Jerry Cans + Harvester Range Extender

[CarTechGeek]

I think it'll change even if it's gas and go but still runs the engine 100% of the time. If there's no full ev range plus gas range extension and it's all ev/gas for the 500 then that I feel will hurt sales of the harvester.

If it's just gas and go, then there is no need to have the Range Extender always on. You can just just drive the first 150 mile in pure EV mode, then turn on the Range Extender, and gas and go from there.

There has NEVER been a PHEV/EREV that couldn't do this. It would be an Epic Fail if Harvester can't. A few people are just leaping to bad conclusions.

The worse ever example that we bring up as a cautionary tale, was the i3 Rex.

But even that could just gas and go under ideal circumstances, but it ran into problems under less than ideal conditions, like very long uphill grades, or even very strong headwinds, that forced it to slowdown, because it's Genset at 25 KW was inadequate to handle anything much beyond ideal conditions.

I'm 99% certain that Harvester will have true gas and go capability while NOT towing.

But it won't be gas and go while towing. If you want to tow at highway speed you will need to constantly draw down the battery to compensate for the limitations of the Genset in that role, and thus will need to charge the battery during RE operation while towing to maintain highway speed.

 

[TreeKiller]

Great discussion in here. Enjoying all the hypothesis! I think we've seen something from Scout now that the expected battery range for the models with the Harvester package is going to be 150 miles. As such, you should be able to daily the vehicle on battery alone without running the generator. It would make sense that whether the Harvester is activated or not will be automatic in some modes, and manual in others. For example, when towing, I expect that the vehicle will sense that it has a trailer plugged into it and automatically activate the Harvester to keep the batteries at (nearly) full charge while the vehicle is being driven. Probably won't fully keep up when the vehicle is moving under load, but will add positive charge when, for example, sitting at a light or going down a hill when you would have regen braking and Harvester generator both providing charge at the same time.

Also I have read in Scout's marketing that the Harvester will be capable of charging the batteries while the vehicle is parked, but seen nothing indicating how quickly. Since part of how I plan to use my Traveler Harvester would be to occasionally tow another vehicle on a flat bed, about 5,200lbs total, I would for sure need to be able to both run the Harvester while towing and while parked.