Charge nissan leaf while driving

[gadyamit]

I'm from Israel so I can't get my Leaf yet.
BUT SOON I HOPE...

I want to be able to hook trailer and charge while driving.
I would like to know how I can get specs or any information how to start doing that...
Thanks
Gad Amit

 

[GeekEV]

The google search box on the search page is your friend...

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1987" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=4903" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=5126" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6847" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[planet4ever]

The google search box on the search page is your friend...

...except that you don't have that unless you are a forum supporter.

Ray

 

[surfingslovak]

The google search box on the search page is your friend...

...except that you don't have that unless you are a forum supporter.

Interesting, but there is an easy workaround for that. Type site:mynissanleaf.com in Google before your query. Here is an example, which will search the forum for the term trailer:

http://www.google.com/#q=site:mynissanleaf.com+trailer

 

[gadyamit]

Thanks so much for your support; I did get some serious answers from the Google search and previous talks on the trailer and charging issue.

So, after reading what some people wrote against the trailer solution actually they said "just buy a Volt" it look to me that we "the pro trailer people" need to clarify few things:

We all know that in a "normal" use 90 percent of the time we are driving on our battery range. so we are all clean. But if we want our EV to be first car in our family (not 2nd or 3rd) we must provide distance extender solution. The volt disadvantage is that you carry the engine with you all the time Plus your battery will NOT last for a "normal" daily commute so you drive "LESS CLEAN" compare to a pure EV…

But if we consider opening a service to share the trailer then it is all new game. When you move out from your city you connect to trailer station (special gas station) and disconnect next to your destination, you can actually provide a very attractive business concept that provides solution to the most serious EV disadvantage. I hope to be there too…

BTW I have a Hebrew blog on that subject http://www.go4ev.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (so if you can read Hebrew…) Just to explain the price of gas is Israel is about twice compare to the US plus the Tax benefit In Israel is greater... Any way my blog will be in English soon. The idea is to push for the EV solution, with the above solution for extra distance.
Gad

 

[RegGuheert]

But if we consider opening a service to share the trailer then it is all new game. When you move out from your city you connect to trailer station (special gas station) and disconnect next to your destination, you can actually provide a very attractive business concept that provides solution to the most serious EV disadvantage. I hope to be there too…

We also have a thread about a company in Europe working on that idea: Can this work? ebuggy, EV range extender for EV cars.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

you have alternative vehicles then i would have to question your need to extend the EV range with a Volt since that is not what you would be doing. You would be better off driving the alternative vehicle when the EV wont work.

I see this a lot where people over think the range limitation of an EV. first thing i would do is start logging your daily driving as far as distance, whether there is a charge event possible? (guessing not. sounds like your public charging options are limited)

75 miles a day is a lot of driving and that is what the LEAF can do for you. now, if you need more than that say 10% of the time, It would take you decades to justify the purchase of a Volt. you are better off to park the LEAF and drive gas for that 10%.



another thing to consider and this is much more likely and that is driving between the range of the Volt and LEAF. more likely to see a significant amount of trips here. the LEAF covers that as well. but now you might see 20-30% of your trips in the 40-75 mile range. now that's as much as 40% that you will have to burn gas if driving a Volt.

 

[fooljoe]

gadyamit -

I don't know if you found this thread yet when you searched, but we do have a forum member, Ingineer, who has successfully built a range-extending trailer. Check out the thread here: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6847&hilit=propane&start=84" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[smkettner]

ingineer might set you up but I think a Tesla or Volt would be way less money.

 

[davewill]

The google search box on the search page is your friend...

...except that you don't have that unless you are a forum supporter.

Ray

I'm pretty sure you do. I think it's missing (along with all the search options) if you're not a MEMBER, but you don't have to be a supporter.

 

[fooljoe]

ingineer might set you up but I think a Tesla or Volt would be way less money.

You guys... I'm just trying to answer the guy's question, not tell him his question is stupid. And besides, the trailer as a rental/shared ownership item has real potential in my opinion. Take my example:

I drive 50-60 miles to work every weekday, and cart the family around town on the weekends as much as possible. A few times a year I go to places like Tahoe where I have a vacation rental where I could charge an EV if I had it with me. Naturally, we take my wife's minivan for that and other long trips as it is now, but that's boring.

