Help me decide BEV or EREV

[speedrye]

They’ll need to route heat-exchange fluid to and through the engine and back to some where they can dump the heat. That fluid could be air, but air isn’t great for moving energy, so it would not be my first choice.

I’d run pressurized CO2 or another refrigerant in a heat pump with the heat pump and associated air source heat exchanging happening at the front of the vehicle. Then I’d run the coolant lines through the frame to the engine to do the engine heat exchange using the refrigerant running through the engine. The fluid pump would also be at the front of the vehicle so there would be no “water pump” mechanism on the engine. All of the fluid pumping would be electrical and under the frunk.

The reason to run the heat-exchange fluid to the front is to provide cabin heating from the engine waste heat in the winter. And the reason to have an electric “water pump” is to run heated fluid to the engine (while on shore power) during the winter so the cabin and the engine are heated to ideal temperature before the engine is even started. This would allow winter preconditioning of the cabin, battery, and engine while the Harvester is in a garage. Running an engine in a closed garage would be unsafe, so this finds a way around that issue.

I picture a plumbing manifold with @J Alynn's hamster managing the valves...

I'm thinking a traditional EV heat pump/battery cooling solution with maybe an extra core for cooling for the Harvester. Much like a normal radiator with an extra core for A/C or automatic transmission cooling. Allows for redundancy of systems. I'd originally thought of sharing coolant for engine/battery, but the engine temps of 120F-140F don't play nicely with the ideal operating temps of the battery. I'd love to be able to repurpose the heat generated by the Harvester, but can't justify the extra complications/expense required to do so.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

I stopped counting failure points…

I mean, there are fewer in that hypothetical system than one with the engine in the same place using a traditional water pump and air-liquid cooling via basic radiator...

Another reason to stay with BEV.