HAHAHAHAHAHA: Truckmaker thinks adding touch of gasoline could be solution to battery-powered pickups’ towing and cold-weather concerns
HAHAHAHAHAHA: Truckmaker thinks adding touch of gasoline could be solution to battery-powered pickups’ towing and cold-weather concerns
REPB. AKA, ICE.
No, it is not ICE, it is a generator to recharge the battery. It will be less efficient than ICE: adding stages to the process.
Lost in the hype of last week’s Ram 1500 Revolution all-electric truck reveal was the admission by top brass that the pickup is likely to be offered with an internal-combustion range-extender as an optional powertrain at some point in its life-cycle.”
Isn’t the powertain to the wheels? Sounds more than a generator to me. Also speculation in the article about functioning when the battery is depleted, which a generator can’t do.
Yeah I’ll take the one with two motors and two transmissions. I’m sure they keep the price on it down.
The line I picked up on:
“A range-extender, by the strictest sense of its definition, functions essentially as a series hybrid once its electric stores are depleted, relying on the gas engine to generate enough charge for the electric propulsion system, with the battery acting as a buffer between the two. ”
There won’t be two transmissions but there will be two motors: one motor is the generator to charge the battery that runs the electric motor.
“…relying on the gas engine…”
Like I wrote, ICE. Never noted anything about how big, or where, or how efficient the resultant system.
And as every engineer is taught, every power transfer or change creates inefficiencies and corresponding losses. There is a cost for changing the mode of operation. It also increases the possible points of failure.
All the best engineering departments and manufacturers are now releasing products with problems that are built in at the factory.
“How would our customer service department stay busy if the truck actually satisfied customer needs and requirements?”
Kate! Your van problem is solved!
And think of all the extra training time you’ll have when your van is recharging for hours
They are doing a stealth modification to make it a hybrid. But can they still call it an EV?
It seems to me Ford has downplayed the hype on ev’s.. Just dont hear as much about them as before.. I think all the producers are having second thoughts, I see more and more vids on the disappointing aspects of evs.
The working name is “life saver”.
Congratulations, they have discovered the working principle of the Diesel locomotive.
I have long thought that serial hybrid was a much better system than parallel hybrid, straight electric drive for torque, with an ICE running at max efficiency full time, with just enough storage to smooth out the peaks and valleys in power demand vs. continuously generated average power. Also eliminates a lot of the complex kludges required for the current hybrids to work. Micro turbines are probably the best way to go as they will burn anything, and may even run on some fuels the government has not made stupidly expensive, or perhaps even unrefined bitumen.
Have you ever handled unrefined bitumen? Nasty Nasty Nasty Shit! But then… a guy might be willing to put up with some nasty in exchange for no tax.
“Micro turbines are probably the best way to go…”
I loved one Jay Leno segment. There’s a model of motorcycle out there with a denatured Pratt & Whitney PT6 as a prime mover; sucka’ puts-out ~650 hp. Jay has one, of course, and would ride it downtown into New York for his night gig. He remarked that despite his best efforts to dissuade them, people would insist on crowding close to this thing at traffic lights – and he got to watch their front air-effects packages deform and sag as his exhaust (even at “idle”) melted them.
Turbines are hella’ inefficient at anything other than design output, and cost like GOLD due to the exotic alloys needed so they don’t melt-off their turbine wheel; and in stop-and-go traffic, a hybrid (for this is what the REPB amounts-to) would still be spending much of its time with no load. Stick to a small ICE with a generator – and yeah, I’ve been wondering why the EV makers don’t offer a hybrid with a gas-electric drive. All the torquies you could want to pull-away, and the engine running at its efficiency peak; you’d have no trouble breaking 50 mpg.
Deplorable
Bingo, that or a good battery exchange system.
I wonder how they will size the engine/generator combo?
Will it be able to run the truck at full speed on a 3 or 5% grade with a discharged battery?
Or will it be able to do the same while towing a 2,000 or 10,000 pound trailer?
Will you be able to; or will you have to run the engine in cold weather and maintain the battery and cabin at normal temps?
What about powering the A/C? Electric motor, or Engine driven?
Would a diesel engine be more efficient?
Or you could stick with an ICE, and scrap all the electric drive and battery BS entirely?
