Silverado EV towing a 21

[GeorgeB]

bborzell, Thanks for your information and take on the EV market. What hybrid Ram did you go with? And how do you like the Ram?

[HABBERDABBER]

[QUOTE=GeorgeB;429168] Could you charge your EV with RV solar panels as you drive down the road?
Yes.
How long would it take to charge your EV parked on a sunny day with RV solar panels?
Forever.
How many panels would make it a reality to charge a parked EV in two days, three days?
It would take a small solar farm.
Where are the electrical engineers when you need one?
Having lunch or on break.

[Vermilye]

Originally Posted by GeorgeB

I understand solar panels put out a minimal amount of power to recharge an EV, but I still can't wonder about the following questions. Please take my questions lightheartedly. Could you charge your EV with RV solar panels as you drive down the road? How long would it take to charge your EV parked on a sunny day with RV solar panels? How many panels would make it a reality to charge a parked EV in two days, three days? Where are the electrical engineers when you need one? Ha HA! I'm very excited to see how this all works for you and where this EV industry will take us. Keep us informed.

Well, this guy keeps his Class A running & charges his Chevy Volt, but he has 4000 watts of solar & 10 Battleborn 100 amp hour batteries in the trailer. He is waiting on parts to add the bottom 3 panels...

[GeorgeB]

HarrberDapper, Thanks for your response. It made me smile.

[GeorgeB]

Vermilye, that's a interesting set up!

[bborzell]

Originally Posted by GeorgeB

bborzell, Thanks for your information and take on the EV market. What hybrid Ram did you go with? And how do you like the Ram?

It is a 5.7L V8 with a 48V eTorque motor/generator that adds 130 pound feet to the standard 410 lb. ft. of the Hemi engine.

No complaints. It handles our 21C with ease, particularly on long mountain pass crossings.

[EscapingDan]

Originally Posted by bborzell

One possible, but not yet fully explored option would be for RV parks to set up for charging. A level 2 portable charger could certainly charge most currently available EV batteries overnight, but I am guessing that plugging into a 50 amp AND 30 amp pedestal will not be a popular practice in the eyes of RV park owners.

I’ve heard you can charge generally at parks without a problem (is it any different from the guy running his AC?). Also heard some don’t like it, but really it’s a business opportunity

I was disappointed to cancel the Lightning, but I am not willing to deal with real world daily tow limits in double digits. Instead, I bought a mild hybrid RAM that will have to do until manufacturers decide to purpose build an EV for towing campers.

Yeah I don’t think the Lightning is ready for real towing. It’s a ICE retread, and they don’t have an EV platform yet. The 2025 Lightning will be a new from the ground up EV platform. GM OTOH is already on their third architecture (Ultium) and is doing many ground up EV’s. I think the Silverado is the first where this is an option, but as I say won’t be without cautions AFAIK.

Originally Posted by GeorgeB

I understand solar panels put out a minimal amount of power to recharge an EV, but I still can't wonder about the following questions. Please take my questions lightheartedly. Could you charge your EV with RV solar panels as you drive down the road?

Average solar panel outputs say 250W @ 20% efficiency, if we can push efficiency to say 80% then we’d be over a kW/panel. You could put a panel, or maybe two on your car you might have a couple kW. For reference my Bolt at 55 is burning about 10 kW, so yeah would help a bit but not a lot, and it would depend on pushing efficiency really high.

The real solution is a new battery chemistry, which is being heavily investigated. Solid state, new chemistry, flow battery or just a paste battery with lower weight somehow. Just getting the energy density up is the solution.

GM is planning on converting their HD trucks to BEV last in 2035, so doing it 2025 is definitely early adopter, but in ten years it will be common I don’t doubt.

