Quote:
Originally Posted by RV_Lee
Personally I think the RV world as you know it is about to finally come to a close. Look how many new ev car companies have started up, well, the same thing will happen with RV's. Literally any day now one of the new RV companies is going to drop a concept RV that will obliterate everything currently on the market.
I envision something between a class A gas and diesel pusher (no need to weigh 35000lbs), electric motors, 650hp, 1800+lbft, 800+ mile range, all built in-house like a Newell, slides that don't break, 80% self driving and other trickery, whole roof solar etc. They will be luxury DP priced initially but will come down in short order.
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Where this is a fail is where you're saying, "no need to weigh 35,000lbs"
While that is technically true, you can't have all you desire in a coach that weighs much less unless you sacrifice quality. There is a reason that gassers are falling apart after 5 years, and mid to high end DP's are in reasonably good shape after 20 years, and the reason is real wood, quality amenities are heavy. You want quality amenities, you're gonna have to have a chassis that can hold some weight. As of right now, only the DP has the power to haul that kind of weight on a regular basis.
On a second point, what do you think a battery bank that can haul that kind of load for 800 miles is going to weigh?
I can go 800 miles easily in my Monaco DP
200 gallons of fuel, 1,200 pounds (actually more than enough for 800 miles)
Cummins M11, 2,100 pounds
Allison 4060 transmission, 892 pounds
Total 4,192 pounds
I'm going to venture a guess that the 'unicorn' electric coach battery will weigh a lot more than my combined drive train and fuel. This guess is based on the fact a Tesla battery weighs about 1,200 pounds, as does an EV1 battery.
Both of these batteries weigh more than the entire drive train and fuel supply of the IC engines they are trying to replace. Again, that is just the battery, and not even counting the rest of the electric drive train.
For example
Honda B16 performance 4cyl IC engine 309 pounds
Transmission 110 pounds
20 gallons of fuel 160 pounds
Total 579 pounds
The Tesla 'fuel' supply alone weighs more than double the comparable IC engine, transmission and fuel combined weight.
So let's just say my combined (wet) drive train and fuel supply weighs 4,500 pounds, which is about 1/8th my GVW. If you ask me, that isn't very much given the utility of being able to fuel up in about 15 minutes, after driving 800 miles.
I would guess the electric bus drive train capable of going 800 miles hauling a 'live in' quality coach body would be well in excess of 12,000 pounds. That is almost half the GVW of the 35,000 pound coach. Not going to leave much for the coachworks and cargo.
How long do you think that 800 mile battery would take to charge?
You can charge a Tesla in about a half hour using a 'super charger', but they don't recommend doing this on a regular basis.
Using the recommended normal charger takes 8-12 hours @ 240V, and 20-40 hours @ 120V.
Best case scenario 150 miles of driving, 8 hours of charging.
That works out to 1 hour of charging for every 19 miles driven.
Let's apply that to the electric 800 mile unicorn coach. An 800 mile trip would require a 42 hour charge cycle. Remember that is based on the best case scenario for a Tesla.
If we take the average on the Tesla (10 hours), that is one hour of charging for every 15 miles driven.
When we apply that to the unicorn coach, we're looking at a 53 hour charging cycle. While there may be people out there that this type of travel workflow might be OK, it is far from ideal for the average user, which means far from ideal for a manufacture.
Things are, the way they are for a reason. If you want a live in coach, built well enough to last for a reasonable amount of time, and want the most efficient, convenient and flexible source of power, diesel is the winner. The whole point of the coach is the box you live in. As soon as you try and go electric to move that box, your trip, your life, all of it has to revolve around the drive train. In a diesel you can change you plans mid trip, go farther, go somewhere there isn't electricity, etc without fretting about the batteries.
It will likely stay this way until there is some huge break thru in batteries, and that doesn't seem likely anytime soon.