Ignoring the Obvious-The Electric Future of the RV Industry

[radar]

Originally Posted by jcussen

Good point, but even at $5 million, how is battery power going to give you the same independence as 300 gal of diesel? Many motorhomes can travel 1000's of miles or run all their equipment for weeks on a tank of diesel when boondocking far away from charging stations?
Can't see motorhomes with today's technology. But cars for sure.

Honestly neither can I and we are an all EV household, well accept for the 40 foot diesel pusher.

But the technology won’t stand still either. In 2011 max range on an EV was 80 miles. Now it’s 330 miles. Interesting times.

[RVPioneer]

Originally Posted by radar

Neither would a million dollar electric coach.

What’s the range on the million dollar electric city bus that has no slide outs, kitchen, toilet, bed, washer dryer, TV’s, etc?

[RVPioneer]

Originally Posted by radar

Honestly neither can I and we are an all EV household, well accept for the 40 foot diesel pusher.

But the technology won’t stand still either. In 2011 max range on an EV was 80 miles. Now it’s 330 miles. Interesting times.

What are your plans in the event of an extended power outage?

[Arch Hoagland]

Originally Posted by RVPioneer

What are your plans in the event of an extended power outage?

Can't buy gas either in a power outage. Lost power for a couple days in Salinas CA after an earthquake in 1989.
Only emergency vehicles could get fuel at the one gas station that had a generator to run the pumps.

So he'll get to visit a little longer just like everyone else.

[radar]

Originally Posted by RVPioneer

What are your plans in the event of an extended power outage?

Walk. Heh heh. Seriously though. With our commute we would be good for five or six days on our cars. Then again, if there is an extended power outage here, work is also shut down.

I guess I could always drive the coach. .

[jcussen]

Originally Posted by RVPioneer

What are your plans in the event of an extended power outage?

Good point, in BC not a factor, but in Texas, LA. Florida etc, good to have a diesel gen set and a full tank. When Ike hit, had a 1000 watts on the roof and it handled one small freezer, everything else was on my coach genset for two full weeks. Did not have to commute, just cooking ,cooling, and cleaning up. But if an ev had a whatever voltage to 110 volt good size converter, to run some things in your home, would be a good idea. With a big battery bank, a no brainer.

Always thought redundancy was the way to go.

[RVPioneer]

Originally Posted by radar

Walk. Heh heh. Seriously though. With our commute we would be good for five or six days on our cars. Then again, if there is an extended power outage here, work is also shut down.

I guess I could always drive the coach. .

I was wondering about home heating, refrigeration, etc. Also, the plastic in your wallet and phone pay systems may be useless. ATM’s could be down as well.

[rarebear.nm]

Originally Posted by RVPioneer

What are your plans in the event of an extended power outage?

What are yours? All of the fuel pumps will also be shut down along with the infrastructure to deliver fuel. You'll be able to drive to the limit of what's left in your tank or battery. Better stay where you are.

I believe that the RV industry is primarily system interrogators not innovators. They assemble parts and products made by others. When electric based RVs arrive, they will likely be favorite in more populated areas and slowly move into other areas. Look for electric RVs (ERV) first in the Class B & C models and some light trucks as tow vehicles. I would not expect Class A and Super Cs to go electric for a while after the smaller units are accepted. Very similar to how new features are frequently introduced in high end cars then trickle down to middle and lower end models.

Every advance in transportation technology has seen its share of naysayers prover wrong. When you are limited by existing solutions you will never be ready for the future. Others will be.

We were able to conceive, innovate, engineer, design, build and execute systems to take man to moon and back inside of a decade. I really do not see any physical constraints or physical laws that can not be overcome to build ERVs that are better than what we have today. It largely requires some leaders with the vision and plans to get us there.

This thread will be interesting....

[radar]

Originally Posted by RVPioneer

I was wondering about home heating, refrigeration, etc. Also, the plastic in your wallet and phone pay systems may be useless. ATM’s could be down as well.

We are both career ex military so “plan b and c” are always ready to go.

Home heating. Natural gas fireplace with thermopile so no power needed. I have never seen a natural gas failure though.

Maybe once every couple years we get a power outage for a few hours. This province is 98 percent hydro and some biomass.

Everyone should always have emergency cash in a fireproof safe.

We have a 2000 watt sine wave inverter connected to two x AGM 31 batts just for the fridge. We stopped our test after two days but it was still running.

