Great job providing that info. Was well written
5klbs towing cap with gas range extender?
- Thread starter mattrawls93
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Just to be clear - the message I saw said they were putting the gas tank for the Harvester EREV further to the rear (behind the battery) in the center section of the vehicle. I have not heard anything about them changing the location of the engine (generator). I have seen conflicting info about where the engine is going to be. I have seen reliable sources say the engine will be "in front of", "above", and "behind" the rear axle.
I thought I saw something from a SM employee on here recently that the Harvester would be forward of the rear axle with the battery shifted forward and the fuel tank shifted to the rear. But I could easily could be misremembering or misinterpreting.
It would be @Jamie@ScoutMotors He’s the one who posts that kind of stuff. I don’t pay as much attention to towing things since I don’t tow so I don’t remember.
BeerParty, interestingly enough, when I have theoretical conversations with any AI chatbot of your choosing, the answer is almost always the same - It is the batteries. LFP batteries are less capable for delivering "power bursts" - i.e., the high instantaneous torque or power needed for heavy towing. I'm guessing Scout cannot solve this, just like any other truck EV manufacturer. Also this bit of info from AI conversation -
Compared with higher-energy-density chemistries (like NMC / NCA / NMCA), LFP typically offers lower energy density per weight/volume.
That means to get the same range (or enough power reserve for heavy towing), an LFP-based pack needs to be larger/heavier — which can impose design compromises (weight, space, cost) especially on consumer-truck platforms. As a result, many high-towing modern EV trucks still use nickel-based chemistries (NMC or variants) to balance energy density, power output, and towing performance. /// So, for now - I'm confident in my decision to switch to BEV Scout. I want a real capable truck, not a Hyundai Santa Cruz capable truck. Apologies if anyone here owns one of those.
This was in a November post on the forums:
Nice update from Jamie at Scout Motors -
A very early cutaway/rendered image we showed had the gas tank up front. We have since moved it under the rear seat area (like typical vehicles) and that allows us to move the batteries to the front for better weight distribution as they are heavier than even the full tank of fuel and engine/generator.
I hadn't thought of using a heat pump instead of liquid cooling for the Harvester's ICE. Given that later model (water-cooled) 911's seem to provide a good template in terms of thermal mgmt. Curious to hear your thoughts on how the two approaches compare...
The location of the Harvester engine (midship) and the likely desire to retain the frunk suggests to me a more efficient thermal management solution for the Harvester engine would be to use a heat pump and a heat exchanger to exchange heat with the normal antifreeze liquid in the engine.
A couple of advantages include:
- The ability to warm the engine in the garage without combustion. Run the electrical heat pump to heat up the antifreeze and pump that hot liquid through the engine. This would enable getting the engine to be ready to use immediately without the danger of carbon monoxide in the garage.
- Keeping the battery warm during the very cold could be a lot easier by using the waste heat from the Harvester engine. Having a heat exchanger within the system would enable more efficient battery use.
- Improved thermal management and rapid response to thermal changes.
- Towing up a hill, for example, might suddenly increase the need for a lot more thermal management. A heat pump can create that response much more quickly than any other thermal management solution.
Not my realm but I remember early on Scott said they had a very innovative solution for thermal management. Will be interesting to discuss when they provide more information
Watched a video on Rivian ownership. Apparently they were struggling with just cooling the interior and battery. Poster did a 5k mile road trip - at one point they were getting a negative charge rate. They had several BAD charge rates when trying to charge in hot environments. One got so bad, that between the AC and cooling the battery they were loosing state of charge while on the charger (the DC fast charger was charging below level 2 rates - and apparently the cooling system was using more electricity than it). Poster also mentioned several times they were warned by the vehicle that pet mode might not be able to keep the interior temps at a safe level. What's the purpose of pet mode if it does not work in the heat?
A year ago, I posted in multiple threads about making sure the Scout worked in hot climates as well as cold - but I did not realize how rough the heat was on Rivians before that video.
A year ago, I posted in multiple threads about making sure the Scout worked in hot climates as well as cold - but I did not realize how rough the heat was on Rivians before that video.
I hope what the poster experienced with the Rivian was a one-off of a failing vehicle. There are plenty of Rivian owners on the Scout forum who would be voicing concerns about their vehicles if they were experiencing these kinds of failures.
Can hope so, but the video creator said he had seen similar problems from other people in Rivian forums. I think his problems were largely in Utah with an ambient temp of 110. Perhaps it is something that only happens at a certain temp, and it simply is rare for people to need to charge at those temps.
