Trailer range extenders have the severe limitation of adding drag to
the EV. The drag added by a trailer is quite significant and can
negate a large fraction of the added kW-hrs of whatever you may be
hauling with the trailer.
It tends to be a "two steps forward, one step back" type situation.
The two additional wheels plus the aerodrag tend to be more than you
would initially think. In practice, I have found that pulling a small
trailer will increase the W-hr per mile usage of an EV by as much as
50%. It is an eye opener.
If you think about it, hauling a trailer is a lot of like dragging
half a car along behind you.
Bill D.
At 10:25 AM 2/17/2016, you wrote:
On 17 Feb 2016 at 16:36, Peri Hartman via EV wrote:
> There have been a lot of past discussions on range
extending. Trailers, small
> onboard chargers, etc. In my opinion, they are rarely justified
A battery trailer isn't exactly elegant, but it works. It lets you have a
small, light battery in your EV to handle your everyday needs, but still
have lots of range (only) when you need it.
The big downside is that a trailer is a royal pain to back. It also makes
the car longer. Forget parallel parking.
Team New England's Solectria Force ran a battery trailer for 3 years (1999-
2002) in the Tour de Sol. It got 156 miles on a charge, about 3-4 times the
typical range for a lead-battery Force. They had a total of about 26kWh.
http://drmm.net/images/tne_super_force.png
The battery trailer is a kid's sandbox on wheels! The shape not only
improved the aerodynamics, it also got a lot of smiles from onlookers.
I wonder how a Leaf would fare with a scheme similar to the plug-in Prius
conversions of several years ago, where the aux battery is set up to just
keep charging the Leaf's onboard battery.
David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA
EVDL Administrator
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