At the same time, I've wondered if it would be helpful for EVs on some long-distance road trips to tow/stow a generator for overnight and emergency charging. Charging stations are popping up more and more, but if you're saddled with an obsolete or under-served charging port type (e.g. Nissan Leaf), having a generator would be valuable insurance.
The new ones have the standard fast charging ports, but before the 2026 model year they're stuck on an old DC fast charging standard that's only available at a fraction of all charging stations.
Every EV can just hook up with a (mostly) passive adapter to any outlet and get a charge. It won't be fast (especially if you are cursed with a 110V outlet), but even in the boonies an overnight trickle charge will get you to the nearest fast charger. Just get the relevant adapters for your car.
This is basically what your generator would do except you want to lug it around instead of leveraging the cables that we pulled within driving distance of everywhere but the most remote trails? The whole point of electricity is its versatility and ubiquity!
FYI using a wall plug to charge an EV is a perfectly normal thing to do. For a small(ish) commute, regular 220V@10A is way more than enough to get back to full overnight. It won't give you 500 km of range, but only freaks and truckers drive 500 km every day.
Mostly right but in the US we have way more dead zones, and we also have 110-120v outlets in most places. There are 220-240v outlets, but mostly only for electric ranges, dryers, and big AC units, and almost never outside a house or hotel. And charging at 120v 20amps does kinda suck. About as much as using this generator would.
That's all true. And FWIW, I've only ever charged my EV on 120v at home, so I'm familiar with the limitations.
I'm thinking of the worst case where my trip planner accidentally sends me to a location where the intended charger is long gone or in-use, and I have too little charge to make it to the next viable location. Also: it's 3AM and nobody is open. Sure, I could sleep that off in the car and/or throw myself on the mercy of some hotel, but that's sketchy in other ways. Or maybe I'm stranded due to a moment's inattention?
To me, that all reduces to "be resourceful" so why not pack some additional resources?
FYI using a wall plug to charge an EV is a perfectly normal thing to do. For a small(ish) commute, regular 220V@10A is way more than enough to get back to full overnight. It won’t give you 500 km of range, but only freaks and truckers drive 500 km every day.
When I've crunched the numbers in the past, more efficient EVs would get something like 50 miles overnight for a commuter with just a 120V outlet to work with, so if you get one full charge over the weekend, it'll still be fully charged by the next weekend if you didn't deviate from your commute, or a maybe a bit lower if you did.
I've been thinking about getting a Slate truck eventually, and I'm suddenly realizing a generator on a trailer might be good for overlanding, since there aren't any chargers on remote trails.
He's not talking about full EVs, he's talking about "Extended Range Electric Vehicles" which are EVs with a motor that only charges the battery on long trips.
Yeah, that's supposed to be impossible. Either they're not moving and it's a staged shot (unlikely, since they're in the middle of traffic and there appears to be motion blur), or they've fiddled with the car to make it think the charging door is closed, or it's an edit.
I'm suspicious of the motion blur, personally, because the traffic looks too tight to be moving much, so I suspect an edit
Giving the photo the benefit of the doubt, it's also possible that this Tesla owner had to bring a generator somewhere for unrelated reasons, and thought it would be "funny" to hook it up to the charge port on his car as a joke.
That's not a charger though. EVs can't take the direct power from a generator. It needs to communicate with a base. So that "cable" is impossible and is a joke.
i found a higher quality version, not sure of the original source, and its definitely AI:
regardless though, i did look into if this is possible. no matter if the connector on the vehicle is NACS/SAE J3400 (the "tesla" connector") or SAE J1772 (CCS 1), for AC charging—which is the situation here—it will be the same (note that this will not exactly apply to vehicles using CHAdeMO, GB/T, etc.). i went with this document that briefly outlines NACS. this is the proper standard, but i wasnt able to find a copy gratis with my two minutes of searching. this should still apply to other vehicles with a CCS 1/J1172 connector, at least for AC charging!
now, since we are charging with alternating current, we have only five pins to deal with, seen here for NACS (for CCS 1, just ignore the two super giant pins, if present. otherwise it applies to CCS 1 too!):
the big two (HV + and HV -) are for supplying power, no matter the flavor of AC or DC at hand. with CCS, DC charging goes through the two big pins at the bottom, AC charging works the same way though. the ground pin is present for low voltage electronics to actually have, well, a proper reference to ground! (this is your zero volt pin).
finally, we have the control pilot, and the proximity pilot. the former is a digital interface for the vehicle and charger to communicate in depth about charging speed, battery status, etc. the latter however, which is of the greatest interest to us, handles the physical connection itself. this is where the name comes from: it handles when a charging connector is in proximity (plugged in) to the vehicle!
when measuring between the ground pin and the proximity pilot pin, if the vehicle is ready to accept a charging cable but none is plugged in, there will be five volts. if there is something compatible plugged in, resistors within the connector will pull the voltage down lower (to 1.5V), indicating that something is, well, plugged in!
here is the part of the charging connection schematic that is relevant to us:
R1 and R2 are just resistors (150Ω and 330Ω, respectively), and S1 is a (optional to implement) normally-closed switch—likely a button on the charger plug handle—that brings the voltage slightly higher (to 2.8V), to signal to stop charging and if possible, unlock the connector (if it is locking).
now, the resistors themselves are located inside the plug, and not the charger/power control unit. after all, if the vehicle manages to somehow move away, and the cable snaps off said unit, the vehicle can still be aware of if something is plugged in!
of course, if you want to defeat this, it is very simple: tape over the proximity pilot pin! as far as the charge port door goes? from forum posts i've seen, the vehicle will still drive, even if it's a little whiney.
"but wait!" you say, "the vehicle can latch the connector into itself. can't it just detect it that way?"
this would certainly vary by vehicle. for teslas, it likely can't (or if it could, the engineers didn't bother to). seen in this youtube video, the charge door slams into the object left in the charge port, indicating the vehicle probably doesn't look at this.
i also looked up the electrical schematics provided by tesla here (SVG):
the block on the left is the vehicle-side charging port assembly, the right is the actual vehicle computer. the three pins at the bottom handle the connector latch: X312-1 and X312-3, which power the motors, and X312-2, a switch/button in the port which is presumably what the vehicle uses to know it latched onto something successfully. remember, this is for the latch the vehicle extends—not the one that is simply mechanical and operated by the driver—and most likely does not provide enough information to tell if something is plugged in.
overall, if we are talking about teslas, your point does hold some merit; even if you snipped the charging plug entirely off a cable, the vehicle can still (if the plug is up to standards) detect it if it's plugged in. however, something like this would not be unrealistic, even if the vehicle didn't actually charge.
of course, this may not be the case for other vehicles! but that is beyond the scope here :)
You 100% can plug in an unpowered mobile connector and drive away. If it's not actually on a circuit, it does not detect it, does not light up, and does not lock the charger (the plastic notch underneath).
While EVs won't allow starting the car whilst charging, they will allow the charger to be open, and the cable is likely a dummy so wouldn't be registered as "plugged in". Thus allowing this joke outfit to drive around like this.
Tesla won't you put it into drive if the cable is attached. Even if this is some hacked firmware, that tiny generator will give you like 4mi of range every hour. Definitely a meme.
That's a stupid conversation, though.
Electricity is made in huge power plants, which are a lot more efficient due to their size.
And a wider EV adoption allows for more renewable energy generation, since their batteries can act as a buffer to balance out the power grid.
With a smart meter, you can set your charger to draw power when the price of electricity is low (like when the sun is shining and its windy, so renewables produce a lot of power). Thereby consuming the peak power output.
And when there's no wind and no sun, you can sell a part of your battery charge back.
I think most art is a stupid conversation. Ever try to disagree with an artist? All they heard you say was “blah blah blah something about you being a consumer sheeple.” It’s maddening when it almost always boils down to “do you like the art or not”… or it’s money laundering and they don’t give a fuck.