So let's look at the "get a Volt instead of a Leaf" idea. First problem is the Volt's EV range doesn't cover my daily commute - not even close. Next, if we were to suppose there were a Volt-like option that did cover my daily commute, then I'd be lugging around the dead weight of the ICE 90% of the time just to be able to use it for the occasional long trip. And the Volt costs more for less EV driving, so I'm paying a big premium to lug around that ICE. And that ICE comes with all the baggage of oil changes, tune-ups, etc., which kills one of the great benefits of driving an EV. Not a very appealing option, IMO.

The next idea is "Get a Tesla", which I'll generalize to "get a bigger battery or a trailer with a battery instead of an ICE". Ok, so a bigger battery might get me to some vacation spots that I can't reach in my Leaf, but there's no way any EV is going to take me 500 miles to Tahoe in the near future (at least not in anywhere near the ~8 hour time frame I'm used to with an ordinary car). And if you could get a battery that big, we have a similar problem to the Volt, where you're paying for and lugging around a whole bunch of extra weight that you don't need the vast majority of the time. I guess you could swap battery trailers every 50-100 miles or so, as someone mentioned in one of these threads, but that's just, well, stupid. If you're going to go the trailer route, it needs to be an ICE with a widely available fuel source.

So the only available option now is "rent an ICE car" or "just-drive-the-Prius", which is certainly workable. But those of us who've become accustomed to driving EVs yearn for something more. Our cars are ours; they're like a second home for many. It'd be great to bring along that piece of home when going away. And especially for longer trips where charging is available at the destination, it'd be great to drive on electricity while there. I'm sure there are some for whom this would apply to more than just the occasional vacation - perhaps one who splits his time between two residences 500 or so miles away. In order to drive on electricity most of the time such a person would be stuck with the Volt option or having 2 Leafs, or having his Leaf shipped back and forth. All sorts of lame.

Anyway, my point is that perhaps all the critics of the range-extending trailer idea just need to be a little more imaginative. Obviously the cost of a trailer like Ingineer's is very high - I think I heard $30k just for the turbine. But it's not hard to imagine if someone were to set out to manufacture these in any sort of quantity the cost would drop dramatically. Also, cool as the turbine is, I think it would work just fine with a conventional genset, and gasoline would be preferable for the fuel source. The ACPropulsion trailer used a motorcycle engine, which should be reasonably priced and take care of the emissions naysayers. And besides, it would make much more sense to be able to rent these than to buy one and have it sit in your garage unused 90% of the time (although even that's better than having to lug around the genset all the time like with a Volt). It seems very reasonable to assume that the cost of such a rental should be in the same ballpark as renting a typical ICE car. Supposing demand ever gets high enough, you could even imagine being able to just rent one way, so you'd be able to save quite a bit over the typical car rental. I don't doubt that the demand isn't quite high enough yet, but I think we're getting there.

 

[smkettner]

ingineer might set you up but I think a Tesla or Volt would be way less money.

The next idea is "Get a Tesla", which I'll generalize to "get a bigger battery or a trailer with a battery instead of an ICE". Ok, so a bigger battery might get me to some vacation spots that I can't reach in my Leaf, but there's no way any EV is going to take me 500 miles to Tahoe in the near future (at least not in anywhere near the ~8 hour time frame I'm used to with an ordinary car). And if you could get a battery that big, we have a similar problem to the Volt, where you're paying for and lugging around a whole bunch of extra weight that you don't need the vast majority of the time. I guess you could swap battery trailers every 50-100 miles or so, as someone mentioned in one of these threads, but that's just, well, stupid. If you're going to go the trailer route, it needs to be an ICE with a widely available fuel source.

Actually Tesla will get you there just about as fast and you ride for free on the supercharger network. But of course that will not help the OP in Israel.

The point is there is no kit or plans that exist. You will need to engineer your own at great time and cost. And I am sure Nissan would be voiding any warranty.

 

[gadyamit]

Yes smkettner
I assume you right... i.e no help from Nissan,
But we should try, I do have very strong support in regards to how to do it right... but if Nissan is involve They will sell more and we will drive in a formal "perfect" solution...
Worth the try.

Gad

 

[fooljoe]

Actually Tesla will get you there just about as fast and you ride for free on the supercharger network.