We could always move into the coach i suppose. It has 800 watts of solar,, 150 gallons of diesel and a 7.5K genny.

We always have 120 days of food and water in the cellar.

Beyond that, we keep the chihuahua plump, and there’s always all these damn geese walking around my lawn. .

[ScoobyDoo]

Originally Posted by gmtec16450yz

As an auto mechanic for almost 4 decades I can directly compare this to Flat Rate pay in an auto repair shop. Through my entire career I refused to work in a flat rate shop or dealership. I was paid hourly so it didn't matter how long it took to do the job RIGHT. Once you tell someone that the faster they work/the less time they take to do it right/the quicker they get the customer's money and them out the door even if the car isn't fixed, you've compromised quality.

Well, most of my life, I worked much closer to the Flat Rate than hourly. And everybody that worked for me was paid for what they did, not how long it took.
Before I was drafted, I worked as a line mechanic at a new car dealership, paid flat rate. When the car came in my bay I new what I could make off of it. But if it was not done right, I did it again, for free. IMHO, this did not drop the quality of workmanship. OTOH, if a new tool or process would make the job go faster that tool/process is going in my toolbox.
Hypothetical...
A customer brings his car in for say a carb rebuild. Shop manager tells him $x.xx for parts, and $yy.yy for labor. If there is a issue, job is not done right, the shop owner is going to eat the extra time, more likely to convince customer there is another problem to get more money. Flat rate, shop manager is on customer's side, get it fixed right.

Worker A installs 20 cabinets a day in the RV factory, he gets paid $5 a cabinet installed or $100 for the day. Worker B installs 40 cabinets a day because he only screws them in with half the screws. He gets paid $200 for his days work. How do you get that guy to care if he's making $100 a day more than the guy that cares?

The problem with piece work production only comes up when there is no quality control. With proper inspection, the guy that did it right gets the $100, the other gets to do it again.

I don't think that electric RVs will happen until most other vehicles in production are electric. But I think that for large vehicles that need to travel long distances in limited time we don't need to re-invent the wheel. Why not mount electric motor to drive the wheel, and a ICE to run at most efficient speed, power a generator, to drive the motors?

[lwmcguire]

What I gather from many of the post is that they want the government to borrow mor money to finance the big government give away programs

Thus allowing the RY industry to be government subsidized as is the EV industry

I think we should slow Down and pay as you go instead of further bankrupting the country

[Gary RVRoamer]

I see the lack of advanced electrical systems (whether pure electric power of hybrid) as yet another example of "trailing edge" technology in RVs. The industry is far from being innovative, largely because they don't do much engineering on their own. Designing and producing new technology is super-expensive, so RV builders don't do it and major RV industry suppliers like Dometic, Thetford and Lippert don't do any more than they need to stay alive. For example, RVs still use the same basic roof a/c units invented 50 years ago, trying to pump adequate air through a 14x14 roof hole designed 60 years ago as a ceiling vent. Propane furnaces are the same tin box heater that was designed in the 1950's, and refrigerators much the same, only somewhat larger. It took major fire scare among buyers to get RV makers to begin to install residential fridges, and Dometic & Norcold/Thetford still haven't embraced the idea of a compressor fridge or even an improved absorption design.


The industry is so heavily driven by purchase cost (because buyers are focused there) that long term issues like reliability, operating costs, and maintenance aren't even on the priority list.


Tesla has spent literally billions developing electric vehicle technology and production tooling. Even so, each new Tesla model comes at a cost estimated to be on the order of $0.5B. The auto makers are pumping billions into electric tech and truck chassis manufacturers are dumping additional hundreds of millions into expanding electric car tech for medium & heavy trucks. Only about 11,000 motorized RVs sold last year, so an extra $1B/year in R&D costs comes to about $9000 each. Are you ready to add that much to your next motorhome purchase? Heck, many buyers won't even pop for the extra cost of AGM or LiFe batteries!

[radar]

Originally Posted by jcussen

Good point, but even at $5 million, how is battery power going to give you the same independence as 300 gal of diesel? Many motorhomes can travel 1000's of miles or run all their equipment for weeks on a tank of diesel when boondocking far away from charging stations?
Can't see motorhomes with today's technology. But cars for sure.

Yep. 1000 mile electric motorhomes are not on the near horizon. 400 would be adequate for many of us though.

[Ray,IN]

A city 10 miles from me has been running Gillig chassis hybrid city bus's for the last 12 years. I've never seen one that doesn't have the diesel engine running.