They're doing it wrong. They need a small wind turbine on the back. As they drive, the turbine spins, producing energy which charges the car, which is then used to drive, which further spins the turbines! There is no flaw to this logic! /s
so out in the utah salt flats they're always trying new and ridiculous looking things. There was a vehicle i remember seeing similar to this one:
the turbine was in the back and the wind provided all the motive force for the vehicle. and it worked! And the blades were not contained so it could chop the fuck out of something that got too close, absolute deathtrap. but powered by wind alone so if you had the right geography, like you live in wyoming or something you got a free ride. pop class 2 electric hub motor on that for windless days, fix the deathtrap part and you have an ideal vehicle if you ask me.
I'm willing to bet it would've been more efficient (but less maneuverable/flexible in its direction of travel) with a sail, just because that would avoid the electric conversion losses.
there were no electric conversions. it just went fan to wheel. it was a really neat vehicle. i think the dude died because he fell backward into the fan. i can't remember, just that's what my anxiety told me was going to happen eventually. i think it could get up to 60mph. it could go faster than the wind and travel into the wind also.
If you put solar panels on most of the surface of the car you can get up to like 40 miles per day, if Aptera makes it to production you could see that in real life. Though they do have a massive benefit of having a ridiculously efficient shape and layout
A couple manufacturers were showing off EREV at the big manufacturer auto show, basically EV with a small gas engine to extend the range. Less motor than a hybrid, but enough to get some pretty ridiculous range out of a single combined charge/tank. Basically what this image is implying.
Seems like a decent idea for people that use their vehicle for longer distances.
A quick look seems like the EREVs proposed to be available in the US are all trucks and large SUVs. Ford, Jeep, Hyundai, and Genesis among others. That sucks, why do they have to be big cars? Like to have a smaller sedan with great range.
BMW did it long ago in the i3 with the range extender. Not the best attempt though. They made it tiny, but it still had a heavy battery (though obviously not a very big one, just heavy for a car of this size), so to get the weight down, they used carbon fiber, but it was supposed to be an economy car and now with carbon fiber it was expensive.
It’s been a couple months but if I remember right the gas engine worked alongside the battery, it wasn’t possible to direct drive the car with the gas engine. Yes, it could charge the battery.
Every hybrid made today has the engine direct drive the wheels when it's most efficient to do so. Serial hybrids died because they weren't as efficient.
Basically! The gasoline engine could provide some of the needed energy while driving to reduce battery drain but not enough to keep up with the motors' energy consumption. It still needs to be plugged in to charge and can be driven in pure electric mode for short distances
I've been asking forever why we aren't seeing gasoline electric vehicles. It's literally been standard practice for diesel locomotives for basically as long as diesels have been dominant, you hook a gigantic diesel generator (prime mover)to a pair of gigantic electric motors (traction motors), and when you want to slow the consist without consuming your precious air for more intense braking, you can just turn the motors into generators and dump the energy into giant resistor banks on the roof (dynamic braking) or into an battery powered engine behind your diesel electric engine
You get the power of electric motors, the mechanical simplicity of electric transmission, and the range and rapid refueling of an internal combustion engine. The disconnect between the prime mover and the traction motors means each can be tuned to their respective efficiency curves (especially if a bank of batteries/capacitors is included as a buffer) so you get more efficient idling, more efficient acceleration adds the options of connecting slugs (units with no prime mover nor control cab) or b-units (units with no cab)
I’ve been asking forever why we aren’t seeing gasoline electric vehicles
They're called hybrids. The reason they're not in series is because it's more efficient once the engine is at "cruise" speed to just let the engine spin the wheels directly instead of losing 15% going engine to electric then electric to electric motor.
So instead of a transmission, hybrids use a planetary differential. That way everything is always spinning at maximum efficiency.
I suppose I could see how that could math out, assuming the engine running at an appropriate RPM to transmit to the wheels isn't less fuel efficient than an engine running at an appropriate RPM to generate electricity.
The thing that turns it on its head for gasoline electric though is the IC engine can be almost anything and do almost anything if all it's doing is spinning an alternator with sufficient power buffer before the electric motors. The IC engine could run at a single constant RPM at all times if that's most efficient, or it could be a more car-like thing that adjusts it's RPMs based on load. Or maybe it runs at constant RPMs but the count of active cylinders changes depending on load. The types of engines that can be used suddenly becomes immense because of this too
I just find it hard to believe that the most efficient option for a hybrid is 2 drivetrains. That always struck me like it was more engineers specialized in ICE vehicles simply designing what they know rather than something more bold and imaginative
I suppose I could see how that could math out, assuming the engine running at an appropriate RPM to transmit to the wheels isn't less fuel efficient than an engine running at an appropriate RPM to generate electricity.
That's exactly what the car does in real time. My Toyota switches constantly between the ice engine transferring energy to the electric motors and the electric motors turning off when they are outside of their most efficient range.
It has an onscreen graphic to show you while you drive for the curious. It has another screen that gives you a driving score to encourage a driving style that maximizes efficiency like having the battery recharge more by braking longer and smoother.
I got triggered on this! Very weird place to put a huge OXXO sign like this. They have probably done it to underline their Gas Station chain roots. It is just stupid in my eyes to do it in a city where your convenience store is located in densely packed street. Maybe on the roof or something but not on the street so close to your building.
You would love my city. They will happily install street lights in the middle of sidewalks. The city doesn't maintain sidewalks so half of them are broken to bits or grown over, or a lot of folks just park on them. Pedestrians go into the streets, you'll sometimes get stuck behind an old person in a walker crossing an intersection. It's maddening but no one cares.
Not sure why, but there seems to be a lot AI slop that's basically this, except they usually have these ridiculous industrial generators with plumes of coal smoke.
Not buying it:
How would you charge (generator) and discharge (motor) the car at the same time? The electronics and software is designed to only charge the battery when parked. My car won't even shift into gear if it's plugged in.
I mean, this one is fake, but there is a company creating haluers that do pretty much this. Have a small battery they recharge with a generator. According to them, a generator is a lot more efficient and enviromentaly friendly compared to normal engine, since it runs at constant rpm.
Actually, the constant RPM ones are less efficient, the inverter generators that are able to vary with the load that are more efficient. But yes, they are better at turning the fuel into usable power. Traditional ice engines lose something like 40% of the power made just in Losses from gearing transmission axel etc. So while it may seem silly technically using a generator to charge an EV is more efficient
Correct, parent should have said EREX (electric, range extended) or EREV, but not PHEV.
The Fisker Karma and BMW i3 (well some of them) were this type of EV. My wife had an i3 Rex and loved it, though it irritatingly had only a 2 gallon gas tank.
Mazda was working on one but it never came out in the US. Supposedly the Scout EV will have a Rex, that would be nice.
Honestly given how consistent the rest of the image is on all of the things which would not be moving, minor errors with people walking on the street almost more looks like phone camera processing/stitching errors. Especially with how many phone cameras now take a burst of photos and stitch them together to make a higher quality photo
There is nothing wrong with the people on the sidewalk. Only one has a bit of a weird turn, but nothing that can't be explained by movement.
No, it is most likely a real picture, but with only the trailer added through AI. Everything else seems to be correct, but the lettering and number plates are off.
Germany during WWII did something kind of like this. They modified some of their cars to run on wood gas and they would tow a wood stove on a trailer that generated the gas, with an attached hose that would feed it into the engine. A sensible plan when your only source of oil is Romania and all of your horses have been requisitioned by the army for its "blitzkrieg".
They're an interesting thing to say the least. Finland had a lot of wood gas generators in use during WWII as what limited petrol we had went towards the war effort. Other substitute fuels were used a lot as well, e.g. pine turpentine which we had a lot of as it's a side product of refining wood into pulp.
