Motorhome evolution in a diesel-banned future

AlaskaGuy

AlaskaGuy

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With the recent focus on the emissions from diesel-fuelled vehicles, what do you think will be the future for motorhomes? In the short term, we'll probably see more of the Low Emission Zone type of regulation. And I doubt if diesel will be totally banned. But I am curious if Funsters know what direction-of-travel (PUN INTENDED) the motorhome designers will take. Petrol-electric hybrids? (Can electric motors handle 3.5t vehicles?) LPG-electric hybrids? CNG? (Like the many new buses that run on compressed natural gas) All-electric...if the charging infrastructure was in place???
 
Volvo have a large concept hybrid truck
http://www.volvogroup.com/en-en/news/2017/feb/news-2476234.html
Volvo are also stopping making cars that run only on petrol or diesel next year, so it looks like Hybrid will be the way to go. Batteries for a hybrid Moho will take up a lot of space and weight so I think the under-3500kg-Moho may not be viable
 
There is 22 years left until the ban. Batteries fell in price last year by 40%...
Tesla say they are aiming to drop the price of batteries by 30% when their Gigafactory opens fully.

Historically they have fallen by half every 10 years but this is ramping up now due to mass production caused by demand and the cartel has now been busted.

So the cost of batteries won't be an issue in the future...

On the weight front, When you remove the Diesel engine, transmission, gear box, diesel tank and the rest of the drive train and replace with electric you lose one hell of a lot of weight. This is offset by the weight of the batteries to a degree. However the weight difference currently is around 100KG in the examples I have seen.

Manufacturers will work to get rid of that 100KG excess as demand builds. Lighter braking systems is one example..

For motorhomes.. We won't need to carry leisure batteries any more in a fully electric vehicle so that is 40-80KG of weight loss there already.

I think for most people a 200 mile range will be enough as there will be super chargers everywhere... A 200 Mile range electric motorhome is practical now. By 2040 they will be easily practical and cost effective. I personally would be ok with a vehicle capable of 100-150 Miles as I don't drive for more than 2 hours without taking a coffee/toilet break. Half an hour on charge every 2 hours would suite me just fine.

I honestly don't think hybrids are a workable solution for motorhomes as the added weight of a petrol engine sufficiently powerful enough to move a 3.5T motorhome would make them impractical from a payload point of view. It will either have to be fully electric or full petrol/LPG..
 
What appears to have been "lost" in this whole argument, is the fact that the Energy consumption, needed to produce this "new" technology, is over the lifetime of the device, greater than the existing. The UK is already too dependant upon "Imported" energy, (Last winter we actually imported the balance of electric power from FRANCE!). In fact a current 1 to 5% surplus on any given day!. One Power station goes down, and the whole Crashes. So tell me where the power to charge all these "electric" vehicles is going to come from?. It takes 10 or more years to envisage, plan and commission any new power source.

Or do the "Greenies" have some sort of magic wand, which will solve the issue of Newton`s laws?.

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Hi
Gromett said:
There is 22 years left until the ban. Batteries fell in price last year by 40%...
Tesla say they are aiming to drop the price of batteries by 30% when their Gigafactory opens fully.

Historically they have fallen by half every 10 years but this is ramping up now due to mass production caused by demand and the cartel has now been busted.

So the cost of batteries won't be an issue in the future...

On the weight front, When you remove the Diesel engine, transmission, gear box, diesel tank and the rest of the drive train and replace with electric you lose one hell of a lot of weight. This is offset by the weight of the batteries to a degree. However the weight difference currently is around 100KG in the examples I have seen.

Manufacturers will work to get rid of that 100KG excess as demand builds. Lighter braking systems is one example..

For motorhomes.. We won't need to carry leisure batteries any more in a fully electric vehicle so that is 40-80KG of weight loss there already.

I think for most people a 200 mile range will be enough as there will be super chargers everywhere... A 200 Mile range electric motorhome is practical now. By 2040 they will be easily practical and cost effective. I personally would be ok with a vehicle capable of 100-150 Miles as I don't drive for more than 2 hours without taking a coffee/toilet break. Half an hour on charge every 2 hours would suite me just fine.

I honestly don't think hybrids are a workable solution for motorhomes as the added weight of a petrol engine sufficiently powerful enough to move a 3.5T motorhome would make them impractical from a payload point of view. It will either have to be fully electric or full petrol/LPG..
Click to expand...
@Gromett. I like your argument until the bit where you stop every couple of hours for a quick charge. I don't think they will charge that quickly. Maybe we could supplement the electric plug in model of your hypothesis with an efficient petrol engine , that is used only to charge the batteries ( no gearbox, drive train etc). This could be engaged either with the vehicle at rest if no charging station were available, or whilst driving once battery level was depleted. The latter would probably be better as it would enable a cooling system to work. A large bank of solar power on the roof could also extend the range.
 
