Question about EREV Extended Range EVs on Long Trips (Harvester Gas Engine)

[Efthreeoh]

Hi, we think alike so wanted to give you my thoughts and concerns. First of all, I have put a deposit down for the Traveler with Range Extender so am really keeping my fingers crossed (with cash) that this range extender is more like you described. However, I now have my doubts after reading a few posts and even comments on YouTube. First, I believe getting the range extender option is going to put a damper on our pure EV performance. Mainly because Scout indicates that option will mean a smaller battery pack, plus likely a hit on weight. Further proof is on their website or video with an asterisk by the EV Option indicating *For optimum EV performance… Anyway, all of this points to worse acceleration and EV range, the two things I care deeply about. How much worse will likely impact if I keep this extender option or not.

However, my biggest concern and what likely may be a deal breaker for many, is what the Range Extender will do for us. I am a former 1st Generation Chevy Volt owner (actually was on a waiting list for the first year model so am very use to this early adaptor hobby). Anyway, GM did a horrible job marketing the Volt as it was truly two cars in one due to its ability to 100% run on gas or electric charge. And believe it or not, this actually worked very well. Just like your hoping for the Scout, you could simply keep feeding it gas and drive across country and back just like a regular ICE car while zooming by those Superchargers. Then once you got home, charge at home for all those daily routine trips and forget how to pump gas. So, when the Scout was revealed with this “Range Extender” option, I immediately got excited this would be similar to our Volt! But now I am hearing that the engine will not be powerful enough to sustain this large battery at a level that could fully propel the vehicle, meaning that all this range extender will do, is simply extend how long you can use said battery before it gets to the point it needs to be recharged the typical EV way, which sounds like is around 500 miles. I guess the jury is still out, but it doesn’t sound like Scout has defined it to operate how the Volt did. I think this would be a big missed opportunity as it would pull in so many new potential EV owners that aren’t fully ready to wean off gas. In a sense, the Volt allowed me to do that too as I eventually replaced it with a full EV (Mach E) and now have enjoyed maintenance free driving in 36K miles of ownership with that 3.5 sec acceleration (I have the GT perf. version). So if the range extender will not give us the option to fully use gas while also taking a hit on EV performance, I will not hesitate to drop it for the full EV version. After owning both, I feel very comfortable going full EV but I also know having that Range Extender would likely help resale ability so checked it mostly for that reason. Time well tell right!

I'm glad you brought up the Volt. I never owned one but a drove seveal and when the ICE kicked in to provide the power source. There was no noticeable loss of performance with the Volt in gas mode. The Gen 1 Volt had a 149 HP that was more than adequate to power the electric motor and charge the battery. Interesting was the planetary gearset to have the engine power the drive wheels when necessary.

The i3 was a different design philosophy (suited for Europe) for the ICE to power the car home or to a charging station.

I see Scout Motors taking the Volt series hybrid approach, which is RAM's approach as well, to sustain the EV drivetrain with enough power to tow continuously, but without the mechanical link to the drivewheels. My hope is Scout does not source an existing automobile engine and repurpose it for the generator application. For cost reasons that was GM's approach for the Volt. A clean sheet engine would be the best design solution; let's hope the budget is there for it.

 

[Opus]

So lots of discussions, but most seem to talk like there is a one size fits all - i.e. it only works one way. I would like to see it have "modes" like my F150 and a lot of other vehicles these days. Something like this:

- "Eco mode": might reduce acceleration or use only some of the motors, have a speed limiter, may lower the air suspension (I think Rivian does this suspension trick, not sure if Scout even has it?), turn off the Harvester, etc to maximize pure EV range.

- "Normal mode": i.e. the 500 mile range, with Harvester kicking in at 20% charge or whatever.

- "Tow/Haul/Max Range mode": Harvester runs all the time charging the batteries and feeding electricity direct to the motors, to maximize range/mimimize battery drain, esp when towing or hauling. (Maybe even detects a connected trailer and turns this on by default when towing)

- "Charge mode": (just throwing this in the mix) - where it can sit still and run the harvester to charge batteries while not driving, say while I stop to eat lunch but no charging stations around. (Ppl have expressed concerns about this running in a closed garage, but having something like a carbon monoxide detector, prompt the user to not run this in an enclosed space, or sensors to detect if it's surrounded by walls/roof, etc to disable this - I'm fine with having to park out and away from things to run this mode. Note: stupid ppl will be stupid - there's nothing that prevents turning on an ICE engine in a closed garage, so it doesn't really create a "new" risk, unless it turns this on automatically when it needs juice, so it would almost have to be a person manually turning this on)

I feel like this would give the best of all worlds - 99% of the time as a daily driver, it's pure EV, but on those long trips or when towing, it makes the most use of the gas engine to extend that range.

