Seeing a lot of chatter about Jerry can lookalikes that actually hide a battery for extra range (which sounds awesome but is probably impractical with 2024 tech). What about using Jerry cans for regular old gasoline that can be fed to the harvester? Do we have any sense of how much extra nominal range one might get per 5.3gal of gas?
Jerry Cans + Harvester Range Extender
- Thread starter ScubaDr1ver
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5 gallons of gasoline weighs about 30 lbs. Gasoline has an energy density about 75 times higher than a lithium ion battery. So if you have a battery with the same amount of energy as 5 gallons of gas it would weigh about 375 lbs!
However, burning gas to turn an alternator to charge a battery to turn a motor to turn the wheels is a bit less efficient than burning gas to turn the wheels. On the other hand the fact that a generator moves at a fixed speed can improve its efficiency compared to an engine connected to a transmission.
I hope it’s possible to run the Harvester to charge a parked Scout but it might be a slow process. The generator might need to run for 2 or more minutes to produce charge for 1 min of typical driving. But that’s just a guess.
However, burning gas to turn an alternator to charge a battery to turn a motor to turn the wheels is a bit less efficient than burning gas to turn the wheels. On the other hand the fact that a generator moves at a fixed speed can improve its efficiency compared to an engine connected to a transmission.
I hope it’s possible to run the Harvester to charge a parked Scout but it might be a slow process. The generator might need to run for 2 or more minutes to produce charge for 1 min of typical driving. But that’s just a guess.
This brings up an interesting point - I wonder how all this will work in terms of the harvester actually charging the EV. Seems like it would not really re-charge the EV batteries significantly while keeping the vehicle running at full power. Perhaps it will allow the harvester to run while the vehicle isn't being used, but I wonder how much that would actually accomplish. You aren't getting 800v/350Kw charging from the harvester motor...
Maybe...just maybe...the harvester will only be connected to the drive system through some sort of high-voltage capacitor and isn't even able to charge the EV batteries at all.
Did I miss any discussion about this?
The more I think about it - the more I just want the all-EV version.
Maybe...just maybe...the harvester will only be connected to the drive system through some sort of high-voltage capacitor and isn't even able to charge the EV batteries at all.
Did I miss any discussion about this?
The more I think about it - the more I just want the all-EV version.
This seems right.
I was also interested in the Ramcharger - my limited understanding is that it will have a V6 that generates mechanical power, which is converted to electrical power by its generator. That generator increases the power to the motor and gearbox when needed.
We know we're not getting a V6, but would that mean that the Harvester's extended range comes from the addition of supplemental power to the drive system vs just adding a few Kw of charging power? I'm thinking accelerating, hills, towing etc. when you'd normally watch your gas gauge literally move towards E under high RPM's.
****edited****
After researching more, everything does point to “recharging” vs power supplementation.
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This is actually how diesel electric locomotives work, but of course diesels are even more thermally efficient and pack more joules per liter of fuel than gasoline does. And they pull literally millions of pounds of cargo in each train, for hundreds of miles.
Think about this - if all you do is drive around town and occasionally play around off-road for a few tens of miles locally, then the EV will be fine. You'll figure out how to relate state of charge to range pretty quickly.
If you want to overland - well, you can't carry a Jerry can of electrons around. Well, you can, it's just called a "battery." And there's no such thing as auxiliary EV batteries.
This is exactly why the range extender appeals to me and alot of other people that want to road trip and off road trip their scout. Sure I can daily the thing around town and whatnot the limited amount of driving I do in a personal vehicle and not need the extender. But if/when I want to go overland or go out somewhere for a week of camping and road tripping the extender becomes very practical. And if it can act like a generator at camp and power things like lighting, heating, etc and still maintain some battery range I'm definitely interested.
Welcome to the forum and you're right, this is exactly the reason why I reserved and want the Harvester option. Not for daily around town trips but for when I'm off-road and out away from any charging stations, but also the ability to use it like a generator at camp.
It seems you could kind of do that now with Ford Lighting pickup truck and Honda Generator in the bed, and a bonus you get much more EV range with a bigger battery. The rest of the time you don't need it and can just leave the generator at home.
I think to really appeal to the mass it's gunna need to do more than what a basic generator can do.
Like precondition the battery pack in cold weather. Also saving the space and manual labor of hauling around a big generator is a major plus too.