These electric recharging places will be interesting . I was talking with a chap who works for a service station chain . He was saying an average refuel today takes about 10 minutes and big queues when busy. Even if you were to only double it to 20 minutes it would be mayhem ., so it will need a massive investment in infrastructure
who is going to foot the bill , wont be oil companies as the likely profit margin wont be there, so will it be the lecky car makers ? Due
to people being able to supply their own electricity very cheaply even if slowly , any "recharge station"will need to have an expensive premium for the speed and convenience .

This might be the route for larger RVs https://nikolamotor.com/one
 
PeteH said:
What appears to have been "lost" in this whole argument, is the fact that the Energy consumption, needed to produce this "new" technology, is over the lifetime of the device, greater than the existing. The UK is already too dependant upon "Imported" energy, (Last winter we actually imported the balance of electric power from FRANCE!). In fact a current 1 to 5% surplus on any given day!. One Power station goes down, and the whole Crashes. So tell me where the power to charge all these "electric" vehicles is going to come from?. It takes 10 or more years to envisage, plan and commission any new power source.

Or do the "Greenies" have some sort of magic wand, which will solve the issue of Newton`s laws?.
Click to expand...

I have posted on this subject multiple times. This is not going to be an issue. Other technologies are coming online really fast that will mitigate this problem. Cars will mainly be charged overnight which will actually help the grid by removing the troughs in production meaning that power stations don't need to wind down overnight.
Secondly with grid scale storage, local storage and home storage starting to ramp up, we will start seeing peak demand being mitigated. Also worth noting that peak demand is falling as power efficient new products are seeing mass take up. For instance LED lighting is now mass market, old school linear power supplies are being replaced with low power switch mode supplies. Main computers are seeing less use and the take up of tablets etc.. Power demand is falling. We imported 50% less electricity than previous year in the last stats I saw.

90% of car charging will take place at home overnight. If ALL electric cars were to be charged from empty at night it still wouldn't reach the level of demand on the grid that we see during peak times.

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Mr Chrysalis said:
A large bank of solar power on the roof could also extend the range.
Click to expand...

It would have to be very very large.

Electric propulsion systems in cars are a little bit different to your average 12v motorhome system.

Take the Tesla car as an example. There are 7104 individual cells giving a pack output of 403v with a 230ah capacity.

Someone who knows more about solar than me might be able to calculate how big the bank of panels would need to be to be effective. I'm guessing significantly bigger than any motorhome roof (y)
 
Mr Chrysalis said:
Hi

@Gromett. I like your argument until the bit where you stop every couple of hours for a quick charge. I don't think they will charge that quickly. Maybe we could supplement the electric plug in model of your hypothesis with an efficient petrol engine , that is used only to charge the batteries ( no gearbox, drive train etc). This could be engaged either with the vehicle at rest if no charging station were available, or whilst driving once battery level was depleted. The latter would probably be better as it would enable a cooling system to work. A large bank of solar power on the roof could also extend the range.
Click to expand...

Lithium batteries can charge at massive speeds. Even basic LifePO4 batteries available today can charge at a 3C rate which means 20 minutes to full. Remember Lithium based batteries operate totally differently to Lead batteries. There is no absorption or float states. At 3C you can put 100% of the charge in, in 20 minutes if you have a powerful enough charger. Super Chargers can put HUGE amounts of energy in and these are being rolled out today. The current generation of Tesla super chargers for instance are 120KW chargers and can put an 80% charge into a 400 mile car in just over 30 minutes.

Even using a petrol engine as a generator for a charger. You would need the petrol engine, a fuel tank and a large charger to be added to the van. This would reduce the space available for batteries and also add to the weight and reduce payload for negligable benefit. Looking ahead in 10 years battery technology will have progressed further meaning 300, 400 and 500 mile battery banks...

Solar panels are a non starter with our use case. In fact we will probably stop putting solar panels on the roof of motorhomes to save weight as we will be using the vehicle electrics for battery power...
 
tacr2man said:
These electric recharging places will be interesting . I was talking with a chap who works for a service station chain . He was saying an average refuel today takes about 10 minutes and big queues when busy. Even if you were to only double it to 20 minutes it would be mayhem ., so it will need a massive investment in infrastructure
who is going to foot the bill ,
Click to expand...

Did you know that 90% of electric cars will be charged at home. That means only 10% of people will be queing for "fuel". The queues will be massively reduced.

The other thing is that recharge points can be put anywhere, unlike petrol stations which need to have massive tanks dug and provide access to fuel tankers etc etc etc.

Supermarkets will start adding chargers, work places will add chargers, public car parks will start adding chargers... In fact I am already seeing chargers in villages in the middle of nowhere...

Private companies are already rolling out charger networks.

Electric companies such as ecotricity already have a national network of charging points and are expanding them as fast as they can. It will be in the interest of electric companies to compete to provide charge points so they can sell their electricity...

Some councils are already adding charge points to street lights..

Seriously queuing will be reduced with electric vehicles..
 
Gromett said:
The other thing is that recharge points can be put anywhere, unlike petrol stations which need to have massive tanks dug and provide access to fuel tankers etc etc etc.

