Maintenance of Harvester gas engine range extender

[soedesh]

Oh, you were replying to the oil change stuff. Gotcha. I thought you were replying to the operation of the Voltec drive.

 

[ClayCollins]

Mazda used a Wankel engine for their range-extended MX-30:
https://insideevs.com/reviews/712120/mazda-mx-30-range-extender/

I do wonder about the rotary engine used for this purpose - they're famously smooth, but also notoriously thirsty. If the whole point is efficiency, is a rotary engine going to use more or less gas than a traditional cylinder engine for the same energy output?

I do know the Wankel engines suffer from apex seal wear which limits their life. Mazda has improved, but not eliminated this problem. Perhaps the reduced weight and size would offset the efficiency. I don’t know if Liquid Piston’s design is better in efficiency. I do know they claim to have solved the apex wear problem.

 

[timmyhil]

My guess is that its maintenance will be around 4,000-8,000hrs of run. Only because it will most likely run at the most torque made rpm which would in theory create less heat and wear to oil and internals. The reason it would be the torquiest rpm is because it would be connected to some kind of alternator or to a special alternator crankshaft to charge the battery.

 

[RMK!]

My understanding is that my Gen 1 Volt mostly uses the engine to drive the generator and only direct couples the engine to the drivetrain above 50mph, presumably for efficiency. If you need to pass it decouples and uses pure electric.

My original point was that the engine/generator is capable of fully operating the vehicle and not just some kind of "booster". You can run the car indefinitely on gas and have full power. Also, the car keeps track of the engine hours and alerts the driver when an oil change is required, not based on miles.

Yep, it was a "smart car" in that my wifes commute was less than 40 miles per day she was always on electric drive. One year she received a warning on the screen that the cars gasoline was nearly a year old and it automatically ran on gas only until that the tank was emptied of the old gas. She would plugin and charge every night and replenish the 40 miles of potential range via a standard 120V outlet. The Volts were beautifully engineered nice little vehicles which never made a profit for Chevy hence their demise.