Electric Coach Conversions - Thoughts?

[CLRH2O]

Hi Everyone!

Cheney here (other half of Escape Velocity) and I have a question as to why we haven't seen anyone converting their coaches to all electric?
I've spoken to Newell, EV West, and TransPower, but no one seems to really be jumping on this band wagon for the consumer market. TransPower was the closest with their line of school buses now being utilized in CA, but nothing for the individual RV market. I also looked up Allison Transmission and they seemed the most receptive with their current projects to be developing heavy, long range electric vehicles, but the trickle down into the consumer market doesn't appear to be happening anytime soon. And yes I've seen the Winnebago in-town RV that's electric which I was very excited about since it's a start.

With that being said, who would convert to electric if they could? Clearwater and I are very conscious of our carbon footprint and have even been asked if we're being hypocritical by going out and buying a old diesel pusher. We like to think that even though we're still using diesel, due to our minimization, our overall footprint will be smaller, but it does eat away at me to be using up limited resources at such an inefficient rate.

Do you, or do you know anyone that has tried to convert their coach to at least a hybrid, replacing the engine with an electric motor and keeping the generator as a backup combined with a solar array? My wishes would be complete, if we could only get rid of the diesel lol Does anyone else feel this way too?

Let's Discuss!
-Cheney

[Gil_J]

Baby steps. Our coaches are all electric when parked. That's a change over past years. If course, it's only a migration from propane to electric which isn't really what you're driving at.

Although the day may come, I struggle with seeing an all battery or even hybrid power being economical for the few miles most RV conversions are driven on annual basis. If CNG availability becomes widespread I suppose I could one day see our coaches becoming CNG/battery hybrid powered using the battery/CNG for house requirements as well.

Although this would be good with respect to carbon footprint, all would not be positive until we can fully migrate away from lead plated batteries.

We still need 500HP to move these big coaches, so an electric motor of this size, enough batteries to serve the power storage needs, and enough generator power may be substantial.

Never is a long way off, so I won't suggest this will never happen. My guess it could be 10+ years away unless hydrogen power or yet to be tapped energy option comes to market. Of course there's always the Tesla and tend option ;-)

[TheGadgetGuru]

I'm going to be a bit more optimistic than Gil and will predict that we'll see electric motor-operated motorhomes within the next three to five years. Why, you may ask? A rising tide raises all ships and with Tesla, Mercedes, Freightliner and others sinking big bucks into the development of electrically powered semis, having this technology "trickle" down to a motorhome chassis may be a logical step.

I'll add with Greyhound being an important customer to Prevost, having electric powered busses surely are being discussed.

Personally, since I have limited (if any) mechanical skills, I'll be interested in a motorhome that bypasses the confusing diesel engine with a simple electric motor.

Since there's folks who are a lot smarter than I am on this site, I'll ask that when connected to 50 amp power, in theory, how long would it take to recharge a battery operated motorhome?

[BadFitter]

Looking at the published charging info for Tesla, maybe some sense of electrical requirements can be made. Needless to say, recharging a Model S is light years easier that recharging a 50,000 pound electric vehicle like a truck or RV would be.

Tesla says using a 50 amp, 240 volt connection, it takes one hour of charging to obtain 29 miles of range. If you want to drive say, 200 miles the next day, one would need around 7 hours of charging. Again, this is for the Model S car, not a big truck or RV.

Another consideration is that you will be using ALL of the capacity of the 50 amp, 240 volt campground connection. Assuming you would like to cook a meal or run the air conditioners, you would need to share the connection. If it is hot outside, you may need all of the power capacity just to keep the bus cool and run the normal things you use inside the bus.

Tesla

[BoaterAl]

I'am no electrical engineering college student. Keeping in mind all the posts we read about electrical vehicles where does one find the correct path ?.
Plug in and charge ...go 29 miles after sitting for 1 hour to accomplish this distance. Standing outside in a rain storm holding onto a 240 volt connection, what could possibly go wrong ?

I'am not posting to say the sky is falling on this electric car, bus, truck subject at all. I'am just a little stand back approach looking for better info on the whole industry for the time being.