It's a relatively efficient system, and burns quite cleanly in the engine (as soot and other contaminants are filtered out by the generator). Though they're quite dangerous, since wood gas is mainly pure carbon monoxide. The amounts they produce are so high that leaks or topping up the generator can cause carbon monoxide poisoning even when outside. In Finnish we actually call the generator häkäpönttö, which in English would be a carbon monoxide can (häkä colloquial Finnish for carbon monoxide, pönttö a colloquial Finnish word meaning a can, container, carton or someone dumb in a usually non-derogatory way – closest equivalent in English would be dummy).
Yeah that's actually how I googled it. Couldn't for the life of me get "wood stove generator" into my head but "häkäpönttö" is easy.
And I'd agree that, like many Finnish words, it doesn't properly translate. A pönttö would be closer to a barrel, I'd say, than a can. A can sort of implies a smaller one. Although yes, "garbage can" would be a can as well and nearly on a similar scale as a häkäpönttö.
It's sometimes crazy hard explaining all the implications of a given word. You know them but listing them would be hard.
But yeah especially with how much forests and forestry we have, it was a very good solution in WWII. We needed the proper petrol for all those tanks we stole from the Ruskis. We started the war with genuinely a few old Pösö tanks from WWI and stole most of what we had by the end of the war. (That's Peugeot for non-Finns haha)
Good point with the barrel, truth is probably somewhere between the barrel and a can. After all, there's also pönttö, both vessan- and linnun-, which again are on the smaller side. I kinda love how much nuance and double meanings there are in especially the spoken language.
True meaning can only be grasped with enough exposure.
Didn't we also have some Vickers six-tonners at the start? Next to useless by then but probably could penetrate at least a BT-5.
Edit: now that I think of it, a canister probably fits quite well between the sizes of can and barrel. But to me it would then be a closed container, which a pönttö doesn't necessarily have to be.
Ture, "bird cans" aren't especially large. But they're not like beer cans. You could never really say "annappa se kaljapönttö" unless you were talking about a barrel or a small bucket of beer.
Didn't we also have some Vickers six-tonners at the start?
If you say so, alls I remembers is one of the tanks we stole from Russia is still being prominently displayed in the Häme Regiment base in Lahti... checks on his factsFuck, I'm too old for this shit. The Häme Regiment (HämR) was a regiment that was shut down in 2014. I mean, it was about time. But I'm still curious as to what happened to the tank I was talking about... Well, say what you want about LLM's (and they do sort of threaten a lot of society but) but it was pretty good in searching for info like this. I explained to Gemini where I did my service and asked about the tank.
Where is it now? After the Häme Regiment was disbanded in 2014, most of the heavy historical equipment was moved. That T-34 was relocated to the Parola Armour Museum (Panssarimuseo) to ensure it was preserved and maintained, as the Hennala site transitioned into a residential and civilian area.
So yeah. Anyway, my point was that I just remember reading the sign saying how many we took from the Soviets. And also our lieutenants and whatnot military fanatics giving us some history on them. Then I couldn't remember the number years after so I googled it and saw we only had some puny WWI tanks before. Honestly, I don't even know what a Vickers six-ton is, but I'm guessing British..? (Because I do know what a Vickers gun is) Checking.
Yah. Thanks for the info.
Finland – used 33 tanks since 1938 (including an evaluation tank). They were bought unarmed, without optics and radios. Some were armed with short-barreled 37 mm Puteaux guns and later equipped with 37 mm Bofors anti-tank guns as their main gun with a coaxial turret MG and a "tank SMG" in bow plate. They were used in the Winter War with the USSR. After this war, the Finns rearmed Mark E tanks with captured Soviet long 45 mm guns and DT MGs as used in the T-26. The Finns designated the rebuilt Vickers tanks logically as: T-26Es. They were used in combat from 1941 to 1944 and remained in service as training tanks until 1959.
Oh yeah.
So about half and half apparently:
Before the Winter War (Nov 1939), Finland’s tank forces were minimal, consisting mainly of 32-34 obsolete Renault FT-17 light tanks (acquired 1919) and about 30-32 recently purchased Vickers 6-ton light tanks, which were still being fitted with armament. They had no medium or heavy tanks
So we had like 60 light tanks. By the end of the war we had captured and destroyed, quite a few.
Oh yeah and about the languages, yeah, if you speak both Finnish and English fluently, it's awesome what weird shit you can combine because of the different natures of the languages. My friends used to think me a bit pretentious for inserting English phrases or words into Finnish, but that was like 10+ years ago. Nowadays most speak Finglish pretty fluently and it doesn't matter if you add a bit of London while completely speaking Finnish, as long as you're not doing it just to be pretentious, but because the word/phrase suits better (or you've just forgotten the Finnish word, which happens to me quite a bit nowadays.)
I've seen a few pictures like this before. The fun fact part is, this is could actually be pretty damn efficient if done well. Gas powered generators are designed to run efficiently and deliver power at a specific RPM. An gas car's engine has to run and deliver power at a wide range of RPMs, so is generally not running at it's most efficent speed.
Gas powered generators are designed to run efficiently for small shitty motors. Gas generators are not efficient. Especially if you care about emissions since they usually lack catalytic converters.
Making electricity this way, storing it in the battery and using it to drive a vehicle have their own efficiencies, all less than 100%. Also, these smaller types of generators aren't that efficient to begin with. So I doubt it.
An EV with a range extending gasoline motor could also easily be configured to run at peak efficiency with the added benefit of being within the aerodynamic envelope of the car instead of being a trailered brick.
Depends on how you use it. Most of my driving is on electric even with only a 35km range. It gets maybe 20 gallons of gas per year and drives 6500 miles per year (~900/year on gas).
I got a plug-in hybrid as my company car before the current one and despite my bias I gotta admit it was rather practical for my use case. Most workdays I was able to drive fully electric (we have chargers at our branches) and when driving to my rural hometown (with absolutely 0 hopes to charge with more than one phase) on the weekends I burned some gas.
Still, not gonna defend the german "Dienstwagenprivileg" for plug-ins, in way to many ways it just greenwashes those cars.
edit: current plug-ins have up to 100km range, mine only had around 45.
I loved my Chevy volt, it was a first Gen, 30 mile range on electric. But man we used the crap out of that thing. Could drive to work and sometimes all the way home, only really burned gas on the weekends or if we went out after work.
Would've been better if we had a level 2 charger at home, as it was we were stuck at like 1.3kw charging, so overnight for a full charge.
Had it for almost 3 years, bought it broken for cheap and fixed it.
It was getting long in the tooth, battery showing its age (expensive replacement), AC starting to leak under the dash (expensive fix), and transmission starting to leak (never investigated, but presumably expensive fix).
Also needed a handful of other repairs that I was waiting for for weather before doing.
Wife hated it because it didn't do great in the winter, both traction and range. Plus the blind spots were big.
With all that... when I slid into a ditch last month, and the insurance totaled it.. I let them keep it.
Ended up with a gas guzzler again, but if I could get another good deal on a 2nd Gen, or if they ever come out with a 3rd Gen, I'd gladly drive one again.
They're perfect because you can be electric as much as you can be, but still have range and instant fill up at a gas station.
This is the most accurate representation of a Lemmy, a comment with a hard opinion but nothing to really back it up getting upvotes followed by plenty of experiences and counterarguments refuting it but not getting quite the same amount of upvotes. Imagine if people could dialogue and not just circlejerk hate.
For over a year there's been a pinned post requesting someone to take over the community with no one willing to mod. If you actually want to see the change then tell me and I will tranfer the community rights to you. Though I'd recommend to not act retroactively and make a post with new rules moving forward.
Piston engines are way, way, way more efficient (and cheaper to make) when optimized for one RPM and a static load (like a generator). They can be tiny if running at 100% throttle all the time; a few horsepower is enough. Excluding the transmission saves weight/cost, and a generator for a few horsepower isn’t that big.