I can find limited collaboration on a web search, and most of that is due to other issues. More people have complained about their home charger overheating or moreover their charger handle overheating - and those were more from the location putting them in the sun rather than ambient heat or charging heat.
That said, family has a vacation rental with a charger, and we had a client get terrible charge rates last week. Our WAG is that they were using an off brand CCS to NACS adapter and it was not communicating well with the car and charger (we doubted it was overheating, but something communicated it was). We had to massively limit the Level 2 output for the client to get a charge (but it still charged overnight - a model 3 just does not take that much to top off a charge), and we noticed that even after the charger claimed a full charge - there was a significant parasitic drain (I think 3amps). We assumed the client had the vehicle in dog mode or something. Our charger is on the north side of the house, so sun hitting it should not have been a problem, and ambient temps were probably the coldest in months (maybe the battery was in heating mode?)
I can find limited collaboration on a web search, and most of that is due to other issues. More people have complained about their home charger overheating or moreover their charger handle overheating - and those were more from the location putting them in the sun rather than ambient heat or charging heat.
That said, family has a vacation rental with a charger, and we had a client get terrible charge rates last week. Our WAG is that they were using an off brand CCS to NACS adapter and it was not communicating well with the car and charger (we doubted it was overheating, but something communicated it was). We had to massively limit the Level 2 output for the client to get a charge (but it still charged overnight - a model 3 just does not take that much to top off a charge), and we noticed that even after the charger claimed a full charge - there was a significant parasitic drain (I think 3amps). We assumed the client had the vehicle in dog mode or something. Our charger is on the north side of the house, so sun hitting it should not have been a problem, and ambient temps were probably the coldest in months (maybe the battery was in heating mode?)
I’ve run approximately 300 DCFC sessions, most in the Southwest, most in the summer.
I’ve charged the Lightning and the Mustang in >120 degree F ambient temperatures many times. Chargers that don’t have good shade can absolutely derate due to overheating. A 120 degree air temperature means at least 150 degrees metal cabinets if they’re exposed to the sun. And without fantastic cooling equipment, the interior of those cabinets can get a lot warmer.
I’ve never experienced the kind of issue you describe while charging on any DCFC with an adapter or without. I have had the chargers run at low rates, but never as low as a Level 2 charging session. Though sometimes low enough I moved on sooner than I might have otherwise.
I don’t have pet mode, but I have left the AC on full blast without any trouble charging. The truck sounds like it’s running a jet engine when it’s doing this. But so far it’s only been limited in charging speed by the charger (or by the adapter) rather than the truck’s battery temperature.
I *believe* but have not dug into the details enough to be certain that the Gen 1 Rivians had a design flaw whereby the cabin AC was also used to cool the battery. This works fine for most situations, but in extreme heat this could cause issues. From what information I can find, the AC unit is a 6 kW heat pump. Even if it had a COP of 5 (unlikely), it would only be able to move 30 kW while running at 100%. If both the cabin and the battery are hot, the single heat pump used for both may have trouble managing temperatures.
Hopefully Scout will give the battery and motors their own heat pumps to manage their thermals separately from the cabin’s.
From my reading and experience, most home charger issues are due to poor installations, failing chargers, or very cheap products. But this one sounds weird.
It wouldn’t surprise me if they had a cheap adapter with faulty bus bars (there’s no communications built into the adapters). With cheap components, cheap adapters can very easily overheat.
Many Teslas had (have?) 3% or more per day parasitic losses. But a 3 Amp loss is huge. A long-range M3 has an 82 kWh battery. At 350 Volts, that’s 234 Ah. A 3 Amp loss over 8 hours is ~10% battery loss. They had something else wrong with their vehicle.
I would take a look at your EVSE and make sure it’s still in good condition.
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Not technically a loss of charge on their vehicle - we saw the draw when remotely monitoring the charger. I would love to say we would not normally remotely monitor the charger (but we have had a lot of charge theft by non-tenants) - and maybe that would even be true. But with all the problems the tenet was having with the charger, my brother-in-law had logged in saw the continued draw after the charger had had tagged the vehicle as fully charged. Kind of suspect that the tenant was in a rented Tesla - either playing with it or not understanding it.
To be clear - if this was an actual Rivian "ownership" issue, there would be a recall. Of course, the owner may have experienced isolated issues with that specific vehicle and/or that specific charger, but this is not something to be expected as an owner when charging an EV in the heat. I have been in 100-degree heat, charging at a DCFC directly in the sun in the mid-atlantic while on a 3 week road-trip. Zero issues to report, even while sitting in the truck with the AC on for some sessions.