[JeffreyG]

Originally Posted by GeorgeB

I understand solar panels put out a minimal amount of power to recharge an EV, but I still can't wonder about the following questions. Please take my questions lightheartedly. Could you charge your EV with RV solar panels as you drive down the road? How long would it take to charge your EV parked on a sunny day with RV solar panels? How many panels would make it a reality to charge a parked EV in two days, three days? Where are the electrical engineers when you need one? Ha HA! I'm very excited to see how this all works for you and where this EV industry will take us. Keep us informed.

The energy capacity of EVs is large, especially any EV that could be used for towing an RV. Solar and generators are implausible for charging. Take the 200 kWh top end Silverado EV which is (IMO) still marginal for towing an RV due to range.

To charge with a 300 watt solar array: About a month of sun, meaning 2-3 months real time

To charge with a 2 kW invertor generator: Most of a week

To charge with a 7 kW ‘contractor’ style generator: 2 days

[HABBERDABBER]

Originally Posted by Vermilye

Well, this guy keeps his Class A running & charges his Chevy Volt, but he has 4000 watts of solar & 10 Battleborn 100 amp hour batteries in the trailer. He is waiting on parts to add the bottom 3 panels...

Why bother to charge a Volt? It has it's own ICE engine to motivate it. A Bolt, yes. Impressive and large set-up, but you'd still have to be awfully patient to get a full charge.

[DanandDaphne]

It's a noble experiment you are undertaking but I don't have really high hopes for using an EV to tow with at this time.

From what I have read 36 KWH of stored energy is the equivalent of a gallon of gasoline, so with a 200KWH you will only have the equivalent of 5.5 gallons of gas. The advantage of electric motors over ICEs is the higher efficiency, I believe the most efficient ICE cars can hit almost 40% full size 4wd trucks would be considerably less. If your efficiency is twice as good as an ICE that would give you the equivalent of 10 gallons of gas. I get 10 to 12mpg towing some might get as good as 14mpg so this means a range of 100 to 140 miles?

Is this all wrong? Am I missing something?

[YakRV]

Originally Posted by EscapingDan

Yeah I don’t think the Lightning is ready for real towing. It’s a ICE retread, and they don’t have an EV platform yet. The 2025 Lightning will be a new from the ground up EV platform.

Not sure I quite follow this. How can the Lightning be an “ICE retread” when it doesn’t have an ICE? The front “engine compartment” is basically a vacant trunk. All the write ups I’ve seen call it an EV. I must be missing something in your meaning.

That being said, I agree it currently appears to be very limited in towing range for hauling something like an Escape. Based on Ford’s track record for producing true work trucks, however, I have no doubt they’ll be at or above the competition as time goes by.

[EscapingDan]

Originally Posted by YakRV

Not sure I quite follow this. How can the Lightning be an “ICE retread” when it doesn’t have an ICE? The front “engine compartment” is basically a vacant trunk. All the write ups I’ve seen call it an EV. I must be missing something in your meaning.

Mfgs have two choices, either take existing ICE components (chassis, body panel etc) and make a BEV out of it, or do a ground up BEV, which takes longer and is harder if they don’t have a long track record or a platform. GM has the longest, having done the first modern era BEV in the 90’s with the EV1. They call that their first architecture (I forget the naming scheme), the Bolt is generation 2, and Ultium is generation 3. But the Bolt was an ICE retread (interestingly the EV1 was from scratch I believe), it shares many components with ICE, the chassis is fundamentally a - well I forget the vehicle, but internally it still has pattern stamps and bits from it’s ICE heritage. The stick shift in my 2017 - now gone in the latest iteration, is kind of crazy. Originally meant for electronic transmission ICE shifting which translates mechanical motion to electrical message on the CAN bus, back to an actuator for the transmission. Except in the Bolt it has a reverse actuator to turn it back into a CAN bus message for the traction system. Nuts … but I actually like that shifter.