Yeah, you get electrical loss, but everything else more than makes up for it.
There is a huge missed opportunity of having modular battery packs that you can load into EVs.
You don’t need a huge battery for everyday, in fact it makes your drive less efficient.
What if there were standards and you could go to a gas station and rent some packs. Put them in the trunk (there would be slots and/or standard connectors), and then drive off.
Once road trip is over you return the packs (or you could buy instead of rent).
You can also just swap the packs in gas stations with fully charged equivalent, making long trips more flexible.
I think china did something like that with scooters.
There were attempts, but suvh a system just doesn't work reliably. The pack has to be replaced by robots since it's under your car (has to be due to space constrains and more importantly weight), and the amount of moving parts, reliability and safety concerns were a constant issue.
For scooters it's no problem given the way smaller size and optimal position inside the chassis, but for cars this concept hardly works properly.
Honestly, a car with a small urban autonomy battery with a system where the rest of the battery is on a trailer would be a pretty awesome system, but it would require some massive adoption and car manufacturers are just going with ridiculously large batteries and fast charging for two reasons: they can sell it for more, and fast charging wears out the battery faster and requires more proprietary maintenance as a result.
A lot of EV innovations that could have been have been denied entry suspiciously when they've reached the bureaucratic industrial standardization that most major car manufacturers just seem to be able to gloss over. The car industry doesn't want to see the profits from proprietary parts and maintenance go, and nothing beats a combustion engine for that. I still miss the Sono Sion, an EV with solar panels which would have been perfect for people who use their cars occasionally on the weekend and rental services. At least Aptera is still going strong.
I ~~understand this is in Brazil (see the stores) and they have few charging places.
~~
Edit: not Brazil it’s Mexico. Not sure about EV infrastructure there.
162 Comments
TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world · 126 pts · 193d
This is basically what every EREV is. The generator is just integrated into the car, otherwise it's essentially the same thing.
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 192d
At the same time, I've wondered if it would be helpful for EVs on some long-distance road trips to tow/stow a generator for overnight and emergency charging. Charging stations are popping up more and more, but if you're saddled with an obsolete or under-served charging port type (e.g. Nissan Leaf), having a generator would be valuable insurance.
glitchdx@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 192d
damn, nissan leaf is under served? I guess that product placement in sim city whichever fucking year glass box was didn't pay off
entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org · 2 pts · 191d
The new ones have the standard fast charging ports, but before the 2026 model year they're stuck on an old DC fast charging standard that's only available at a fraction of all charging stations.
azertyfun@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 192d
Every EV can just hook up with a (mostly) passive adapter to any outlet and get a charge. It won't be fast (especially if you are cursed with a 110V outlet), but even in the boonies an overnight trickle charge will get you to the nearest fast charger. Just get the relevant adapters for your car.
This is basically what your generator would do except you want to lug it around instead of leveraging the cables that we pulled within driving distance of everywhere but the most remote trails? The whole point of electricity is its versatility and ubiquity!
FYI using a wall plug to charge an EV is a perfectly normal thing to do. For a small(ish) commute, regular 220V@10A is way more than enough to get back to full overnight. It won't give you 500 km of range, but only freaks and truckers drive 500 km every day.
anomnom@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 192d
Mostly right but in the US we have way more dead zones, and we also have 110-120v outlets in most places. There are 220-240v outlets, but mostly only for electric ranges, dryers, and big AC units, and almost never outside a house or hotel. And charging at 120v 20amps does kinda suck. About as much as using this generator would.
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 192d
That's all true. And FWIW, I've only ever charged my EV on 120v at home, so I'm familiar with the limitations.
I'm thinking of the worst case where my trip planner accidentally sends me to a location where the intended charger is long gone or in-use, and I have too little charge to make it to the next viable location. Also: it's 3AM and nobody is open. Sure, I could sleep that off in the car and/or throw myself on the mercy of some hotel, but that's sketchy in other ways. Or maybe I'm stranded due to a moment's inattention?
To me, that all reduces to "be resourceful" so why not pack some additional resources?
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com · 2 pts · 192d
When I've crunched the numbers in the past, more efficient EVs would get something like 50 miles overnight for a commuter with just a 120V outlet to work with, so if you get one full charge over the weekend, it'll still be fully charged by the next weekend if you didn't deviate from your commute, or a maybe a bit lower if you did.
Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 192d
If we are going that direction, why not battery packs that fit in the trunk?
DirtPuddleMisfortune@feddit.org · 1 pts · 192d
I think I've seen some battery trailer some years ago.
grue@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 192d
I've been thinking about getting a Slate truck eventually, and I'm suddenly realizing a generator on a trailer might be good for overlanding, since there aren't any chargers on remote trails.
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 192d
It's also how modern freight trains work minus the battery. The big diesel engines only produce the electricity for the electric motors.
EgoNo4@lemmy.world · -7 pts · 192d
Not really. Not all energy comes from fossil fuel...
LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyz · 47 pts · 192d
He's not talking about full EVs, he's talking about "Extended Range Electric Vehicles" which are EVs with a motor that only charges the battery on long trips.
Basically a specific kind of plug in hybrid.
https://carbuzz.com/extended-range-electric-vehicles-what-erevs-look-like-in-2025/
EgoNo4@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 192d
Today I Learned. Thanks.
brap@lemmy.world · 73 pts · 193d
I’m not sure about this, surely an EV wouldn’t allow charging while in motion as a safety measure against driving off while plugged in?
But then, there’s this photo right here unless I’ve been suckered into believing AI edits again.
MartianSands@sh.itjust.works · 52 pts · 193d
Yeah, that's supposed to be impossible. Either they're not moving and it's a staged shot (unlikely, since they're in the middle of traffic and there appears to be motion blur), or they've fiddled with the car to make it think the charging door is closed, or it's an edit.
I'm suspicious of the motion blur, personally, because the traffic looks too tight to be moving much, so I suspect an edit
sundray@lemmus.org · 44 pts · 192d
Giving the photo the benefit of the doubt, it's also possible that this Tesla owner had to bring a generator somewhere for unrelated reasons, and thought it would be "funny" to hook it up to the charge port on his car as a joke.
MartianSands@sh.itjust.works · 15 pts · 192d
My point is that wouldn't work, unless the car was in park. A Tesla will simply refuse to move if a charger is connected
ThePantser@sh.itjust.works · 23 pts · 192d
That's not a charger though. EVs can't take the direct power from a generator. It needs to communicate with a base. So that "cable" is impossible and is a joke.
MartianSands@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 192d
Doesn't matter. The car knows something's plugged in, even if it can't talk to it
kivihiili@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 15 pts · 192d
i found a higher quality version, not sure of the original source, and its definitely AI:
regardless though, i did look into if this is possible. no matter if the connector on the vehicle is NACS/SAE J3400 (the "tesla" connector") or SAE J1772 (CCS 1), for AC charging—which is the situation here—it will be the same (note that this will not exactly apply to vehicles using CHAdeMO, GB/T, etc.). i went with this document that briefly outlines NACS. this is the proper standard, but i wasnt able to find a copy gratis with my two minutes of searching. this should still apply to other vehicles with a CCS 1/J1172 connector, at least for AC charging!
now, since we are charging with alternating current, we have only five pins to deal with, seen here for NACS (for CCS 1, just ignore the two super giant pins, if present. otherwise it applies to CCS 1 too!):
the big two (HV + and HV -) are for supplying power, no matter the flavor of AC or DC at hand. with CCS, DC charging goes through the two big pins at the bottom, AC charging works the same way though. the ground pin is present for low voltage electronics to actually have, well, a proper reference to ground! (this is your zero volt pin).
finally, we have the control pilot, and the proximity pilot. the former is a digital interface for the vehicle and charger to communicate in depth about charging speed, battery status, etc. the latter however, which is of the greatest interest to us, handles the physical connection itself. this is where the name comes from: it handles when a charging connector is in proximity (plugged in) to the vehicle!
when measuring between the ground pin and the proximity pilot pin, if the vehicle is ready to accept a charging cable but none is plugged in, there will be five volts. if there is something compatible plugged in, resistors within the connector will pull the voltage down lower (to 1.5V), indicating that something is, well, plugged in!
here is the part of the charging connection schematic that is relevant to us:
R1 and R2 are just resistors (150Ω and 330Ω, respectively), and S1 is a (optional to implement) normally-closed switch—likely a button on the charger plug handle—that brings the voltage slightly higher (to 2.8V), to signal to stop charging and if possible, unlock the connector (if it is locking).
now, the resistors themselves are located inside the plug, and not the charger/power control unit. after all, if the vehicle manages to somehow move away, and the cable snaps off said unit, the vehicle can still be aware of if something is plugged in!
of course, if you want to defeat this, it is very simple: tape over the proximity pilot pin! as far as the charge port door goes? from forum posts i've seen, the vehicle will still drive, even if it's a little whiney.
