Bigger Gas Tank - 15 Gallons is Abysmal

[Demlockian]

First, let's review battery basics, as I understand them: for optimal daily use, electric vehicles (EVs) are generally recommended to stay within an 80% maximum State of Charge (SOC) and avoid consistently dropping below a 20% minimum SOC.

To maximize the longevity of an electric vehicle's battery, a practical guideline is to consider approximately 60% of the battery capacity as the usable range for daily driving. This stems from adhering to an 80% SOC upper limit for and avoiding consistently dropping below a 20% SOC, which minimizes battery stress and degradation.

Realistic Driving Use Case

With an effective 60% SOC window the Harvester's 150-mile range translates to roughly 90 miles of usable range. This effectively addresses the daily driving needs of average commuters, as urban commuters typically travel 20-30 miles round trip (leaving approximately 65 miles of extra range) and rural commuters travel 40-60 miles (leaving around 40 miles of extra range).

For longer journeys, the Harvester's ability to add 300 miles (stopping at 1/6 tank remaining) of range (23.3 MPG) is invaluable. Considering that the average long-distance family road trip is roughly 750 miles (per ChatGPT), and the Scout with the Harvester can travel approximately 390 miles before refueling, a single 15-gallon refill extends the range to 690 miles, enabling completion of the average road trip with just two stops.

However, range is significantly impacted when towing a trailer. According to ChatGPT, towing at 70% of a vehicle's maximum capacity can reduce range by approximately 40%. This would decrease the EV range to around 55 miles and the gasoline range to 175 miles (accounting the same 1/6 remainder stop), resulting in a total of 230 miles per cycle. Therefore, completing a 750-mile trip would require refueling the Harvester approximately four or five times, considering that only 175 miles of range are added with each gasoline refuel.

In contrast, a Ford F-150 with a 3.5L EcoBoost engine achieves an estimated 22 MPG on the highway and has a 36-gallon fuel tank, translating to a towing range of nearly 395 miles per refueling stop (stopping at the same 1/6 tank remainder). This enables the F-150 to complete the same 750-mile trip with half (or fewer) the refueling stops compared to a Scout Terra equipped with the Harvester while towing.

All of this is to say that the 15-gallon proposed gas tank size is severely inadequate for real world towing applications. To be comparable, the Harvester needs an optional 25-gallon or larger tank. The 25-gallon tank option would raise the initial range to nearly 600 miles useable, which competes with similar trucks in the segment. Furthermore, it increases the standard towing refuel range from 175 (abysmal) to nearly 300 miles (acceptable). Bigger would still be preferred personally.

Generator Use
It's hard to speculate how long the Harvester would last in generator mode without further details, but let's do some shade tree math here. A 10kW gasoline generator uses about 2.5 gallons of fuel per hour at full load. According to ChatGPT, the average single occurrence power outage is roughly 2.5 hours, allowing the 15 gallon tank to be adequate (only used 6.25 gallons). However, in coastal areas power outages can be upwards of 72 hours due to large storms. With an upgraded 25-gallon tank, the homeowner (or renter) would have 10 hours of uninterrupted service, enough to sleep through the night comfortably (the 15-gallon tank only provides 6 hours).

 

[BeerParty]

Great point about relying on the battery before the generator takes over. I should have been clearer that I was referring to the generator’s performance once the battery is depleted. That said, as I mentioned, the average duration is only about 2.5 hours, which the battery alone should easily handle.

However, I don’t think it’s realistic for homeowners in areas prone to long outages—like those caused by hurricanes—to count on the Harvester for week-long scenarios. It seems best suited for typical outage situations where power is usually restored within 24 hours. I say this mainly as why would I put wear and tear on a ~$80K truck vs ~$1K generator setup.

Even when the battery is depleted, you still get the benefit of having the battery in an EREV. That is why I made the point about total run time of the generator. If you were in a power outage situation and started with a depleted battery in the Harvester, you would still have about two days of power available while only needing to run the generator for five hours. That is what makes the configuration so exceptional and why a 15 gallon tank for gas is plenty when using the EREV to provide backup power during an outage.

I agree, "homeowners in areas prone to long outages" would be much better off with a static backup solution rather than relying on a vehicle of any kind. But as the YouTuber proves from his testing, having a battery provide power for the duration and only running a generator when necessary is much more efficient then just using a generator.

 

[dreamweaver]

I appreciate seeing a post that recognizes that there are many of us who have been on here for a long time and are indeed passionate for the new Scouts. I try on a regular basis to greet as many new members as I can, sometimes I miss a new name. I try on a regular basis to post new threads to gain interest from different points of view-design, community, engineering, etc… my goal is to try and offer viewpoints that encourage “sideline” members to jump in because maybe they have a unique interest and perhaps something I post encourages them to join a conversation.

Admittedly, there are the occasional posts that do get me heated and the forum is certainly just that-a place to discuss opinions and engage people in passionate conversation. But it is also a place to help guide SM.

I’ve never wanted someone to leave this community because of an opinion I had to offer-be it positive or negative. In 2-1/2 years I’ve regularly had people dump on my ideas and so long as they weren’t being completely inappropriate I accepted it. So if Ive made a person feel unwelcome I apologize as that is pretty much the opposite of what I’ve tried to do with my time on this forum.

If there are ways “veteran” members can do more I’m completely for trying. What I have noticed ( as I’ve watched the past two days), as I feel @Chuckles noticed and commented on is there does seem to be a group of about 15 to 20 folks who post regularly, myself included, and it covers all sorts of topics. What I don’t know is what we can do to get newer members and watchers to join the conversations. Sometimes I feel like if the 15-20 or so regulars didn’t comment and post there wouldn’t be much activity. As a side note-I spent 1-1/2 years on the sidelines of the Bronco6G forum and often felt like I couldn’t jump in because I was out of the loop. (Ironically that is also where I learned about this forum and the new Scout venture). I saw the same regular names commenting on that forum so I understand people’s hesitations but at the same time I feel like I’ve met some great connections here and that is what makes me want to jump on here each day and see what’s new. I also like to try adding new threads as I mentioned above. I’ll go so far as to say I’ve DM’d several members here and there because we have something in common or we hung out at the reveal and I enjoyed chatting but I don’t want to talk personal things when we are on here for Scouts. And now we chat regularly which is cool. I’ve also had a number of members DM me to ask questions or get my take on something. With both these scenarios I feel like the forum has succeeded as it is building community. All I can offer is jump in and join a conversation and like @Chuckles implied-find your passion and join a conversation.

Thank you for the heartfelt posting.

And one of the easiest ways a new member can get engaged is search a topic of interest old or new and reply. Because when you do it bubbles up to the top in the “New Posts” where all members can continue the conversation.