With the right engineering, a hybrid ICE/electric can get more mpg than any pure ICE can, with zero use of grid power, except of course to pump the gas into the tank like you do with any ICE.
This is well known, that’s why trains use it.
It just goes to show that the PTBs are not interested in efficiency, but in control.
Trains, yes. How about a scaled down diesel electric for a Toyota?
“that’s why trains use it”
Ack-sherally, I’m led to believe that locomotives use diesel-electric due to the near-inability to make a clutch capable of handling a 3,000+ hp diesel, especially over the months-and-years a loco has to operate high-torque, low-maintenance. Not to mention the difficulty putting the engine power down through the trucks to the wheels – if there was any torque-steer, it would derail the loco everytime the driver got on the throttle. And this makes sense – there have been various models of diesel-hydraulic main-line loco’s as well, though they never caught-on over here.
“Ack-sherally, I’m led to believe that locomotives use diesel-electric due to the near-inability to make a clutch capable of handling a 3,000+ hp diesel, especially over the months-and-years a loco has to operate high-torque, low-maintenance.”
That’s correct. Low-end torque is the other big benefit, which comes in very handy for locomotives. Most people don’t realize that electric motors develop maximum hp/torque at a standstill, tapering off as RPM increases, whereas internal combustion engines operate exactly the opposite: almost no hp/torque at an idle, increasing as RPM rises.
Not exactly sure why large icebreakers use diesel-electric drive, though.
Nice.
I’m researching converting my 2002 Sequoia to a diesel powerplant, if anyone has any thoughts or links.
Hack job to patch a technology not fit for purpose. EV vehicles are a niche market for city dwellers with short commutes in warm climates. Anyone who says different is a bullshit artist.
With the addition of the range extender/generator/engine ,your 4 door pickup will know have a 3ft box.
The perfect city vehicle for hauling kids and cat food!
OOps. Now I know how how to spell now knowingly.
Grocery Getter for the Urban Non-Binary
“Automotive journalists are already sharing rumors of a “Greta Edition” Ram to be released in April, which includes a quickly deployed sail adapted from the ubiquitous Sunfish. Marketing staff at Ram are struggling with promoting a truck that can’t do truck things.”
“I know…we’ll put DIE and “How dare you!” stickers all over it.”
“promoting a truck that can’t do truck things”…..like every Dodge truck ever built.
Full circle.
“We have always been at war with ……”.
Mandate “Electric Propulsion”.
Find out why private enterprise has not succeeded in selling it before.
Make excuses and blame “ignorant consumers”.
When fools and bandits hold power and attempt to impose their wisdom,such “solutions” will always arise.
0 Claim victory,impose idiocy.Electric or nothing.By decree of idiots.
1 Add “range extender”.
2 Ditch weight of battery.
3 Ditch electric drive train.
4 Claim victory.
Meanwhile the tax payer picks up the tab for all the waste and destruction of opportunity imposed by “Command Economy Geniuses”.
And staggers under that debt load.
Our grandchildren are handicapped in their choices by the load we leave them to carry.
Generational theft.
For our progressive comrades always know,that they know better than you and I,how we shall allocate our resources.
And they insist,the failure of the last Statist Thugs was because those thugs did not impose their wisdom properly.
Having seen this movie several times,it seems it is our responsibility to “educate ” our progressive comrades..
By showing them Human Nature at its finest.
They act as bandits,I say hang them,by their necks,in public places.
They prove to be fools,I say banish them to “safe enclaves” where they can enjoy the “wisdom of their ways” with no rescue.
Cull the parasitic overload.
We are living the lesson,of what happens when you protect the useless and clueless.
Are we having fun yet?
We’re going to end up like Cuba which is fitting. There’s going to be a lot of old gas powered vehicles on the road if the stupid mandate for all electric stands.
Just remember, this is still a FIAT STELLANTIX product, designing a Dodge.
Recently here on SDA, one commenter mentioned his farming neighbour, with an all new Lectric F150, that’s a $140,000 winter lawn ornament cuz it doesn’t hold a charge required to be useful.
Reliability? Sheesh, the track record isn’t good, and now they are releasing a new technology truck, while dissing the current design.
Run. Fast. Quickly.
Virtue Signaling while Stoned.
They can always park it in the yard, and grow pot in the bed.