Range extender - please adjust spec to 250 miles of EV Range

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I feel like a traditional hybrid makes more sense if you rent and can’t charge nightly. My accord gets between 500-600 miles on a full 12 gallon tank. My daily is 12 miles round trip and occasional close to home errands. I generally go between 3-4 weeks with fill ups. Unfortunately the Scouts or any EV might not be the best answer for everyone. It’s just a reality-but like other EV makers, you have to cater to the largest market possible.
You got it. I've constantly saying this in all the EV groups that HEV is a better solution for most people and I constantly got bullied. But that's the truth.
 
I didn't understand why people think all EV with a >300 mile range, especially in commuter traffic needs a home charger. Most people drive less than 40 miles a day. Most trips are less than a few miles long. I'm able to get better than 400 miles on my Lightning if I'm commuting. That's more than 10 days before the need for a recharge for the average commuter. Having access to a L2 charger while shopping or a DCFC once every couple of weeks will solve the issue.

Yes, there are places in the country where there aren't many/any public chargers near places people tend to go to for some kind of shopping/dining/entertainment/recreation, but that's not true of everyone.

The FUD-like expectation that an EV doesn't meet the needs of someone who doesn't have a perfect setup is a sad state of affairs.

No, an EV isn't perfect for everyone. But you don't need a home level 2 charger (nor even L1) to realize the benefits of an EV.

Yes, it's better if you have a charger at home. No, it's not necessary.
Not necessary if you want to charge your vehicle every night like charging your phone 🤣

To charge the 82kwh battery of our ID4 on 110v, it will take a whole weekend plugged in 24 hours a day.
 
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The range extender should get at least 50% of its 500 mile range in pure EV mode otherwise it would be pretty worthless with only 150 miles that you can only get in ideal conditions. In the winter this likely means sub 100 miles pure EV range - not acceptable
Who wouldn't? The issue is not they don't "want" to give more range. The issue is the battery technology. For the same amount of room it takes, the energy density lithium battery can provide is still much lower than gasoline.
Samsung just said their first solid state battery is ready for mass production. But who knows when will it be? Definitely won't make it into their s25 series. And no other manufacturers announced anything. Also, the 150 is just an estimate, they don't have anything yet. If it can run 150 mi battery only and over 500 mi on 35s AT tires, that's already a success to me.
 
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Battery technology isn't moving quite that quickly. Sure, if you have the space, you can shoehorn more batteries into the vehicle, but this just adds more weight and more cost. In the end batteries are technology and more money is being spent on battery research than ever in history. Why? Because so much of what we use every day now (phones, cameras, tools, vehicles and on and on) use batteries. If you think about the first phone and tool batteries and where we are today, things have improved significantly. But those breakthroughs have to be tested, brought to mass production which takes time. Lets see where this goes and we have a few years before we go to production to refine our plans and strategies.
I really hope the scout team focusing on your targets and try to make it out as soon as you can. 2 years of waiting would be too long for many, and technology could change, and design gets old.

I appreciate you guys listening to the future owners, but don't let the noise to steer you off the initial goals
 
I didn't understand why people think all EV with a >300 mile range, especially in commuter traffic needs a home charger. ...

Public chargers generally cost more than gasoline.

A lot of people expect to pay more for an EV, but less to run it and accept that tradeoff.

Not many people will accept paying more to buy it, and paying more to run it.

Also while an EV may take much longer charge, than a gas car to fill, it's actually more convenient in day to day use because you don't have to visit a gas station, and you can just charge at home.

So again, without home charging, the one convenience advantage the EV has, is removed.

So, while it's theoretically possible to own an EV without a place to charge it, doing so removes the cost and convenience advantages of the EV, leaving it just more expensive and less convenient than gas.

So I would always recommend against it, if you can't charge at home.

But if some few diehards want to do it anyway, more power to them, but they are a minority that you don't build a business case around.
 