Anyhow, a Ford exec said that to get management sign off on the project they had to make it profitable, which meant leveraging the F150 pricing power. So they reused as many components as possible. This isn’t quite a fair comparison, but think of a F150 with a battery and motors bolted on, with some different cosmetics. Problem with these retreads is they’re not optimized for electric propulsion, so you’re getting suboptimal handling, aero, GVWR and so forth compared to a ground up BEV design. Not to mention that these projects have been essentially one-offs for Ford, they’ve resisted BEV’s for years (that electric Focus was a total joke). So they don’t have a strategy or a platform - until now. Well they’re working on one at least.

Back when ICE won the war between BEV, Steam and horses around 1900, a horse drawn carriage adapted to a motor was not as good as a full redesign. Which is what they did initially, but it was GM (not Ford actually) who really brought design into cars. They created the very first corporate design department in US history. There’s a great book “Fins” on the history of this (referencing the 50’s fins on cars).

[YakRV]

Thanks. Enjoy your Silverado.

[Downsized]

Congrats on the future EV truck. Please keep us apprised of the progress and experience.

We have over 12000 kilometres across Canada and back so far this season with our EV RV combo and we leave on another 2300 kilometre journey in a few days on a great circle through the BC interior and Vancouver island. Should be fun.

[EscapingDan]

Originally Posted by Downsized

We have over 12000 kilometres across Canada and back so far this season with our EV RV combo and we leave on another 2300 kilometre journey in a few days on a great circle through the BC interior and Vancouver island. Should be fun.

That’s a Tesla? So what’s the charging situation in Canada? Electrify America said they’re going more into Canada I believe but at the moment only have a few stations, I’ve got the impression the charging isn’t that great but would love a report from somebody on the ground.

On another note, I looked at the Ultium roadmap, at least what I could find of it. Right now they’re on gen 1 which is 8.9 kWh/module or about 200 kWh 400 miles maximum with double stacked 24 modules. The Hummer has this with 320/something miles (it’s big) and in the Silverado we get the 400 range.

However they’re working on a chemistry to give them 500 and 600 miles, due around 2025. That’s not long away. Additionally they’ve been working with a MIT startup for a bunch of years on a semi-solid state battery which is lower cost and much lower weight. The engineering spec of this looks good, and a semi-solid state battery should be much more feasible that a fully solid state, so I think they’re on the right track.

Towing with a 500-600 mile range should solve the problem, if it’s lighter you’ll get more GVWR to boot.

[Downsized]

Originally Posted by EscapingDan

That’s a Tesla? So what’s the charging situation in Canada? Electrify America said they’re going more into Canada I believe but at the moment only have a few stations, I’ve got the impression the charging isn’t that great but would love a report from somebody on the ground.

On another note, I looked at the Ultium roadmap, at least what I could find of it. Right now they’re on gen 1 which is 8.9 kWh/module or about 200 kWh 400 miles maximum with double stacked 24 modules. The Hummer has this with 320/something miles (it’s big) and in the Silverado we get the 400 range.

However they’re working on a chemistry to give them 500 and 600 miles, due around 2025. That’s not long away. Additionally they’ve been working with a MIT startup for a bunch of years on a semi-solid state battery which is lower cost and much lower weight. The engineering spec of this looks good, and a semi-solid state battery should be much more feasible that a fully solid state, so I think they’re on the right track.

Towing with a 500-600 mile range should solve the problem, if it’s lighter you’ll get more GVWR to boot.

Hi Dan. I haven’t been following the GM story closely but they seem pretty serious about breaking into market. I wish them well.

Yes it’s a Tesla model Y with towing package. The supercharger network is pretty good in Canada, or at least where we have travelled. Certainly no problems on our BC to Quebec tour. The public networks are pretty good in BC and Quebec but sadly lacking in every other province. We do use public networks from time to time when convenient or maybe because of easier trailer access. But generally we use superchargers. Easy peasy. Many superchargers will have a trailer stall like this one. Only good for small trailers but then again, that’s all we can pull. . .