"but wait!" you say, "the vehicle can latch the connector into itself. can't it just detect it that way?"
this would certainly vary by vehicle. for teslas, it likely can't (or if it could, the engineers didn't bother to). seen in this youtube video, the charge door slams into the object left in the charge port, indicating the vehicle probably doesn't look at this.
i also looked up the electrical schematics provided by tesla here (SVG):
the block on the left is the vehicle-side charging port assembly, the right is the actual vehicle computer. the three pins at the bottom handle the connector latch: X312-1 and X312-3, which power the motors, and X312-2, a switch/button in the port which is presumably what the vehicle uses to know it latched onto something successfully. remember, this is for the latch the vehicle extends—not the one that is simply mechanical and operated by the driver—and most likely does not provide enough information to tell if something is plugged in.
overall, if we are talking about teslas, your point does hold some merit; even if you snipped the charging plug entirely off a cable, the vehicle can still (if the plug is up to standards) detect it if it's plugged in. however, something like this would not be unrealistic, even if the vehicle didn't actually charge.
of course, this may not be the case for other vehicles! but that is beyond the scope here :)
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 192d
Of course every single pin in a Tesla is labeled ‘X-something’.
SystemDisc@piefed.world · 2 pts · 192d
You 100% can plug in an unpowered mobile connector and drive away. If it's not actually on a circuit, it does not detect it, does not light up, and does not lock the charger (the plastic notch underneath).
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 192d
As this comment explains, the car can detect a plug that's not connected to anything.
SystemDisc@piefed.world · 1 pts · 191d
sundray@lemmus.org · 1 pts · 192d
Ah, gotcha.
lazynooblet@lazysoci.al · 9 pts · 192d
While EVs won't allow starting the car whilst charging, they will allow the charger to be open, and the cable is likely a dummy so wouldn't be registered as "plugged in". Thus allowing this joke outfit to drive around like this.
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 192d
Teslas can detect a plug that's not connected to anything.
MartianSands@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 192d
I own a Tesla, and I also own a broken charger. I assure you it won't let this happen
lazynooblet@lazysoci.al · 13 pts · 192d
Just went out to mine, plugged a cable in with nothing on the other end. Could pull off fine
SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world · 18 pts · 192d
I went out to mine and realized I don't own one so I have nothing to add to this conversation.
MrQuallzin@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 192d
My guess is that it's staged in that it's how they've "dressed" the vehicle and are doing it for laughs
troybot@piefed.social · 43 pts · 192d
Sus
socsa@piefed.social · 11 pts · 192d
Tesla won't you put it into drive if the cable is attached. Even if this is some hacked firmware, that tiny generator will give you like 4mi of range every hour. Definitely a meme.
Rooster326@programming.dev · 1 pts · 192d
What if you plug it in after it is in drive?
unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth · 8 pts · 192d
It's also entirely possible someone had to transport that generator and decided to have some fun with it and fuck with people.
keyez@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 192d
Generator doesnt look to be strapped down or secured to anything I think it's been shopped or edited in.
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 193d
You're absolutely right. This is just a fake.
TheAsianDonKnots@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 192d
Last I heard it was a performance art piece to illicit this type of conversation about where the electricity comes from.
mech@feddit.org · 11 pts · 192d
That's a stupid conversation, though.
Electricity is made in huge power plants, which are a lot more efficient due to their size.
And a wider EV adoption allows for more renewable energy generation, since their batteries can act as a buffer to balance out the power grid.
With a smart meter, you can set your charger to draw power when the price of electricity is low (like when the sun is shining and its windy, so renewables produce a lot of power). Thereby consuming the peak power output.
And when there's no wind and no sun, you can sell a part of your battery charge back.
TheAsianDonKnots@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 192d
I think most art is a stupid conversation. Ever try to disagree with an artist? All they heard you say was “blah blah blah something about you being a consumer sheeple.” It’s maddening when it almost always boils down to “do you like the art or not”… or it’s money laundering and they don’t give a fuck.
CaptPretentious@lemmy.world · 34 pts · 192d
They're doing it wrong. They need a small wind turbine on the back. As they drive, the turbine spins, producing energy which charges the car, which is then used to drive, which further spins the turbines! There is no flaw to this logic!
/sHeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 192d
so out in the utah salt flats they're always trying new and ridiculous looking things. There was a vehicle i remember seeing similar to this one:
the turbine was in the back and the wind provided all the motive force for the vehicle. and it worked! And the blades were not contained so it could chop the fuck out of something that got too close, absolute deathtrap. but powered by wind alone so if you had the right geography, like you live in wyoming or something you got a free ride. pop class 2 electric hub motor on that for windless days, fix the deathtrap part and you have an ideal vehicle if you ask me.
grue@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 192d
I'm willing to bet it would've been more efficient (but less maneuverable/flexible in its direction of travel) with a sail, just because that would avoid the electric conversion losses.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 192d
there were no electric conversions. it just went fan to wheel. it was a really neat vehicle. i think the dude died because he fell backward into the fan. i can't remember, just that's what my anxiety told me was going to happen eventually. i think it could get up to 60mph. it could go faster than the wind and travel into the wind also.
hereiamagain@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 192d
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyQwgBAaBag
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 192d
YES THAT ONE they have a museum of propellor cars somewhere but i can't remember where
real_squids@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 192d
If you put solar panels on most of the surface of the car you can get up to like 40 miles per day, if Aptera makes it to production you could see that in real life. Though they do have a massive benefit of having a ridiculously efficient shape and layout
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com · 2 pts · 192d
Aptera just had their first car off the production line! They might finally start fulfilling customer orders by the end of the year!
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 192d
Good old wedge cars would probably be even more efficient for the panel placement, at least outside of dawn and dusk.
Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 192d
If the car is light enough, sails would work.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world · 29 pts · 192d
A couple manufacturers were showing off EREV at the big manufacturer auto show, basically EV with a small gas engine to extend the range. Less motor than a hybrid, but enough to get some pretty ridiculous range out of a single combined charge/tank. Basically what this image is implying.
Seems like a decent idea for people that use their vehicle for longer distances.
reddig33@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 192d
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 192d
A quick look seems like the EREVs proposed to be available in the US are all trucks and large SUVs. Ford, Jeep, Hyundai, and Genesis among others. That sucks, why do they have to be big cars? Like to have a smaller sedan with great range.
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 192d
Because "trucks" have less stringent regulations (both for efficiency and safety) so farmers can keep using their old beater pickups.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 192d
BMW did it long ago in the i3 with the range extender. Not the best attempt though. They made it tiny, but it still had a heavy battery (though obviously not a very big one, just heavy for a car of this size), so to get the weight down, they used carbon fiber, but it was supposed to be an economy car and now with carbon fiber it was expensive.