Taking this thought experiment a step further...

Looking at max driving range before I am stuck, if all I have access to is gas - no charging stations (probably unrealistic but thinking worst case for an EV noob like me that has no experience with charging stations on the road).

Lets say if I tow in "Normal mode" and (making up numbers), I get ~150 miles of towing range with a full battery and gas tank (lets assume towing reduces range by 2/3rds or so, so 50 miles EV + ~100 miles gas+ev), and then have to gas up and charge up.

But lets say in "Tow/Max range mode", if I can go 100 miles with Harvester running the entire time and run out of gas, but still have 80% of battery, then I fill up the gas, go another 100 miles with battery to 60%, and can do this (theoretically) 4-5 times before I have to stop for gas and charge, and get 400-500 miles of towing that way (and even more without towing), I would be good with that.

If some of the information/speculation I've seen is right, and it can go 150 miles on pure EV (lets assume 50 miles towing), and lets say harvester in "Normal mode" kicks in at 20% battery for another 350 miles (lets speculate 20% battery + a full tank of gas gives us ~100 miles towing, I'm thinking I may not be too far off, and could in theory go 1300-1400 miles between charges, with multiple gas fillups when not towing - that 500 miles, I believe, is range without filling up electrons or gas.) Probably the absolute worse use of an EV vehicle, but this is an extreme use case for maximizing a charge, not using it efficiently.

If at the end of that (say I'm at a campsite in the boonies), I fill up gas and can use "Charge mode" to get that battery recharged, then fill up the gas tank and start over (even a partial charge to get me to a real charger), I think that would completely resolve my range anxiety.

In most cases (for me) a trip will not be 500 miles or whatever, so if I get to my destination (that campsite in the boonies) with 30% battery and can run in "Charge mode" to get it to more like 60-80%, that'll get me back to civilization in most cases (maybe even enough to get me home) - a typical camping trip for me is no further than 200 miles from home (usually less), so the only charger I'd have to use is theoretically my home charger, when I get home. And even on longer trips, it's highly unlikely for me to drive more than 400-500 miles in one day, so if I drive that much, then park and put it in "Charge mode" and gas up the next morning, I feel like this would be very doable.

In normal day to day driving, even towing locally, I'd be well within the pure EV range, 95% of the time. Granted, that's my driving patterns, yours may vary.

This is 100% speculation, and admittedly, I'm a complete EV noob and no idea what I am talking about, so my ideas and numbers may be completely unrealistic, but I have to believe there are a lot of ways to skin this cat. For all we know, that 500 mile range is already doing this to get there (if harvester kicks in at 50% or more, for example, that would pretty much shoot this down).

 

[KarlT]

I suppose it's perfect if you are on the road all day every day.

I daily drive a truck I've personally put 342,000 miles on, and I'm not on the road all day every day.

Maybe once a year I tow across several states. 99% of the time I'm just going to work, a supplier, a customer. 250 miles of range is more than enough for me personally.

But the same people who go, wow, how do you drive all those miles, will in turn demand 1000 miles range towing max rating up a mountain lol. Then part next to me in the lot with their receiver that's never had a hitch in it lol.

Harvester makes people like that feel more secure, and makes it so someone can bring you five gallons of gas and you self recover.

‘maybe not perfect for you, but it would be for me. Use pure EV everyday to go to work, and have the gas for road trips. Perfect Is in the eye of the beholder. I will never tow or haul anything in my Traveler. But I just don’t want to spend a couple hours sitting at a charging station in Yuma. (no offense to anyone who lives in Yuma.)

 

[panzer948]

I'm glad you brought up the Volt. I never owned one but a drove seveal and when the ICE kicked in to provide the power source. There was no noticeable loss of performance with the Volt in gas mode. The Gen 1 Volt had a 149 HP that was more than adequate to power the electric motor and charge the battery. Interesting was the planetary gearset to have the engine power the drive wheels when necessary.

The i3 was a different design philosophy (suited for Europe) for the ICE to power the car home or to a charging station.

I see Scout Motors taking the Volt series hybrid approach, which is RAM's approach as well, to sustain the EV drivetrain with enough power to tow continuously, but without the mechanical link to the drivewheels. My hope is Scout does not source an existing automobile engine and repurpose it for the generator application. For cost reasons that was GM's approach for the Volt. A clean sheet engine would be the best design solution; let's hope the budget is there for it.