Battery technology isn't moving quite that quickly. Sure, if you have the space, you can shoehorn more batteries into the vehicle, but this just adds more weight and more cost. In the end batteries are technology and more money is being spent on battery research than ever in history. Why? Because so much of what we use every day now (phones, cameras, tools, vehicles and on and on) use batteries. If you think about the first phone and tool batteries and where we are today, things have improved significantly. But those breakthroughs have to be tested, brought to mass production which takes time. Lets see where this goes and we have a few years before we go to production to refine our plans and strategies.

Absolutely this. I've been following Lithium battery tech for about 20 years. Costs have come down a lot, performance has not improved that much, especially in recent years.

Hundreds of exciting lab results have been announced, but essentially none of them are in commercial scale batteries.
 
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How efficient do you think those 35 ATs would be? I can tell you that the KO2s costed me 2mpg on my f150, and that's from 16 to 14 mpg, not from 42 to 40 mpg. If you know that mpg is actually a more illusional figure than gal/100 mile or liter/100km.

Of course you can put smaller road going tires to improve efficiency. Also, there's a 300+ miles pure BEV to choose if you live in CA. But they are designing for buyers from all states not just CA. And we do love the EREV idea even at the cost of shorter EV only range. It's not their fault, it's where the battery technology at. They cannot pack more energy into the limited space, and you don't want a too heavy vehicle like the hummer EV for off-road.
Well said! ⭐
 
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Public chargers generally cost more than gasoline.

A lot of people expect to pay more for an EV, but less to run it and accept that tradeoff.

Not many people will accept paying more to buy it, and paying more to run it.

Also while an EV may take much longer charge, than a gas car to fill, it's actually more convenient in day to day use because you don't have to visit a gas station, and you can just charge at home.

So again, without home charging, the one convenience advantage the EV has, is removed.

So, while it's theoretically possible to own an EV without a place to charge it, doing so removes the cost and convenience advantages of the EV, leaving it just more expensive and less convenient than gas.

So I would always recommend against it, if you can't charge at home.

But if some few diehards want to do it anyway, more power to them, but they are a minority that you don't build a business case around.
Correct 100%.

I charged solely on EA network for the past 3 years with our ID4, but it's only because we got 3 years of free charging. And it's one of the main reason I got it.

And yes, based on what it showed me about how much I "saved" with the free charging, each charge would cost $25-35. I live 30 minutes one way from work. And I had to charge twice a week. That's like doubled what I paid on gas with 2.0T Maverick. And no need to mention that a hybrid Maverick would save even more.

So I'm planning to add at least a NEMA 14-50 receptacle to our garage this year with the free charge expires.
 
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I don't think a home charger is 100% required but would need some kind of reliable charging plan. For me the cost of installing a L2 charger in my garage is going to be a decent size of my decision making. Because the closest NACS high speed charger is 40 minutes away from me.

Also I feel like lots of people are trying to squeeze a round peg into a square hole with these vehicles. I get it though, the Terra and Traveler are exciting, generating lots of buzz, and shows huge potential. Who wouldn't want one of these?

But a lot of the asks will take it away from it's goal. Being a family oriented multi-purpose tool that can both handle your day to day work and go out on the weekends to explore or take on a family vacation. (my words not SM)

If they were to increase the battery capacity to account for these 500 BEV and 250+ on electric for EREV version it would do several things off the bat.
  • The price would significantly increase as the most expensive part of EV's are the batteries themselves. This would price it out of the every day family vehicle, and only accessible to the tech bros and high income earners. IMHO starting at $60 is already fairly high price point for a family vehicle.
  • The added weight would make it a tank, these are meant to go out and explore. You don't want an excessively vehicle for overlanding, especially if you get stuck. EV's also wear out tires faster than traditional ICE vehicles due to the nature of having so much torque add more weight to that and it will wear them out even faster.
  • Pay for what you don't use. Someone brought up a great point that the Chevy Volt had an BEV range of like 50 miles or something and the vehicle has had great success. This means that for most people it seems that short distances are going to be fine for most people. With having 350 miles in BEV and 150 in all electric for Harvester models this would be more than enough for most people.
Now am I saying it is what it is so stop trying to change it. Of course not, I think all input is valuable. For these first vehicles though I think it's pretty set in their deliverables as far as battery capabilities. Maybe after this initial release and they have a solid foundation they can come out with more of premium touring offering that offers all these ranges and luxury item requests.