Idea itself is not bad though.
lightsblinken@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 192d
this is a great idea! love it. can we skip the small engine and just install a small fission reactor instead?
jdr@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 192d
Ok, but can we swap the car for very large boat?
mapleseedfall@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 192d
im affraid we cannot.
someguy3@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 192d
Was the gas engine like a trickle charge?
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 192d
It’s been a couple months but if I remember right the gas engine worked alongside the battery, it wasn’t possible to direct drive the car with the gas engine. Yes, it could charge the battery.
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 191d
Every hybrid made today has the engine direct drive the wheels when it's most efficient to do so. Serial hybrids died because they weren't as efficient.
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com · 1 pts · 192d
Basically! The gasoline engine could provide some of the needed energy while driving to reduce battery drain but not enough to keep up with the motors' energy consumption. It still needs to be plugged in to charge and can be driven in pure electric mode for short distances
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com · 1 pts · 192d
I've been asking forever why we aren't seeing gasoline electric vehicles. It's literally been standard practice for diesel locomotives for basically as long as diesels have been dominant, you hook a gigantic diesel generator (prime mover)to a pair of gigantic electric motors (traction motors), and when you want to slow the consist without consuming your precious air for more intense braking, you can just turn the motors into generators and dump the energy into giant resistor banks on the roof (dynamic braking) or into an battery powered engine behind your diesel electric engine
You get the power of electric motors, the mechanical simplicity of electric transmission, and the range and rapid refueling of an internal combustion engine. The disconnect between the prime mover and the traction motors means each can be tuned to their respective efficiency curves (especially if a bank of batteries/capacitors is included as a buffer) so you get more efficient idling, more efficient acceleration adds the options of connecting slugs (units with no prime mover nor control cab) or b-units (units with no cab)
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 191d
They're called hybrids. The reason they're not in series is because it's more efficient once the engine is at "cruise" speed to just let the engine spin the wheels directly instead of losing 15% going engine to electric then electric to electric motor.
So instead of a transmission, hybrids use a planetary differential. That way everything is always spinning at maximum efficiency.
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com · 1 pts · 191d
I suppose I could see how that could math out, assuming the engine running at an appropriate RPM to transmit to the wheels isn't less fuel efficient than an engine running at an appropriate RPM to generate electricity.
The thing that turns it on its head for gasoline electric though is the IC engine can be almost anything and do almost anything if all it's doing is spinning an alternator with sufficient power buffer before the electric motors. The IC engine could run at a single constant RPM at all times if that's most efficient, or it could be a more car-like thing that adjusts it's RPMs based on load. Or maybe it runs at constant RPMs but the count of active cylinders changes depending on load. The types of engines that can be used suddenly becomes immense because of this too
I just find it hard to believe that the most efficient option for a hybrid is 2 drivetrains. That always struck me like it was more engineers specialized in ICE vehicles simply designing what they know rather than something more bold and imaginative
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 191d
That's exactly what the car does in real time. My Toyota switches constantly between the ice engine transferring energy to the electric motors and the electric motors turning off when they are outside of their most efficient range.
It has an onscreen graphic to show you while you drive for the curious. It has another screen that gives you a driving score to encourage a driving style that maximizes efficiency like having the battery recharge more by braking longer and smoother.
Scavenger_Solardaddy@lemmy.ml · 22 pts · 192d
Fucking slop alright
Quadhammer@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 192d
That's just what his leg do
imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 192d
I got triggered on this! Very weird place to put a huge OXXO sign like this. They have probably done it to underline their Gas Station chain roots. It is just stupid in my eyes to do it in a city where your convenience store is located in densely packed street. Maybe on the roof or something but not on the street so close to your building.
BanMe@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 192d
You would love my city. They will happily install street lights in the middle of sidewalks. The city doesn't maintain sidewalks so half of them are broken to bits or grown over, or a lot of folks just park on them. Pedestrians go into the streets, you'll sometimes get stuck behind an old person in a walker crossing an intersection. It's maddening but no one cares.
Diurnambule@jlai.lu · 3 pts · 192d
The names oF ensigns too.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 191d
you can't charge an EV car and drive it at the same time. It's bullshit. Let's start with the fact that there is no charger here.
AffineConnection@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 192d
No, that guy's just a short version of me.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 192d
Now I want to see a fuel line running to the generator from a 2nd tanker trailer.
RaoulDook@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 191d
George Miller wants to buy your design for a war rig
IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 192d
Except every EV I’ve been in will refuse to shift out of park if the charging cable is plugged in. Otherwise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtS4h2az9Jo&t=48
TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 192d
It can be plugged in with the generator on, so no issue. Not that this image isn't fake as fuck - the generator isn't secured, and it's connecting the AC generator plug directly to the EV port with a cable instead of using an EV charger. There are (were) some actual attempts at this: https://www.ecomotorsnews.com/en/news/electric-range-a-battery-trailer-reopens-the-long-distance-mobility-debate
Not sure why, but there seems to be a lot AI slop that's basically this, except they usually have these ridiculous industrial generators with plumes of coal smoke.
someguy3@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 192d
That's a good feature. I swear one day in a sleep deprived state I'm going to forget to take the gas nozzle out.
Mwa@thelemmy.club · 19 pts · 192d
Its basically a hybrid now
usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca · 18 pts · 193d
Basically a train engine
NullPointerException@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 192d
And ships.
ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip · 17 pts · 192d
Top Gear did this years ago when they solved EVs...
vodka@feddit.org · 8 pts · 192d
rip green stig
GenosseFlosse@feddit.org · 15 pts · 192d
Not buying it: How would you charge (generator) and discharge (motor) the car at the same time? The electronics and software is designed to only charge the battery when parked. My car won't even shift into gear if it's plugged in.
DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 192d
I mean, this one is fake, but there is a company creating haluers that do pretty much this. Have a small battery they recharge with a generator. According to them, a generator is a lot more efficient and enviromentaly friendly compared to normal engine, since it runs at constant rpm.
Threeme2189@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 192d
Name and (the opposite of) shame!
You're talking about Edison Motors, right?
DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 192d
Yes, but I couldn't recall the name. Thanks for mentioning it.
LordKitsuna@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 192d
Actually, the constant RPM ones are less efficient, the inverter generators that are able to vary with the load that are more efficient. But yes, they are better at turning the fuel into usable power. Traditional ice engines lose something like 40% of the power made just in Losses from gearing transmission axel etc. So while it may seem silly technically using a generator to charge an EV is more efficient
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 191d
That is any PHEV.
DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 191d
My understanding is that most PHEVs use a hybrid drivetrain to drive the car directly from the combustion engine.
gooeyglob@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 191d
Correct, parent should have said EREX (electric, range extended) or EREV, but not PHEV.
The Fisker Karma and BMW i3 (well some of them) were this type of EV. My wife had an i3 Rex and loved it, though it irritatingly had only a 2 gallon gas tank.
Mazda was working on one but it never came out in the US. Supposedly the Scout EV will have a Rex, that would be nice.
Psythik@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 192d
FWIW, people have made a real working version of this concept before.
fubarx@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 192d
Hate to be that guy, but... Refaccionaria. AI sloppity slop 😔
bazzett@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 192d
I mean, I'm not going to say that it's or not an artificially made picture, but "refaccionaria" is a perfectly cromulent word in Spanish: Refaccionaria at the Diccionario de la Lengua Española.
BurnedDonutHole@ani.social · 8 pts · 192d
Looking at the people on the sidewalk is enough to see it.
zalgotext@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 192d
Looks like a ministry of funny walks convention
AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 192d
Sidewalk's for regular walkin. Not for fancy walkin.
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com · 2 pts · 192d
Honestly given how consistent the rest of the image is on all of the things which would not be moving, minor errors with people walking on the street almost more looks like phone camera processing/stitching errors. Especially with how many phone cameras now take a burst of photos and stitch them together to make a higher quality photo
Honytawk@feddit.nl · 1 pts · 191d
There is nothing wrong with the people on the sidewalk. Only one has a bit of a weird turn, but nothing that can't be explained by movement.
