Would you buy a new EVan, with 300 is mile rang?

[maingate]

You can extend the range by fitting a large diesel generator in one of the lockers.

 

[Geek]

Charging bays are already being used by motorhomes.

Assuming a standard "fast charge" of 22KW peak (18KW average), if it was discharged to 10%, it would take over nine hours to recharge.

You'd need a faster charger, which usually costs more KWh.

 

[Geek]

You can extend the range by fitting a large diesel generator in one of the lockers.

A diesel generator that fitted in a locker will probably only be 2 to 3 KW, so it'd be running 24 hours a day to catch up.

 

[maingate]

A diesel generator that fitted in a locker will probably only be 2 to 3 KW, so it'd be running 24 hours a day to catch up.

But...... it would still extend the range. Maybe only by about half a mile but I am not wrong, am I?

 

[Geek]

I'm not sure how much the range would be reduced by the extra load of a generator. Might end up with less range as well as less payload.

 

[maingate]

I'm not sure how much the range would be reduced by the extra load of a generator. Might end up with less range as well as less payload.

Just in case you missed it, I was not being serious.

I's called a joke.

 

[Geek]

I think you'll find it is called a hybrid.

 

[CriftinsCampers]

Better perhaps:-

Entegra Embark Extended Electric Class A Motorhome: The Best Inventions of 2025

Find out why Entegra Embark Extended Electric Class A Motorhome is on TIME's list of 2025's best inventions.

time.com

Yes a Range extender is a very sensible idea, it’s effectively what the BMW i3 and Ford Transit have.
$300,000 is in the a bit steep price range for me and I doubt buyers with that amount of disposable income are particularly bothered about running costs.

I don’t think we’ll see many of those plugged into a pod point at Tesco.

 

[CriftinsCampers]

As for generators the iveco in my Avatar came with a 10kw Cummins Oman Diesel generator
I have a standard 7kw EVSE and a spare 3kw one with a 16A commando plug so yep I had to give it a go!

Full tank of Red Diesel, ran it for 7 hours and a fully charged car
0 mpg out of the van though

I wonder if I should try to tow the van with my car whilst charging next time…….
Drat just remembered it’s not type approved to tow, it can’t even pull the skin off a rice pudding!

 

[Geek]

As for generators the iveco in my Avatar came with a 10kw Cummins Oman Diesel generator
I have a standard 7kw EVSE and a spare 3kw one with a 16A commando plug so yep I had to give it a go!

Full tank of Red Diesel, ran it for 7 hours and a fully charged car
0 mpg out of the van though

As a matter of interest, how much diesel did it use running for 7 hours?
My motorhome has an LPG generator, which outputs 2Kw at constant load.
It claims to use 310g of LPG per hour but I don't know if that is true.
If it is true, that makes the electricity 24p per KWh with LPG at 80p per litre.
That's only marginally cheaper than plugging into the mains at home, but well under half the cost of a typical EV charge point.

 

[Geek]

As for generators the iveco in my Avatar came with a 10kw Cummins Oman Diesel generator
I have a standard 7kw EVSE and a spare 3kw one with a 16A commando plug so yep I had to give it a go!

The motorhome originally under discussion claims 1.57 miles to the KWh, so even at the full 10KW (which is fairly unlikely to be sustained for hours) it would take over 17 hours to put 270 miles of range in. That's a fair bit longer than overnight.

A locker-size generator with a 2KW output would only put range in at 3mph.

 

[CriftinsCampers]

As a matter of interest, how much diesel did it use running for 7 hours?

At a guess it probably used around 2l an hour.
I bought the van with the gauge showing a full tank of what turned out to be red diesel in the secondary fuel tank so not sure exactly how full it really was, total capacity iirc is around 75l
It also fed two eberspacher diesel heaters, and has since been repurposed as a grey water tank.
I eventually drained over 50l out for use in my tractor after playing with the generator and testing the heaters etc

 

[Geek]

Decades ago, I bought a motorhome with two diesel tanks. One of them had been disconnected, but was still there. Eventually I removed it to save weight and I discovered it was about a third full of red diesel. Oops!

 

[rugbyken]

as an aside i see steve ( roaming radfords) has just driven his Buzz e van down to gibraltar caught the ferry to morocco got from calais to cadiz in 4 days 1350 mls serious drive with any veh let alone having to charge up in between

 

[Geek]

At a guess it probably used around 2l an hour.