Ok, maybe in a top-of-the-line Model S ($90k?), and only in the top-of-the-line version, you can hit up the supercharger at Harris Ranch and make perhaps one other charging stop (where I don't know) to get from SoCal to Tahoe, so that takes care of my one specific example. Although I still doubt you could do it in 8 hours. Driving 80 on the 5 with a family of 4 and luggage in the car is going to get you way less than the advertised 300 mile range, and how fast is the Tesla Supercharger? I'm guessing it's going to take at least 1, more likely 2 hours to fully charge that huge battery, and you would need a nearly full charge and probably a second top off near Sacramento to get over the pass. Sorry, I'd still rather just-take-the-Prius.

But even if the Tesla scenario were appealing and possible, I guess it's a question of what you think is more likely to happen the soonest: EVs like the Model S and their supercharger network becoming ubiquitous, or someone attempting the range extending trailer business model.

The point is there is no kit or plans that exist. You will need to engineer your own at great time and cost.

I don't think the point of this thread is to discuss what's available right now. Heck, gadyamit can't even get a Leaf yet. We're just discussing what might be feasible and whether the idea might be worth pursuing.

And I am sure Nissan would be voiding any warranty.

I'm not so sure about that. From what I've seen, the modifications made to the Leaf to enable connecting a trailer and its power supply to the Leaf are or at least can be fully reversible. And as far as voiding the warranty, Nissan would have to show that the modification you made actually caused something to break. It's not like if you make any modification to the car you instantly void the entire warranty. Otherwise any of us who use Ingineer's upgrade or Gary's GID-meter would already have completely worthless warranties (and to be fair, the warranty does seem to be pretty worthless already, at least as far as the battery's concerned.)

 

[LEAFer]

Lake Tahoe to L.A. : 11.5 hours. (Ok ... it was downhill, but it won't make too much difference in the reverse direction).

Article here.

If he had takem I-80 to Folsom he probably could have shaved off 30 minutes.

 

[smkettner]

OK I will say it. The last thing I would want to do is have a fuel burning trailer behind my electric vehicle.
Just take the ICE vehicle or public transportation if the electric will not do what you need.

Maybe a battery pack trailer for rent but still there will not be much of a business model to make money until there is a bunch more EVs on the road.

Nothing wrong with giving it a go but I don't see the economics of it playing out very well.
LEAF works quite nicely right out of the box.

 

[Deleted member 770]

OK I will say it. The last thing I would want to do is have a fuel burning trailer behind my electric vehicle.
Just take the ICE vehicle or public transportation if the electric will not do what you need.
...

While I'm sure that scenario will work for you, I hope you're open to considering the advantages for others:

• The person who doesn't have (or doesn't want to own) a second ICE vehicle. Face it, it's an expensive proposition, especially with insurance and depreciation.
• The person who wants to take "road trip" vacations a few times a year - too long for a bus, too out of the way for a train.
• The person who needs to take a longer trip to get from point A to point B, but can use his EV around town at point B (a traveling salesperson, for example).

Based on Ingineer's experience, it seems that a range extending trailer is way too expensive (over $20,000) for a personal purchase today. But as a rental item, it could well work. We just need to get the standards, connectors and laws in place to allow charging while in motion across manufacturers. We certainly don't want another SAE/CHAdeMO/SuperCharger mess...

 

[gadyamit]

Ahagge
This is my point thanks,
There are more reason to consider charging trailer such as people just LOVE there car… and if you don't need ICE car for long trips it is just great like you said.

But honestly I like to think that I'm still somewhat "naive" i.e. I still have small hope that this tiny step may bring people to understand that we all can move to EV free pollution cars. Since the distance problem of EV have a solution not necessarily perfectly clean but still complete simple solution for distance. The simplicity of EV (charging generator is very simple too) is just beautiful.

So, I know I'm dreaming but at least "I have a dream".

Gad

 

[davewill]

... I guess it's a question of what you think is more likely to happen the soonest: EVs like the Model S and their supercharger network becoming ubiquitous, or someone attempting the range extending trailer business model. ...

Seems obvious to me. The cars are coming along much faster than extender trailers.

P.S. to gadyamit: Please stop with the blue text. I mostly skip your posts because they're too painful to read.

 

[gadyamit]

Sorry for the color...
I agree that the trailer is a temporary solution until technology can solve the distance issue, but it may be the KEY SUCCESS for now since it solve the key limitation. And also I like to dream...
Gad