No, it is most likely a real picture, but with only the trailer added through AI. Everything else seems to be correct, but the lettering and number plates are off.
captain_oni@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 192d
"Refaccionaria" is just "auto parts shop" in Mexican Spanish.
I'm inclined to say that this is not AI since it got that word correctly. And the other text as well.
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 192d
Germany during WWII did something kind of like this. They modified some of their cars to run on wood gas and they would tow a wood stove on a trailer that generated the gas, with an attached hose that would feed it into the engine. A sensible plan when your only source of oil is Romania and all of your horses have been requisitioned by the army for its "blitzkrieg".
Dasus@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 192d
You don't need a trailer for that. It just attaches to the car. Doesn't weigh so much as to need a vehicle of it's own.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas_generator
Here's a Dodge V10 with one.
And here's one from WWII so ppl don't think they were much bigger back then
brbposting@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 191d
Real interesting, thanks!
antimidas@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 191d
They're an interesting thing to say the least. Finland had a lot of wood gas generators in use during WWII as what limited petrol we had went towards the war effort. Other substitute fuels were used a lot as well, e.g. pine turpentine which we had a lot of as it's a side product of refining wood into pulp.
It's a relatively efficient system, and burns quite cleanly in the engine (as soot and other contaminants are filtered out by the generator). Though they're quite dangerous, since wood gas is mainly pure carbon monoxide. The amounts they produce are so high that leaks or topping up the generator can cause carbon monoxide poisoning even when outside. In Finnish we actually call the generator häkäpönttö, which in English would be a carbon monoxide can (häkä colloquial Finnish for carbon monoxide, pönttö a colloquial Finnish word meaning a can, container, carton or someone dumb in a usually non-derogatory way – closest equivalent in English would be dummy).
Dasus@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 191d
Yeah that's actually how I googled it. Couldn't for the life of me get "wood stove generator" into my head but "häkäpönttö" is easy.
And I'd agree that, like many Finnish words, it doesn't properly translate. A pönttö would be closer to a barrel, I'd say, than a can. A can sort of implies a smaller one. Although yes, "garbage can" would be a can as well and nearly on a similar scale as a häkäpönttö.
It's sometimes crazy hard explaining all the implications of a given word. You know them but listing them would be hard.
But yeah especially with how much forests and forestry we have, it was a very good solution in WWII. We needed the proper petrol for all those tanks we stole from the Ruskis. We started the war with genuinely a few old Pösö tanks from WWI and stole most of what we had by the end of the war. (That's Peugeot for non-Finns haha)
antimidas@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 191d
Good point with the barrel, truth is probably somewhere between the barrel and a can. After all, there's also pönttö, both vessan- and linnun-, which again are on the smaller side. I kinda love how much nuance and double meanings there are in especially the spoken language.
True meaning can only be grasped with enough exposure.
Didn't we also have some Vickers six-tonners at the start? Next to useless by then but probably could penetrate at least a BT-5.
Edit: now that I think of it, a canister probably fits quite well between the sizes of can and barrel. But to me it would then be a closed container, which a pönttö doesn't necessarily have to be.
Dasus@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 191d
Ture, "bird cans" aren't especially large. But they're not like beer cans. You could never really say "annappa se kaljapönttö" unless you were talking about a barrel or a small bucket of beer.
If you say so, alls I remembers is one of the tanks we stole from Russia is still being prominently displayed in the Häme Regiment base in Lahti... checks on his facts Fuck, I'm too old for this shit. The Häme Regiment (HämR) was a regiment that was shut down in 2014. I mean, it was about time. But I'm still curious as to what happened to the tank I was talking about... Well, say what you want about LLM's (and they do sort of threaten a lot of society but) but it was pretty good in searching for info like this. I explained to Gemini where I did my service and asked about the tank.
So yeah. Anyway, my point was that I just remember reading the sign saying how many we took from the Soviets. And also our lieutenants and whatnot military fanatics giving us some history on them. Then I couldn't remember the number years after so I googled it and saw we only had some puny WWI tanks before. Honestly, I don't even know what a Vickers six-ton is, but I'm guessing British..? (Because I do know what a Vickers gun is) Checking.
Yah. Thanks for the info.
Oh yeah.
So about half and half apparently:
So we had like 60 light tanks. By the end of the war we had captured and destroyed, quite a few.
Oh yeah and about the languages, yeah, if you speak both Finnish and English fluently, it's awesome what weird shit you can combine because of the different natures of the languages. My friends used to think me a bit pretentious for inserting English phrases or words into Finnish, but that was like 10+ years ago. Nowadays most speak Finglish pretty fluently and it doesn't matter if you add a bit of London while completely speaking Finnish, as long as you're not doing it just to be pretentious, but because the word/phrase suits better (or you've just forgotten the Finnish word, which happens to me quite a bit nowadays.)
KeenFlame@feddit.nu · -6 pts · 192d
No it is not
Martineskirt@lemmy.world MOD · 13 pts · 191d
Hello, please change the title to "hmmm". Thank you.
E: Oh, it's gen ai. Fuck...
bazzett@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 191d
Done. Sorry, didn't see the rules in the sidebar from my Lemmy client.
azureskypirate@lemmy.zip · 12 pts · 192d
Refraccionera = repair shop, mexican dialect
Sign with E in red cancel mark is No Estiocionar = No parking
Oxxo = Convience store common in Latin america
Street sign says Avenida Sur = South Avenue
It's probably not AI, güey. No mames
LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 192d
No mames?? 😢
Hubi@feddit.org · 11 pts · 193d
That generator does not look like it's secured properly.
Canconda@lemmy.ca · 10 pts · 192d
As funny as this is... Dodge released a fully electric truck that contains a V6 generator. Goes 690 miles one trip and can pull 14,000lbs.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 191d
All PHEVs work like that.
Back to the old Chevy Volt.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 193d
"I bought this Tesla, but there's no place to charge it, do you want it?"
"Sure."
Abbysimons@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 191d
That’s actually a pretty creative solution if you’re far from a charging station.
systemglitch@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 191d
Unleaded8163@fedia.io · 9 pts · 193d
I've seen a few pictures like this before. The fun fact part is, this is could actually be pretty damn efficient if done well. Gas powered generators are designed to run efficiently and deliver power at a specific RPM. An gas car's engine has to run and deliver power at a wide range of RPMs, so is generally not running at it's most efficent speed.
fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 13 pts · 192d
Gas powered generators are designed to run efficiently for small shitty motors. Gas generators are not efficient. Especially if you care about emissions since they usually lack catalytic converters.
crank0271@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 192d
I don't think this guy cares about emissions nor what happens to the generator when he floors the accelerator.
zout@fedia.io · 10 pts · 193d
Making electricity this way, storing it in the battery and using it to drive a vehicle have their own efficiencies, all less than 100%. Also, these smaller types of generators aren't that efficient to begin with. So I doubt it.
joostjakob@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 192d
I remember reading an article about a "race" in Australia where they tested this out. The electric vehicle had lower total fuel consumption than the combustion car. Here it is: https://reneweconomy.com.au/tesla-ev-charged-with-diesel-generator-still-cleaner-than-conventional-car-61942/
zout@fedia.io · 1 pts · 192d
That's a good point, but this article specifically states that they used a very efficient diesel generator.
JamesBoeing737MAX@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 192d
Well, as far as I know Honda hybrids work this way.
real_squids@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 192d
New Honda hybrids don't even have driveshafts connecting the engine to the wheels, it's purely for generating electricity. Pretty cool imo
JamesBoeing737MAX@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 192d
No thanks, will continue driving a 1.9 TDI golf, until It kills itself, because I actually like it.
real_squids@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 192d
1.9 PD - fragrance for men
darklamer@feddit.org · 3 pts · 192d
This is essentially how diesel–electric locomotives work (since almost a hundred years now).
officermike@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 192d
An EV with a range extending gasoline motor could also easily be configured to run at peak efficiency with the added benefit of being within the aerodynamic envelope of the car instead of being a trailered brick.
seathru@quokk.au · 2 pts · 192d
That's how most diesel trains work. The diesel engines run generators that power electric motors.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 192d
A plug-in hybrid.