Really what gets me are the comments or the attitude of well if it doesn't get X range or doesn't have Y then there is no point. There is a point and lots of people are excited for it.
 
I don't think a home charger is 100% required but would need some kind of reliable charging plan. For me the cost of installing a L2 charger in my garage is going to be a decent size of my decision making. Because the closest NACS high speed charger is 40 minutes away from me.
When I bought my ID.4 I installed an L2 charger in my garage, but since my boat is in my garage I never use it and I just use the 120v outlet just outside my garage door. As long as I’m at home I don’t really care how fast it charges and by morning it’s always enough to get me where I need to go.

I suspect apartments could get away with the same thing. There’s no need for every apartment to have their own L2 - but they do need metered access to a standard outlet where they park their car.
 
When I bought my ID.4 I installed an L2 charger in my garage, but since my boat is in my garage I never use it and I just use the 120v outlet just outside my garage door. As long as I’m at home I don’t really care how fast it charges and by morning it’s always enough to get me where I need to go.

I suspect apartments could get away with the same thing. There’s no need for every apartment to have their own L2 - but they do need metered access to a standard outlet where they park their car.

Same setup and agree as well. 99% of the time I’m using the L1 outside. I have used the L2 inside a handful of times when I know I have longer trip or if I was very depleted from a longer trip.

I reserved the harvester for weekend trips where I don’t know what charging looks like or don’t want to slow things down trying to fit in charging, but if I’m being honest I’m not really sure it’s worth it with the projected specs.

My daily commute is like 10 miles though so probably not everyone’s use case.
 
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When I bought my ID.4 I installed an L2 charger in my garage, but since my boat is in my garage I never use it and I just use the 120v outlet just outside my garage door. As long as I’m at home I don’t really care how fast it charges and by morning it’s always enough to get me where I need to go.

I suspect apartments could get away with the same thing. There’s no need for every apartment to have their own L2 - but they do need metered access to a standard outlet where they park their car.

Same setup and agree as well. 99% of the time I’m using the L1 outside. I have used the L2 inside a handful of times when I know I have longer trip or if I was very depleted from a longer trip.

I reserved the harvester for weekend trips where I don’t know what charging looks like or don’t want to slow things down trying to fit in charging, but if I’m being honest I’m not really sure it’s worth it with the projected specs.

My daily commute is like 10 miles though so probably not everyone’s use case.

FWIW and in case you didn’t know L1 (110V) charging is about 10% less efficient than L2 (220V) charging.

And getting back to the OPs topic, depending on the size of the generator and how its power is implemented, I’d be happy with paying less for a battery that was only capable of 50-75 miles range as long as the vehicles performance isn’t sacrificed when using gas.
 
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Same setup and agree as well. 99% of the time I’m using the L1 outside. I have used the L2 inside a handful of times when I know I have longer trip or if I was very depleted from a longer trip.

I reserved the harvester for weekend trips where I don’t know what charging looks like or don’t want to slow things down trying to fit in charging, but if I’m being honest I’m not really sure it’s worth it with the projected specs.

My daily commute is like 10 miles though so probably not everyone’s use case.
Why you guys don't install L2 outside? I'm thinking to put a NEMA 14-50 outside the garage for the fear of it catching on fire while charging. At least I won't get whole house burned down. A friend's house burned down while her Mercedes was charging over night. And she had been charging fine with it for 2 years.
 