Supermarkets will start adding chargers, work places will add chargers, public car parks will start adding chargers... In fact I am already seeing chargers in villages in the middle of nowhere...
Click to expand...

Already happening in cities and towns as well.

Milton Keynes in particular has charging points in a lot of the car parks especially in the hotel district.

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PeteH said:
is the fact that the Energy consumption, needed to produce this "new" technology, is over the lifetime of the device, greater than the existing.
Click to expand...
I missed this in my previous response. If you are talking about embodied energy being greater than the lifetime of current ICE cars. Then that is a fallacy that is propagated by the anti electric car people. Over the lifetime of the vehicle, electric vehicles pollute much much less than an ICE vehicle.
 
How many recharging cycles will these improved batteries be capable of?
 
matamoros said:
How many recharging cycles will these improved batteries be capable of?
Click to expand...
Current lifepo4 batteries are capable of between 2,000 and 5,000 cycles.

Tesla battery packs are currently predicted to be able to provide 500,000 miles before significant degradation.

https://electrek.co/2016/11/01/tesla-battery-degradation/

What suprised me most was the low cost of replacements.. Currently £4,000 for a replacement battery bank for a Nissan Leaf.

Once electric cars ramp up, manufacturers will compete to provide cheaper prices on batteries and third party suppliers will start producing replacement packs pushing the price lower still. This is on top of the fact that batteries are historically reducing in price by 50% every 10 years.
 
There just won't be a motorhome evolution. There will be a van evolution and Moho producers will simply continue to convert vans.

Dethleffs are already on the case. Broken Link Removed

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NickNic said:
It would have to be very very large.

Electric propulsion systems in cars are a little bit different to your average 12v motorhome system.

Take the Tesla car as an example. There are 7104 individual cells giving a pack output of 403v with a 230ah capacity.

Someone who knows more about solar than me might be able to calculate how big the bank of panels would need to be to be effective. I'm guessing significantly bigger than any motorhome roof (y)
Click to expand...
So at 12 volts that would be 7,724 AH battery :eek:
To charge 403v 230ah battery in 30 minutes your going to need a 400v 460amp supply
 
Last edited:
Every one is on abut 200 miles wat is the avrege jurny per day my biggest jurny is about 10 Miles when I do the school run my sons lives 10 Miles and 20 mils away
The town center is 1.5 miles away
The two man towns are a Max of 25 miles away
The sea side is Max 35 miles away
How many commuted over a hr to work
Or school
Bill
 
22 years is to far away for me to even think about. Technology is changing by the hour, so by then there may not even be MH's or we may be time traveling or China/Japan/USA may be killing us all.
I live for today as tomorrow may never come and yesterday is history.
 
Wildbill said:
Every one is on abut 200 miles wat is the avrege jurny per day my biggest jurny is about 10 Miles when I do the school run my sons lives 10 Miles and 20 mils away
The town center is 1.5 miles away
The two man towns are a Max of 25 miles away
The sea side is Max 35 miles away
How many commuted over a hr to work
Or school
Bill
Click to expand...
Usually less than 100 mike's for a weekend away but once or twice a year we do continental trips which take us up to 800 miles in 4 days.

Next year we are planning a trip that is about 900 miles over 3 days.

So we would need a 300 mile range and would need to get that range back within 6 hours whilst also using the hab power over that time (potentially cooking and heating).

A 150 mile range creates a natural 'lunch break' but in that case we would need to get the full range back in under an hour.

200 mile range that can be fully charged in 6 hours and charged to 80% in an hour would be about right...
 
Another possibility is replacable standard rented battery packs that are changed and charged at stations set up for the purpose this coule be robotised as they would be heavy and large. They could then be swapped for a charged one in a couple of minutes. They will have to go some way to get a range for our 600 mile trip to brittany in one day this year though!!! (car not m/h)
 
Wildbill said:
Every one is on abut 200 miles wat is the avrege jurny per day my biggest jurny is about 10 Miles when I do the school run my sons lives 10 Miles and 20 mils away
The town center is 1.5 miles away
The two man towns are a Max of 25 miles away
The sea side is Max 35 miles away
How many commuted over a hr to work
Or school
Bill
Click to expand...
Hi @Wildbill , we're discussing electric motorhomes in this thread. The school run is already taken care of by the Prius ( or Tesla for the better-off!)
 
mjltigger said:
Usually less than 100 mike's for a weekend away but once or twice a year we do continental trips which take us up to 800 miles in 4 days.

Next year we are planning a trip that is about 900 miles over 3 days.

So we would need a 300 mile range and would need to get that range back within 6 hours whilst also using the hab power over that time (potentially cooking and heating).

A 150 mile range creates a natural 'lunch break' but in that case we would need to get the full range back in under an hour.

200 mile range that can be fully charged in 6 hours and charged to 80% in an hour would be about right...
Click to expand...
I understand the inconvenience of an on board petro engine but I would still rather have the security of a way to charge "in the wild" if we ran out of battery charge, for example in a 2 hour stationary queue on the M1

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