For my money, I'd want it all. I'd want it to produce enough power to drive the truck at highway speed, even with an exhausted battery, and I would want it to function as a backup generator for my house, camp, etc...
It could be a very handy item. There is a huge elephant in the room on whether it has enough power to do highway speeds on the generator only after you run down the battery.
Your hopes are at odds with the concept artwork from Scout which shows a small engine in place of where the 32in spare rides under the truck bed. There is also an empty frunk for storage, so no big engine. The little engine is not going to be anywhere near large enough to run the vehicle down the highway with a run down traction battery. While we don’t have all the details, there is no mystery. It is clear that it is a small engine with a relatively large battery pack, one Scout said is “a little bit smaller” than the full size battery pack.
I think we are looking at a battery pack that is about 80% full sized and about a 750cc engine. The vehicle goes 500 miles with the Harvester running the entire time, and the engine would provide energy for about 200 of those miles over several hours. Alternatively it goes about 150 miles on pure EV before the Harvester kicks in, at which point the battery is probably little less than 50% and the range is then extended to about 375 miles or so. If the Harvester engine is small, as shown in the images, it would have to be set to come on long before the battery is empty or it would never be of any use. I believe this reconciles all the available data. My estimates are probably off a bit, but what’s certain is that the images Scout showed us depict a very small engine. A small engine will probably need less than a 10 gallons gas tank, which explains why the battery is just “a little bit smaller” to make space for it.
There will be 500 miles of full EV performance with 1000 ft/lbs of torque. Then we’ll need to charge and top up the gas tank. Or, if we can’t charge it might be possible to use the Harvester to charge, but this might take several hours to do what a fast charger does in 30 mins.
So how did the original planning meeting go?
"Remember how bad those BMW i3 Rex generators sucked? Hold My Beer!"
If it happens that we have to charge AND fill up with gas before we can go again that would be a deal breaker for many I believe, including myself. My hopes are that if you need to keep going after 500 miles you can fill up with gas and go another say 300 miles before filling up with gas again. It would be only on long road trips or while towing, but it would happen. To have to charge AND fuel up after the 500 miles feels a little like it defeats the purpose of being able to fuel up "anywhere" to keep going on adventures, which is the impression I get from the marketing thus far.
I agree on the other points you made though, it will be a smaller engine as that's just what the space available dictates.
Agreed.
I'll go further: If it was that poorly implemented, it could take down the company.
Harvester is critical to Scout Motors business plan and a poorly implemented one, could tip the balance on the whole venture.
About 600 mile days are the norm for us anymore but we have been known to push 700+ miles in a day & if I’ve got to stop and charge along with refueling the gas tank
Why get a Harvester when it caused more inconvenience than a EV
Agreed wholeheartedly. The Harvester implementation will make or break the brand based on the feedback I'm seeing from others. I am rooting for Scout to be a huge success right out of the gates so I hope they can make the Harvester what we all hope it'll be.
Exactly. If we have to fuel up with gas AND charge the battery that's far more of an inconvenience than just an EV. I just don't believe that's what will happen, I have to believe that because I want Scout to succeed.
100% agree. If I have to charge and refuel then that defeats the purpose. What happens if I'm out somewhere that isn't close to a charger? If the engine can't produce the needed power to get me down the road on a flat battery then it completely defeats the purpose I feel like.
If I can get to "civilization" on just the engine and the top off the fuel tank and charge the batteries over lunch, dinner, etc then I'm cool with that, but if it's constantly running the gas engine the whole time making filling and charging necessary every time then I'm not interested as that's an extra inconvenience to charge the thing at home and still have to get gas at some point.
Maybe they will implement a way to run solely electric for local short trips and then can switch over to both for long trips. Who knows.
I feel like the take rate for the harvester will change once it's known how it will function.
Only if they disappoint, by making a limited system that few believe they will.
If they build a system that can just gas and go (as most expect), then no problems with reservations.
I think it'll change even if it's gas and go but still runs the engine 100% of the time. If there's no full ev range plus gas range extension and it's all ev/gas for the 500 then that I feel will hurt sales of the harvester.
If its a 20% smaller battery for the harvester option then we can assume it should go 240ish miles on full electric power. So the harvester has to provide 260 miles of additional range to make their estimates. Either by just running 100% of the time to drop the drain rate in half or if it can truly charge faster than the drain rate and only run for the last 200ish miles reducing the drain rate by 25% to get the 500 mile range. It will be pretty interesting to see how it's implementation is going to work.
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