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Since we have a road-trip problem, we should have a road-trip focused solution. Mandate that EVs allow DC 'fast' charging while driving, and then encourage com

Since we have a road-trip problem, we should have a road-trip focused solution. Mandate that EVs allow DC 'fast' charging while driving, and then encourage companies with national car/truck/trailer rental networks like u-haul to rent diesel generators on trailers. You pick up a generator when you depart, and drop it off when you arrive. This is a way better solution than PHEV, since you don't need to carry around a combustion engine the 95% of the time when you're not on a road trip. And its a better solution than gigantic batteries for the same reason -- you have less weight to carry around the vast majority of the time.

syndicatedjelly 3y ago
Wow that is wild and creative. Never heard that idea, did you just come up with that?
gnicholas 3y ago
This sounds crazy at first, but yeah it would help get some people over the EV hump. One issue is the safety risk of having a big gas tank attached to the trailer-mounted generator, which would be much less shielded than a typical gas tank. But I'm sure there are ways this could be mitigated. They'd also have to create battery systems that are meant to be discharged/charged simultaneously, which presumably current EVs are not meant to do.
justin66 3y ago
This is the sort of solution a space alien, or a human somehow entirely unfamiliar with the details of automobiles and driving, would come up with if you described the concepts of driving, electric cars, recharging, vehicle range, trailers, and generators to them. It wouldn't even occur to the alien to question issues of safety, ease of use, efficiency or practicality. It's true that a "mandate" would be required, since literally no one would want this.
- drewg123 3y ago
  I've wanted it since before I got a Tesla... Can you describe how it seems impractical? I do ~1000mi roadtrips 1-2 times a year, and I spend hours charging. I would love to be able to drive straight through, with only a few 5 minute stops to top up diesel fuel. Even spending 15-20 minutes to pick up a trailer and drop it off, its still a huge time savings for a trip of over a few hundred miles. I don't want a PHEV, since I don't want to maintain an ICE engine, and haul it around. I'd also rather have a smaller, lighter battery, since for 99% of my daily driving, the 300mi range my car is about 4-5x more than I need. I'd be much happier with a ~40kw battery and a trailer option for road trips.
  - justin66 3y ago
    The thing you have to remember is that 99% of people have never driven with a trailer and are going to get themselves into trouble. (I know that if you're from a more rural place that figure might seem outlandish, but I bet it's probably even more nines than that) As a nifty thing that someone with some skills could use, what you're describing seems tenable (after all, we have cables stretching to and from trailers already). I think it's going to be bigger and heavier than what you're envisioning if it is to be made even remotely safe, clean and quiet. I just assume it's never going to be nearly as safe, particularly to other parties in an accident, as a normal vehicle in the standard crash tests, which matter in terms of sales and insurance rates. You wouldn't normally even think about those crash tests when talking about trailers, which are something of an exception, but if you mandated this thing it would be a major point of conversation. What's going to happen when someone going relatively 20 mph faster hits you from behind with the thing attached? Under modern safety standards that's not supposed to be a death sentence. All that being said, if someone clever had a design for something like this I'd look at it to see how they attacked some of these problems. An awful lot of trailers I see on the road today appear to be based on wishful thinking, and even those aren't cheap.

syndicatedjelly 3y ago

Wow that is wild and creative. Never heard that idea, did you just come up with that?

gnicholas 3y ago

This sounds crazy at first, but yeah it would help get some people over the EV hump. One issue is the safety risk of having a big gas tank attached to the trailer-mounted generator, which would be much less shielded than a typical gas tank. But I'm sure there are ways this could be mitigated. They'd also have to create battery systems that are meant to be discharged/charged simultaneously, which presumably current EVs are not meant to do.

justin66 3y ago

This is the sort of solution a space alien, or a human somehow entirely unfamiliar with the details of automobiles and driving, would come up with if you described the concepts of driving, electric cars, recharging, vehicle range, trailers, and generators to them. It wouldn't even occur to the alien to question issues of safety, ease of use, efficiency or practicality. It's true that a "mandate" would be required, since literally no one would want this.

drewg123 3y ago
I've wanted it since before I got a Tesla... Can you describe how it seems impractical? I do ~1000mi roadtrips 1-2 times a year, and I spend hours charging. I would love to be able to drive straight through, with only a few 5 minute stops to top up diesel fuel. Even spending 15-20 minutes to pick up a trailer and drop it off, its still a huge time savings for a trip of over a few hundred miles. I don't want a PHEV, since I don't want to maintain an ICE engine, and haul it around. I'd also rather have a smaller, lighter battery, since for 99% of my daily driving, the 300mi range my car is about 4-5x more than I need. I'd be much happier with a ~40kw battery and a trailer option for road trips.
- justin66 3y ago
  The thing you have to remember is that 99% of people have never driven with a trailer and are going to get themselves into trouble. (I know that if you're from a more rural place that figure might seem outlandish, but I bet it's probably even more nines than that) As a nifty thing that someone with some skills could use, what you're describing seems tenable (after all, we have cables stretching to and from trailers already). I think it's going to be bigger and heavier than what you're envisioning if it is to be made even remotely safe, clean and quiet. I just assume it's never going to be nearly as safe, particularly to other parties in an accident, as a normal vehicle in the standard crash tests, which matter in terms of sales and insurance rates. You wouldn't normally even think about those crash tests when talking about trailers, which are something of an exception, but if you mandated this thing it would be a major point of conversation. What's going to happen when someone going relatively 20 mph faster hits you from behind with the thing attached? Under modern safety standards that's not supposed to be a death sentence. All that being said, if someone clever had a design for something like this I'd look at it to see how they attacked some of these problems. An awful lot of trailers I see on the road today appear to be based on wishful thinking, and even those aren't cheap.