I crawled under Scout's underbody to see what they looked like

[dktoverviews]

Interesting article from autopian about the engineering of the Scouts, link below for those interested.
https://www.theautopian.com/i-crawl...o-look-at-the-engineering-heres-what-i-found/

 

[ctuan13]

It's really cool to see the actual underpinnings of these vehicles. Honestly, if I were to design my dream EV truck, at least in terms of platform and components, it would be like this.

It's interesting seeing what the article said that the range extender only gets 100-150mi of full electric range. Not surprised It's less than the BEV, but I couldn't find that info in the scout site anywhere.

I'm definitely intrigued and hope to learn more in the future about how the range extender functions and how it can be implemented, ie does it have enough power to provide maximum power to the drive motors and during low power draw steady state or stop and go driving, can it actively recharge the battery? Also if you're somewhere remote and you had a full tank of gas, but wanted the quiet power or full torque (if the range extender can't provide enough current for full motor power), can the engine be started while the truck is parked, just to recharge the battery to store energy for later?

The article also brought up an interesting concern about the rear live e axle and the high amperage, high voltage cables to provide power to the motor. I'd imagine they could implement a setup with enough strain relief for those cables, but if they designed cables that are easily serviceable and replaceable from both ends, I think that could solve the problem and just recommend a certain replacement interval after a certain number of miles (depending on amount of offroad driving).

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

I agree with their concerns about the unsprung weight of the motor/differential assembly, but I bet the engineers also have those concerns and have worked to find solutions. I've done offroading in 2-ton flatbed trucks with more massive rear axles than this. It's possible.

The Harvester range extender is basically just a built-in generator. It adds 150 miles range to the vehicle, so with the Harvester option, it'll have 500 miles range: 350 miles full electric and 150 miles generator-fed electric. For it to be useful while driving, it'll need to reduce the net power draw from the battery by about 42% (350 * 1.42 = 500). My Lightning draws between 10 and 60 kW during normal freeway driving and less at lower speeds. My guess is the Harvester will have to produce about 12-25 kW of power and they will fine-tune that so the engine is as efficient as possible for its power output. I expect that for complexity reduction it will not directly power the motors but instead will charge the battery which will then power the motors.

There's no way the Harvester will be able to provide full motor power. Not even the Ram 1500 TRX massive engine could accelerate it from 0-60 in 3.5 seconds, and that truck was quite a bit lighter than the Scout will be.

 

[Lakesinai]

I agree with their concerns about the unsprung weight of the motor/differential assembly, but I bet the engineers also have those concerns and have worked to find solutions. I've done offroading in 2-ton flatbed trucks with more massive rear axles than this. It's possible.

The Harvester range extender is basically just a built-in generator. It adds 150 miles range to the vehicle, so with the Harvester option, it'll have 500 miles range: 350 miles full electric and 150 miles generator-fed electric. For it to be useful while driving, it'll need to reduce the net power draw from the battery by about 42% (350 * 1.42 = 500). My Lightning draws between 10 and 60 kW during normal freeway driving and less at lower speeds. My guess is the Harvester will have to produce about 12-25 kW of power and they will fine-tune that so the engine is as efficient as possible for its power output. I expect that for complexity reduction it will not directly power the motors but instead will charge the battery which will then power the motors.

There's no way the Harvester will be able to provide full motor power. Not even the Ram 1500 TRX massive engine could accelerate it from 0-60 in 3.5 seconds, and that truck was quite a bit lighter than the Scout will be.

There's missing info on the range extender. It seems to be an easy calculation that it adds 150 miles capacity to a 350 mile battery, making 500 miles Total. However, the space for the generator and gas tank comes from battery space, making the battery smaller, so the numbers don't add up. This seems to mean that there is less EV battery capacity & less EV range on the Harvester equipped models! TBD

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

There's missing info on the range extender. It seems to be an easy calculation that it adds 150 miles capacity to a 350 mile battery, making 500 miles Total. However, the space for the generator and gas tank comes from battery space, making the battery smaller, so the numbers don't add up. This seems to mean that there is less EV battery capacity & less EV range on the Harvester equipped models! TBD

Ah, okay, I misunderstood the question.