I agree with all you said except the part about Volt's planetary gearset. That was a myth and was never the case, atleast not in the Gen1 vehicles. The engine was only used as a generator with the battery providing full power to propel the vehicle in motion. What many may have confused this was something called Mountain Mode (versus Normal and Sport Modes). But all Mountain mode did was force the engine/generator to come on to charge the battery while driving; say going downhill, flat, etc. which would increase battery range cushion when you knew you were going to be ascending a long steep incline for several miles (remember the battery range was only 40 miles so a 5 mile ascent was a big percentage of that range). If you started to ascend a steep mountain when your battery was near depletion, you could quickly drop your capacity below a certain threshold that the engine/generator couldn't maintain, atleast at highway speeds; thus putting you in limp mode until you began descending. I owned it for 11 years and that happened once in WV.

What was cool about "Mountain Mode" is it allowed the driver to decide when he wanted to actually use gas generator. For example, If I knew I was going to the next city that would use up most of my battery range on the highway getting there, I could instead put it in Mountain Mode during the commute and force the generator to run, giving me full battery range once I reached said city. This allowed me to be much more efficient while driving in the city versus having the noisy generator always revving up here and there (the Volt likely sounded odd to most folks that heard it from the outside as the engine would always rev up "after"a quick change in motion versus during; this was to replenish battery drop, kind of like a movie when the audio isnt in sync). Mtn Mode also worked well when wanting to show newbies how the car operated in battery power mode alone when you were visiting folks that lived nearly 40 miles away . Then turn on Mtn Mode to show folks how it operated with gas generator running. Truly two cars in one. That car had a lot going for it.

 

[panzer948]

Very important to me, if it doesn't work the way you are thinking I likely will not buy

I agree with you, I would rather just get the full EV version and enjoy the bump in performance and range over the gas extender that only prolongs the battery's depletion.

 

[Noplacelikeloam]

I believe the Harvester, is just an extender, not a multiplier. I think it will kick on at 25% DOC, and run until it's out of gas, and by then you'll want to be at Buccees.

I think that is exactly what will happen.

 

[Jrgunn5150]

‘maybe not perfect for you, but it would be for me. Use pure EV everyday to go to work, and have the gas for road trips. Perfect Is in the eye of the beholder. I will never tow or haul anything in my Traveler. But I just don’t want to spend a couple hours sitting at a charging station in Yuma. (no offense to anyone who lives in Yuma.)

You're who it's marketed for.

You'll probably never run out of charge on EV either, but the Harvester makes you feel secure.

In reality, if you actually tried to coast to coast with a trailer in one, you'd be filling that little gennie tank every 75 miles because it can't keep up.

But, 99% of people will never actually do that, so they'll never know.

 

[Efthreeoh]

I agree with all you said except the part about Volt's planetary gearset. That was a myth and was never the case, atleast not in the Gen1 vehicles. The engine was only used as a generator with the battery providing full power to propel the vehicle in motion. What many may have confused this was something called Mountain Mode (versus Normal and Sport Modes). But all Mountain mode did was force the engine/generator to come on to charge the battery while driving; say going downhill, flat, etc. which would increase battery range cushion when you knew you were going to be ascending a long steep incline for several miles (remember the battery range was only 40 miles so a 5 mile ascent was a big percentage of that range). If you started to ascend a steep mountain when your battery was near depletion, you could quickly drop your capacity below a certain threshold that the engine/generator couldn't maintain, atleast at highway speeds; thus putting you in limp mode until you began descending. I owned it for 11 years and that happened once in WV.

What was cool about "Mountain Mode" is it allowed the driver to decide when he wanted to actually use gas generator. For example, If I knew I was going to the next city that would use up most of my battery range on the highway getting there, I could instead put it in Mountain Mode during the commute and force the generator to run, giving me full battery range once I reached said city. This allowed me to be much more efficient while driving in the city versus having the noisy generator always revving up here and there (the Volt likely sounded odd to most folks that heard it from the outside as the engine would always rev up "after"a quick change in motion versus during; this was to replenish battery drop, kind of like a movie when the audio isnt in sync). Mtn Mode also worked well when wanting to show newbies how the car operated in battery power mode alone when you were visiting folks that lived nearly 40 miles away . Then turn on Mtn Mode to show folks how it operated with gas generator running. Truly two cars in one. That car had a lot going for it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GM_Voltec_powertrain