AL

[TheGadgetGuru]

I have no doubt that negotiations are underway to add high speed chargers at various truck stop parking lots around the country. Within five years you may not hear the sound of generators buzzing away while the drivers grab some shut eye. Add to that vision some autonomous features and this industry could be undergoing a revolution.

[Donnie Myers]

I will jump in and say I won't see this in the Prevost conversion market in my lifetime! If you are concerned about "carbon footprints", just think about what they will be with the power plants required to produce the amount of power needed and the infrastructure it would take. Fossil fuels will be around for a long time. There is no such thing as free power.

Also, think about braking. Sure you can reverse polarity on the motors, but even trains have brakes on the wheels. All electric trains use magnets in the ground. The cost of the all electric full size 50k plus pound motorhome would be off the chart!

[Pete]

I agree with Donnie, there would also have to be massive weight reductions on the coaches as well. I also think the closest conversion now available would be CNG which is now being used by tons of local city buses. I have no idea for the cost of converting a bus, even if it could be done.

[TheGadgetGuru]

This makes for interesting reading - Mercedes Benz Electric Bus: https://electrek.co/2018/07/10/merce...c-ecitaro-bus/

[CLRH2O]

Clearwater here, adding a few random things we've run across on the topic that made the idea really stick:
----

Cummins, who've been working in the space with R&D for about 10 years at this point just made some major moves, including:
https://www.cummins.com/news/release...train-provider

And previously from Cummins:
https://www.equipmentworld.com/cummi...iesel-company/

Allison Transmission is sending out info about using their units with electric drive-trains, and has been putting a decent amount of R&D into the space:
http://www.allisontransmission.com/c...-up-to-65-tons

Volvo is investing deeply as well:
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/05/16...livery-trucks/

TransPower is currently operating in the states, and they've provided a decent amount of info via the detailed PDFs.
http://www.transpowerusa.com // https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ2C4_7bqrk

And China of course has more companies (incl. major player BYD) building / operating electric buses than anyone anywhere else in the world:
https://www.citylab.com/transportati...olution/559571
--
https://electrek.co/2016/11/10/all-e...lectric-range/


With a bit of casual banter between us, some humorously uneducated speculation and a bit of armchair research; we imagined a custom fabricator will be needed for the new *motor mounts* and that the use of 4 inline (2x2) WARp motors mated to a 2 speed trans along with maybe 500kWh of high discharge cells in a battery bank should be a decent start to getting a 45k to 50k lbs of bus up to speed and down the road.

We entertained a setup consisting of 2x of the following for turning the drive axle which would give 2000lbs of torque at a cost of around $16k for the *base* hardware (not batteries, not controllers, not wiring - just the power plant(s) and the transmission:
http://www.evwest.com/catalog/produc...roducts_id=213

Cool video on mating the above DC motors in series and to the transmission:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie7qvo-aC5k

For comparison, a Rebuilt 8V92TA (not to speak of a Series 60 or Volvo D13) costs around $25k on it's own. Add in the Trans and you're up to $40k for used/rebuilt power-plant parts alone. Donnie, I think you're likely more knowledgeable on these topics than most anyone else in the country. Do those prices for a diesel power-plant (rebuilt) sound roughly accurate?


As for the "fuel", LifePo4 prismatic cells are still the most readily available you can find in bulk without going utterly broke - but these don't seem to have the discharge rate (only something like C1 discharge at best) needed for the task in our estimation. and higher energy density high discharge cells like previously mentioned don't come dirt cheap juuuust yet. About those high discharge high energy density cells; Maybe 2170 cells with a Lithium-nickel-cobalt-aluminum chemistry like what Panasonic is currently pumping out en-mass at the moment would be a good fit?

Donnie brings up - in our honest opinion - pretty much the most important part of this entire conversation. And that is where do you get all that "energy" from in the first place. Obviously displacing the liquid fuel used by OTR heavy equipment and cars saves on tail pipe emissions. But then it's just shifted over into power plant emissions. So as to the 'green fields and butterflies' aspect of things - major MAJOR inroads in solar, wind, thermal and tidal energy generation still need to be made.

There is, as is obvious, a LONG way to go. But 'long' these days is measured in years, not decades. And that's a nice reality to acknowledge.

P.S. - it's late, I haven't checked for grammatical errors and I'm bleary eyed so please forgive any of that stuff in this post