at little extra installation cost. BTW These inverters are a little special, in that they allow you to power things from solar without batteries being connected (maybe only 1% of inverters allow this, and this would have to be embedded into the EV charger control loop), but then they also allow you to connect and use batteries (and also continue to use the solar setup if the batteries fail), and they allow you to connect to the grid to charge the batteries or EV, and they can also buffer grid power, which is critical in remote area grids, by exporting power to them when you have excess, giving you another revenue stream.

So for example a 200kWh pack would cost somewhere around $100k, and would give you the ability to charge one CT in one hour, when the sun doesn't shine. If the pack was full when it became night time, the EV charger could also only charge one CT that night. Now if you had a 200kW solar array (costing $240k), running at full power during the day, and a battery, you could charge two CTs in one hour. But only in the day time. On a good sunny day in the summer you could charge around 7 CTs a day with that $350k setup, and if you charge around $0.60c (Tesla is $0.51c kWh atm) you would earn around $100 per CT or $700 a day. But only in the summer, in the winter you'd be down to less than half, and every other season somewhere in between.

Before you get too excited, remember that you can only charge 6 EV's during the day, and one at night in the summer, best case. Expect actual yearly capacity to be half that, so a system capacity ROI around 20-30% but with unlimited customer demand.

Now how many EV's do you expect to rock up and charge during the year, or for that matter at the same time? This is where the whole energy scheduling becomes your main cost factor, all of which becomes less problematic if you can simply connect to a grid, even just a smaller one.

With a grid you can then sell daytime solar excess to the grid and take that same excess out of the grid again at night, or whenever you have a customer charging their EV. You can then install less batteries on a larger grid that can support your EV charging, or install more batteries on smaller grids to help buffer them, for which you can also charge for capacity credits as well as energy exports etc.

To the point if you can make it profitable to buffer a small local grid over a extended contract period, as a revenue baseline, with fixed returns and costs, you can then consider the EV charging as your "bonus", in that you are selling solar that cost's sub $0.10kWh for EV Charging at $0.60kWh. Depending on your PPA arrangements, you are then able to resell grid power too at a higher rate, and reduce your overall solar and battery costs to suit. "If" Ct would support V2G, you could even buy CT's as batteries and park them near your arrays and plug them into a bi-directional charger for whenever you expect peak traffic. CT's cost $0.35ckWh but come with a "free" car you can move around to follow demand between charging stations. ;)

The other version is that you persuade the town inhabitants to only buy CT's with V2X, and incentivize them to be remain plugged in at home or at work to buffer the local grid by offering free charging or power. That way the storage could be much bigger in capacity, and would cost you well...nothing. If 2 CT's of every 10 CT's in a town was parked and plugged in at any one time, a town of 30 Ct's could run a 250kW Supercharger all day long.

As for Aussie grants: You can get STC/LGC for solar panels at around $0.44c W atm, essentially making PV panels "free" up to 100kW per installation. There's around $200m of battery subsidies atm.
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