Why you guys don't install L2 outside? I'm thinking to put a NEMA 14-50 outside the garage for the fear of it catching on fire while charging. At least I won't get whole house burned down. A friend's house burned down while her Mercedes was charging over night. And she had been charging fine with it for 2 years.
When I redid my garage I accounted for two inside 40mm circuits, one which is now for an EV charger. At the time I had only a Jeep 4xe, so really a L1 is fine.

Now I have an Ariya and the L2 occasional in the garage is nice. I will do an L2 outside once I have the scout, but it’s more cumbersome to add as I will need to add another subpanel as such.
 
When I bought my ID.4 I installed an L2 charger in my garage, but since my boat is in my garage I never use it and I just use the 120v outlet just outside my garage door. As long as I’m at home I don’t really care how fast it charges and by morning it’s always enough to get me where I need to go.

I suspect apartments could get away with the same thing. There’s no need for every apartment to have their own L2 - but they do need metered access to a standard outlet where they park their car.

Even just L1 (120V plug) still counts as having home charging IMO. You can get more than 40 miles back overnight on L1. Which is probably enough for most people. Obviously that will very depending on the person and their usage, but if you are a homebody one on the weekend, you can put a LOT more charge in it then, before starting your work week with a full battery.
 
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I would add that L1 in really cold weather will probably spend at least half its time just keeping the battery warm enough. I never use L1 but did while visiting over the holidays in cold (close to zero) weather and was only able to achieve about 4 miles of range per hour. This might vary depending on your vehicle but was my experience on a Model 3. On milder days though it was adequate for the limited driving I was doing.
 
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Oh, this brings up another point I forgot about before.

So, the normal mode for charging an EV, is, as you say, charging it to 80%. But, charging an PHEV, is usually done to 100%. And because they know that, they build bigger buffers in/etc (ie, "100%" is closer to "80%"), so that battery degradation doesn't kick in as early/hard.

I wonder if that will be the case with the Harvester.
Doubtful, the scout isn’t a phev with a small battery which is auxiliary to ICE, it’s the other way around which means maintaining battery health for longevity will be critical - ie 80% charge
 
Some people have strange ideas about the purpose of PHEVs/EREVs.

The point is to do your average daily activities with battery power, and for the outlier times where that isn't enough, you have the range extender to back you up.

Some of the best Plug ins have been the Chevy Volt, and current Rav4 Prime. These have about 50 miles of range, and that is enough for the majority of people to do their daily driving. Many Owners report going months between gas fill-ups.

Pushing the EV range out to 150 miles is already kind of overkill, the probably moves the daily coverage from a majority to a something beyond 99% of drivers.

There is really no business case to add another 1000 lbs of batteries and $20K to the price of the truck to give it 350 miles of EV only range and a Harvester.

I'd love to hear the use case that requires that...throw any curveballs into that it’s a
I’m not sure where 50 miles of range is normal. In Southern California many people’s commutes start at 30-50 miles each way and if you throw any curveballs into that it’s a problem. If you are engineering for 2027 launches the car needs to be ahead of where the market is currently. Don’t forget, the scout has poor aerodynamics so efficiency and range in other areas will be critical. As it is Rivian I think only get 2miles/kwhr, about half of what other EVs get. Skate where the puck is going not where it came from.
 
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Who wouldn't? The issue is not they don't "want" to give more range. The issue is the battery technology. For the same amount of room it takes, the energy density lithium battery can provide is still much lower than gasoline.
Samsung just said their first solid state battery is ready for mass production. But who knows when will it be? Definitely won't make it into their s25 series. And no other manufacturers announced anything. Also, the 150 is just an estimate, they don't have anything yet. If it can run 150 mi battery only and over 500 mi on 35s AT tires, that's already a success to me.
You aren’t getting solid state in anything but the highest end vehicles thru the end of the decade. It will be reserved for the AMG/Porsches which will be three times more than the price of the scout.