Edit: removed the opinionated and likely wrong part.
Cort@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 192d
Depends on how you use it. Most of my driving is on electric even with only a 35km range. It gets maybe 20 gallons of gas per year and drives 6500 miles per year (~900/year on gas).
leds@feddit.dk · 2 pts · 192d
Yeah same here , makes a lot of sense to be able to do all to local city trips , groceries etc electric.
These kind of trips would otherwise be on cold engine.
The occasional longer trip uses fuel but still has regenerative braking and uses the electric engine as boost when accelerating.
So petrol engine runs much more ideal conditions and fuel efficient.
mastod0n@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 192d
I got a plug-in hybrid as my company car before the current one and despite my bias I gotta admit it was rather practical for my use case. Most workdays I was able to drive fully electric (we have chargers at our branches) and when driving to my rural hometown (with absolutely 0 hopes to charge with more than one phase) on the weekends I burned some gas.
Still, not gonna defend the german "Dienstwagenprivileg" for plug-ins, in way to many ways it just greenwashes those cars.
edit: current plug-ins have up to 100km range, mine only had around 45.
hereiamagain@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 192d
I loved my Chevy volt, it was a first Gen, 30 mile range on electric. But man we used the crap out of that thing. Could drive to work and sometimes all the way home, only really burned gas on the weekends or if we went out after work.
Would've been better if we had a level 2 charger at home, as it was we were stuck at like 1.3kw charging, so overnight for a full charge.
Had it for almost 3 years, bought it broken for cheap and fixed it. It was getting long in the tooth, battery showing its age (expensive replacement), AC starting to leak under the dash (expensive fix), and transmission starting to leak (never investigated, but presumably expensive fix).
Also needed a handful of other repairs that I was waiting for for weather before doing.
Wife hated it because it didn't do great in the winter, both traction and range. Plus the blind spots were big.
With all that... when I slid into a ditch last month, and the insurance totaled it.. I let them keep it.
Ended up with a gas guzzler again, but if I could get another good deal on a 2nd Gen, or if they ever come out with a 3rd Gen, I'd gladly drive one again.
They're perfect because you can be electric as much as you can be, but still have range and instant fill up at a gas station.
I love my a good PHEV.
TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 192d
This is the most accurate representation of a Lemmy, a comment with a hard opinion but nothing to really back it up getting upvotes followed by plenty of experiences and counterarguments refuting it but not getting quite the same amount of upvotes. Imagine if people could dialogue and not just circlejerk hate.
joostjakob@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 192d
Still more efficient than a diesel car https://reneweconomy.com.au/tesla-ev-charged-with-diesel-generator-still-cleaner-than-conventional-car-61942/
e8CArkcAuLE@piefed.social · 6 pts · 192d
México mágico
Anarki_@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 192d
Oh hell no. Can we have one comm without slop?
Martineskirt@lemmy.world MOD · 3 pts · 191d
For over a year there's been a pinned post requesting someone to take over the community with no one willing to mod. If you actually want to see the change then tell me and I will tranfer the community rights to you. Though I'd recommend to not act retroactively and make a post with new rules moving forward.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 191d
This is a good idea, though.
Piston engines are way, way, way more efficient (and cheaper to make) when optimized for one RPM and a static load (like a generator). They can be tiny if running at 100% throttle all the time; a few horsepower is enough. Excluding the transmission saves weight/cost, and a generator for a few horsepower isn’t that big.
Yeah, you get electrical loss, but everything else more than makes up for it.
deltapi@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 191d
This is what diesel locomotives do.
myplacedk@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 191d
I heard of hybrid cars working like that. I wonder why it never really became a thing.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 191d
I suspect "tiny battery+generator" EVs aren't a thing in the US because:
It doesn't sound or drive like an ICE car. It still has a battery, so gets all that range/durability "anxiety" associated with being an EV.
It's associated with all the issues of ICE-based hybrids.
It's not "all-electric," not quiet, so it's not percieved as a luxury car like pure EVs generally are.
The cars that do implement this tend to be smaller, so not marketable here in the US, apparently.
Factories are still tooled to make ICE cars en masse, not EV drivetrains.
In other words, it's all perception and marketing. And I think, sadly, it's true: people wouldn't buy them here in the US.
You do see them outside the US though.
Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 192d
There is a huge missed opportunity of having modular battery packs that you can load into EVs.
You don’t need a huge battery for everyday, in fact it makes your drive less efficient.
What if there were standards and you could go to a gas station and rent some packs. Put them in the trunk (there would be slots and/or standard connectors), and then drive off.
Once road trip is over you return the packs (or you could buy instead of rent).
You can also just swap the packs in gas stations with fully charged equivalent, making long trips more flexible.
I think china did something like that with scooters.
Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de · 9 pts · 192d
There were attempts, but suvh a system just doesn't work reliably. The pack has to be replaced by robots since it's under your car (has to be due to space constrains and more importantly weight), and the amount of moving parts, reliability and safety concerns were a constant issue.
For scooters it's no problem given the way smaller size and optimal position inside the chassis, but for cars this concept hardly works properly.
kivihiili@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 192d
above all, the biggest issue i see here is the mounting (or lack thereof) of the generator on the trailer.
please, secure your loads!!!
pHr34kY@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 192d
The biggest issue I see here is the generator not casting a shadow like the rest of the trailer.
TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 192d
Honestly, a car with a small urban autonomy battery with a system where the rest of the battery is on a trailer would be a pretty awesome system, but it would require some massive adoption and car manufacturers are just going with ridiculously large batteries and fast charging for two reasons: they can sell it for more, and fast charging wears out the battery faster and requires more proprietary maintenance as a result.
A lot of EV innovations that could have been have been denied entry suspiciously when they've reached the bureaucratic industrial standardization that most major car manufacturers just seem to be able to gloss over. The car industry doesn't want to see the profits from proprietary parts and maintenance go, and nothing beats a combustion engine for that. I still miss the Sono Sion, an EV with solar panels which would have been perfect for people who use their cars occasionally on the weekend and rental services. At least Aptera is still going strong.
Blackmist@feddit.uk · 4 pts · 192d
Just charge the battery from a dynamo.
AnthropomorphicCat@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 192d
Ok, this is most certainly in Mexico.
oh_@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 192d
The Oxxo gives it away.
AnthropomorphicCat@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 192d
Y la farmacia similares
FaygoRedPop@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 193d
I am totally ignorant and this is baseless, but wouldn't that charge the battery to go like 300 feet or something?
Hubi@feddit.org · 3 pts · 193d
It would charge extremely slowly but you'd probably get a few kilometers of range out of it.
DarkSideOfTheMoon@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 191d
I ~~understand this is in Brazil (see the stores) and they have few charging places. ~~ Edit: not Brazil it’s Mexico. Not sure about EV infrastructure there.
wavebeam@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 191d
bazzett@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 191d
Nope, it's in Mexico. I can't say what the situation is with charging stations, tho, since I don't own an EV.
Chee_Koala@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 192d
Checkmate, atheists!
GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 192d
Slugbug!
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 191d
Kinda defeats the attempt at circumventing the petroleum tit usually cited by ev users
trackball_fetish@lemmy.wtf · 1 pts · 191d
Would some sort of solar panel + battery array combo work in a similar way?
GrantUsEyes@piefed.zip · 1 pts · 192d
Ghostie@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 192d
kamayatu24@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 191d
It's safer to drive that way. It's safer to drive this way. The car is almost always charged.