That sounds about right. Assume 10KWh per litre in the diesel and maybe 35% efficiency, two litres would give 7KWh, which is what you'd expect to charge batteries at a nominal 10KW.
Of course, an actual 10KW output would use more diesel, but battery charging doesn't work like that.

 

[Geek]

as an aside i see steve ( roaming radfords) has just driven his Buzz e van down to gibraltar caught the ferry to morocco got from calais to cadiz in 4 days 1350 mls serious drive with any veh let alone having to charge up in between

I used to have a car with an LPG conversion.
With a full tank of petrol and a full tank of LPG it could probably go 900 miles before refuelling.
I never dared more than 800 because running with less than 100 miles of range remaining would have made me anxious.

 

[gasgas]

270 miles? Then take off the 20% top of charge (should only charge to 80%!) Then take off the 20% bottom of charge and you have already lost a lot of miles. Then, doing more than 50mph will take off a few more and then you have to find a charger for it! I recon not much more than 150 miles if driven very carefully!

Edit: Just a thought.. Something that size is going to be over 4.25 tonnes, the proposed new weight for non C1 with electric vehicles.

. . . . and don't forget the additional drag of the diesel generator you will have to tow behind you.
. . . . and the additional costs of having to stay at camp sites with 13A sockets for two days to recharge it while you go everywhere by (diesel) bus

Rumour is right about the 20% lowest charge allowable and the 80% maximum charge allowable. After two years and 8000 miles my Nisasan Leaf needed a new battery. When taken back to the Nissan dealer for the 5 year battery warranty replacement, they plugged in their computer and said "You plugged it in to recharge it when the battery was already 80% full. That voids the warranty".
And in any case, the 60% of the claimed range that you can expect, is in fact less than that because as with any petrol or diesel engine, the real range will never be what the maker claims. So in reality it might stretch to 50% of the claimed range.
It's an expensive mistake to make.
DON'T DO IT

 

[CriftinsCampers]

The first gen leaf was notorious for battery degradation and low range especially in winter and early adopters of ev technology suffered the consequences but otoh they mostly had free charging!

The worlds moved on since then, the 20% 80% negativity has been widely debunked and I like probably every other ev owner regularly use the full 100% capacity of our vehicles.

The reality is once any vehicle gets huge and heavy the battery capacity has to be massive to provide any sort of adequate range and the pro rata mpg equivalent of diesel or petrol makes the rip off cost of public charging considerably more expensive for most especially of using the extremely high power chargers necessary to get it done in a reasonable time frame

Mass charging at anything above the rate of an extremely inefficient granny charger on camp sites is still a long way off.
It could be the motor caravan manufacturers become the last to switch or jump directly to hydrogen if it ever becomes a thing.

 

[gasgas]

.....
It could be the motor caravan manufacturers become the last to switch or jump directly to hydrogen if it ever becomes a thing.

There's a brilliant Youtube on how JCB have converted their standard diesel engine to run on hydrogen. Sir Barling (? is that right) points out why it is good for their vehicles. They go to one place of work, move around the place, then they want refuelling. So the fuelling method is that a big lorry carrying pallets loaded with hydrogen tanks takes them to the building site, or farm, which is the refuelling point for the JCBs. The digger, when it gets low on hydrogen goes to the location where the tanks are, refills, and goes back to ploughing the farm, or digging the trenches or whatever they were doing. That overcomes the issue of lack of refilling stations at the roadside. It doesn't address the issue of the cost of electricity needed to produce the hydrogen though . . ..
What we want is an engine that runs on rain water. But if we invented that, some Arab would pay us £2,000,000 to shut up.

 

[gasgas]

Just look at this: Sodium batteries are coming, and yes even I would buy a car / motorhome running on that. "Would" in the sense that if I am still alive, driving and wanting a new vehicle.
Trouble is, it doesn't overcome the universally utterly incompetent garage repairers who just do whatever the plug-in computer tells them is wrong. They will still operate their "Let's plug this £500 item in and see if that cures the problem . . . .. oh no it wasn't that, let's try this £500 item and see if that cures the problem . . . " and the owner ends up with a £2000 bill to replace a £50 sensor.