Electrify America is called Electrify Canada. They are small players here. The bigger players are FLO, BC hydro in BC, circuit electrique in Quebec, Petrocan, etc etc. Lots of regional companies.

[Doug2000]

I have been watching many of the YouTube channels having to do with EV's. I am an enthusiast not a hater but the numbers don't work out.

So if a given EV has a range of 240 miles non towing and a range of 160 towing and you work within the suggested battery range of 20% to 80% that only gives you a true range of 96 miles. So every 96 miles you need to spend 45 minutes charging. It took me 4 days to travel Toronto to Vegas with my 4Runner towing our 17B, with an EV, maybe 3 weeks. These are just rough numbers, but we are very far from using EV's to tow.

Please keep in mind chargers are not always available or working. YouTuber Out of Spec Motoring had many issues with the Ford products communicating with the charger. Last year in Hope BC there were 65 Tesla's waiting for one of 8 chargers. I expect after that many Tesla's were on Autotrader.

My son shows me a video today, a Tesla owner ran out of gas, he needed it for the Honda generator in his trunk.

[Downsized]

Originally Posted by Doug2000

I have been watching many of the YouTube channels having to do with EV's. I am an enthusiast not a hater but the numbers don't work out.

So if a given EV has a range of 240 miles non towing and a range of 160 towing and you work within the suggested battery range of 20% to 80% that only gives you a true range of 96 miles. So every 96 miles you need to spend 45 minutes charging. It took me 4 days to travel Toronto to Vegas with my 4Runner towing our 17B, with an EV, maybe 3 weeks. These are just rough numbers, but we are very far from using EV's to tow.

Please keep in mind chargers are not always available or working. YouTuber Out of Spec Motoring had many issues with the Ford products communicating with the charger. Last year in Hope BC there were 65 Tesla's waiting for one of 8 chargers. I expect after that many Tesla's were on Autotrader.

My son shows me a video today, a Tesla owner ran out of gas, he needed it for the Honda generator in his trunk.

I suppose it would depend on the trailer one is towing. I’m not sure how far Vegas is from Toronto but when we did our cross Canada tour we decided to just blast thru northern Ontario. We essentially knocked off about 600 kilometres per day pulling our trailer without too much difficulty although we were charging about 3 times per day. It really wasn’t that big a deal. Honestly I can’t imagine needing or using a Honda generator to charge our tesla.

I can’t say I have ever encountered a Tesla Supercharger or FLO DC fast charger offline.

Since that video of the cars waiting in hope for a supercharger there have been an additional 24 superchargers added in hope, for a total of 32 superchargers as well another half dozen public DC fast chargers. We use them often. We have never waited in line for a supercharger, and we travel a lot of miles every year, mostly towing our trailer. We are probably north of 14000 kilometres for the year and are still travelling.

I have no experience with the EV trucks so can’t speak to that.

Cheers.

[Rockhead]

Originally Posted by Downsized

I suppose it would depend on the trailer one is towing. I’m not sure how far Vegas is from Toronto but when we did our cross Canada tour we decided to just blast thru northern Ontario. We essentially knocked off about 600 kilometres per day pulling our trailer without too much difficulty although we were charging about 3 times per day. It really wasn’t that big a deal. Honestly I can’t imagine needing or using a Honda generator to charge our tesla.

I can’t say I have ever encountered a Tesla Supercharger or FLO DC fast charger offline.

Since that video of the cars waiting in hope for a supercharger there have been an additional 24 superchargers added in hope, for a total of 32 superchargers as well another half dozen public DC fast chargers. We use them often. We have never waited in line for a supercharger, and we travel a lot of miles every year, mostly towing our trailer. We are probably north of 14000 kilometres for the year and are still travelling.

I have no experience with the EV trucks so can’t speak to that.

Cheers.

How much does your trailer weigh

[Downsized]

Originally Posted by Rockhead

How much does your trailer weigh

It’s about 3420 lbs loaded for camping including water beer and smokies. .