Please give us a clearer definition around what you see as "Gas and Go". This is not a term in my vernacular, not something that I (personally) use in dialog ever. I'm guessing some people here are also wondering the same thing.
Theoretically:
Whenever I hear the term "Gas and Go" on this board, I envision that the truck had reached a critically low SOC and that the gas tank for the generator is fully depleted... Basically, the power sources are BOTH on "E", and the driver (for the purposes of this exercise) has limped into a gas station. Now the truck still has a critically low SOC. So, the driver fills the tank for the generator and the Harvester kicks back on and starts producing electricity. Are the "Gas and Go" people saying that simply filling the tank allows a driver to suddenly tear off into the sunset with a 0% SOC on the battery, at full performance because the Harvester suddenly has gas? Does "Gas and Go" = "no wait time"?
That would not be my expectation with a small generator & a big truck, and based upon what I have heard so far. I would envision that you would need to run the Harvester (once filled) for some defined amount of time to reach at least a 10%-20% SOC before departing (for example) after the filling the Harvester tank. Isn't that the entire point of having a DEFINED range? If the truck were able to take gas and simply drive away immediately with ZERO battery, then how is a Scout any different from a HYBRID Truck or PHEV?
Not sure where you get negative press from such a capable off-road worthy TRUCK if the implementation allows for a 500 mile range. If you have gone 500 miles, then you want to go another 500 miles (without stopping sooner), I would think that you would have to re-charge the battery and you would need to re-fill the tank.
Gas and go is a term that has definitely been used with EREV's. Not sure where I heard it first, but since I heard it, I have been using it. It means exactly what it sounds like. Essentially where the generator can generate enough electrical output for the vehicle to continue driving while maintaining a state of charge.
You get gas, and you keep driving. I envision it working it very similarly to how most PHEV's operate. Where the SOC drops to some specified point, and the generator kicks on.
That point for the ramcharger is apparently 16%. But in "Tow mode" they increase the buffer to 35%, to help on mountain passes/etc.
FWIW, the Harvester UI on the scouts from CES had a user selectable "when does the harvester turn on" point, where it appeared you could drag/drop the point anywhere you wanted, presumably up to "turn on at 100%".
If the truck were able to take gas and simply drive away immediately with ZERO battery, then how is a Scout any different from a HYBRID Truck or PHEV?
For the purpose of clarity,
the Harvester models ARE HYBRIDS. They are
SERIES hybrids (that is the definition of an EREV), not a
PARALLEL hybrid (PHEV).
If the harvester battery pack was actually at zero (actual zero, not the lowest point where the generator usually kicked on), then there might be some performance loss when the generator output alone isn't able to keep up. Now, if they'll let you do that or not is a different question. In that case, I could see them either preventing you from leaving until you get up to some percentage SOC (or do a notification of potentially reduced performance/top speed, or a recommendation that you let it charge or something like that).
But, given we're talking about it generating enough electrical energy to drive at 70-80mph, that would mean its generating something with at least 25-35kw of output, which should be more than enough power to move around even at very low/critically low SOC, which is "gas and go" to me.
Isn't that the entire point of having a DEFINED range?
The Ramcharger does this too. I read this as the battery size + fuel tank size personally.
It is supposed to do ~142miles on EV range alone, then up to 690 miles using gas, and features a ~27 gal gas tank. Which means that it does ~548 miles of range on the gasoline generator alone (which coincidentally works out to ~20mpg, which sounds about right).
The Harvester has 150 miles of EV range, and 500 total mile range, for ~350 miles of range on gasoline. If we assume the same ~20mpg as the Ramcharger, that works out to a ~17.5gal tank, which seems like a reasonable guess.
And yes, I do keep mentioning the Ramcharger, as it is the closest competitor to the Scout models, and it is one that is releasing before the Scouts, and as the first EREV in the category, and the first EREV in the US market in general for quite a while, I do think it will functionally set the expectations for what an EREV is in the USA. And personally, I think Scout will be heavily benchmarking the Ramcharger (keep in mind that the Ramcharger is rated for a 40-100% higher tow rating than the Scouts, at 14k lbs, so it does need a bigger generator).