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With so many motorhomes towing autos, Someone should design electric, towable cars that can make use of the rolling movement to charge the electric batteries. When towing across the country and parking the motorhome for the night, the towed vehicle is usually only needed to drive around for short distances,
say up to 100 miles, before it is towed again, thus recharging it. Most motorhome driving consists of at least 250 miles a day which should provide sufficient charge. When parked for longer periods, the batteries could also be charged at the RV sites by plugging them in to the 30 or 50 amp circuits normally found there.
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Why not charge it off the motorhome's engine? That way you don't have to lug a generator around with the electric car. |
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This would simply be an integration issue, since many electric car motor/controller systems work well as generators (used for regenerative braking). You just need to be able to control how much drag the car puts on the motorhome. Even better if the electric car can automatically assist with acceleration and braking. |
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Make sure to recharge at night most of the time though since electricity from the plug is much cheaper than generating it with an internal combustion engine. |
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[phoenix] I'm not sure what you're meaning. The electric car uses it's motor (needed for driving) as a generator, so it's not lugging around anything it doesn't need already. A motorhome's engine generates mechanical energy and uses a small innefficient alternator to produce small amounts of electrical energy. To produce enough electricity to charge an EV, you need a big generator attached to the engine. Luckily you already have one that's attached slightly indirectly through friction with the road. |
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<obligatory> RockyHUH! </o> |
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[scad mientist] I didn't understand you intended the electric car to have a motor-generator. I assumed you were adding a generator to a device that already had a motor. |
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Even with the clarification, it seems a bit...utility specific. |
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your towed car would act as a regenerative brake behind your RV. essentially, your RV engine is working harder to overcome the resistance of the towed car, generating the energy. |
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It would probably be more efficient to generate the electricity directly from the RV and charge the battery that way |
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Gets my vote. Once we can do
this, then all we need is two
cars. One drives while the
other charges, then we switch.
Agree with scad, on the need
to deal with the issue of
friction. |
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You're not using the "rolling movement" to charge the car, you'll be using the RV's engine. It would be cheaper to plug the car in, considering that power companies produce energy much more efficiently than automobiles do. The only time that rolling movement could be used is for regenerative braking. |
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just a point but the towed vehicle will be draining power from the rv as the engery it converts has to come from somewhere |
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The + I gave this idea depends entirely on [scad]'s anno. If regenerative braking is used, this should work well. |
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[phnx] //utility specific// True, but it wouldn't need to be only designed for this. Just design some logic into an already designed electric car. You can then just use any motorhome and have the regenerative breaking in the car kick on whenever the breaklights come on. |
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People who buy RV don't generlly car about the enviorment .. and ways... you would get better result adding a extra alternator to the main car engine and running it to the other car.. |
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what gezzuzz said. My boss has a motorhome and he tows his F350 ford pickup with no worries about fuel economy....welcome to California. |
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The only, questionable, advantage I can see is that you would be doing more of that noisy polluting internal combustion stuff on the open road and less at your destinations. The overall fuel consumption would be greater, due to all the energy conversion losses and the need to tow the electric car's batteries, than just towing an internal combustion car.
Do people still actually still do this, in these latter days of the fossil fuel orgy? Those who see them should laugh them to scorn. |
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