I think it’s safe to say that one of the worst driving experiences one can have today is behind the wheel of a large motorhome, like a Class A. I’m not saying this to just be a jerk, that’s just how it is: you can’t have something that is essentially a wheeled mansion and expect it to handle like a wheeled cottage. Motorhomes are also some of the least efficient vehicles you can buy, thanks to the fact that you’re driving around a house on wheels, complete with beds, a kitchen, and, yes, a toilet. They guzzle gas like with all the grace and restraint that a puppy would show if dropped it into a bowl of taco meat. There’s definitely room for improvement, and I’m happy to say that I think I actually experienced some of that improvement a few weeks back when I got a chance to drive the imaginatively named THOR Test Vehicle.
Okay, yes, it was almost a month ago that I went out to the Home of Studebaker, South Bend, Indiana, on the invitation of THOR and EV delivery truck maker Harbinger to try out a new idea that, in hindsight, seems kind of obvious: a Motorhome with a hybrid drivetrain. Yes, yes, it’s been weeks and I haven’t written it up yet, but I’m doing it now! I’ve been busy!
Anyway, let’s talk about this concept in broad strokes just for a moment. Your conventional modern gas-powered Class A (or even a Class C, really) motorhome gets about 5 to 10 mpg, and more than 10 is only possible in pretty much ideal circumstances that you’ll likely only see when you notice the unicorns flying all about you in the sapphire sky.
The Idea
The idea of adapting an electric drivetrain to such a platform has considerable appeal; the inherent torque of an electric motor would help a motorhome’s normally sub-glacial acceleration substantially, and the greater efficiency afforded by an electric drivetrain can’t be ignored.
However, there is an Achilles’ heel here: batteries. Modern battery tech, as advanced as it is, just doesn’t have the energy density to allow for a battery that can give an RV appreciable range. There’s just so much mass involved, and tests of Winnebago’s prototype electric RV have found that a real-world range is about 80 to 90 miles, and for every hour and a half driven, you’ll need to spend at least 45 minutes charging. It’s not great.
The whole point of a motorhome is to go places, and being limited to driving only an hour and a half or so just before having to stop and charge for an extended time doesn’t meet that requirement. An all-electric motorhome is just not a viable solution, at least not yet.
But! There’s a compromise, and that’s a hybrid. A hybrid – in this case a series hybrid, where only the electric drivetrain moves the vehicle and the combustion engine is just used to generate electricity – incorporates the efficiency and high torque of an EV drivetrain with the flexibility and energy density of gasoline.
If you want a walk-through of the THOR Test Vehicle’s chassis and drivetrain, adapted from Harbinger’s electric delivery vehicle chassis, I’d like to invite you to listen to Harbinger co-founder and CEO John Harris explain it all to me:
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Driving A Gas-Powered Motorhome
It’s fascinating stuff, but at the moment we’re here to talk about what the THOR Test Vehicle was like to drive, which I promise, I’m getting to. To get a real sense of the context, arrangements were made for me to drive a new, conventional gas-powered Class A motorhome, an Entrgra Coach Vision:
This elegant beast was, I believe, somewhere around 30 feet, built on a Ford F53 chassis, driven by a 7.3L V8 335 hp gasoline engine making 468 foot-pounds of torque. This is a big, heavy machine, weighing probably somewhere around 20,000 pounds. I mean, you can’t be shocked by that when you realize this thing has a kitchen with marble countertops and tile:
It’s a house on the back of that thing, which is the primary reason why driving one of these things is so, well, terrible. This one I drove is one of the best ones out there, but driving it still feels like you’re trying to guide a hippopotamus on rollerblades by yanking on its ears.
Keeping it in its lane is tricky, because the thing just about fills up an entire lane of traffic completely. If you’re on a road with a prominent crown, keeping the thing tracking straight takes real work. It’s slow to accelerate, slow to stop, and is incredibly top-heavy. Driving a motorhome is something you just have to white-knuckle and endure until you get to your destination, where you can finally relax and enjoy your motorhome.
Incredibly, the driving experience isn’t appreciably better than what driving my old 1977 Class C Dodge Tioga motorhome was like. All of the shittiness felt very familiar – the slowness, the top-heaviness, the nervous lane-keeping, the ponderousness, the constant sub-surface fear that you’re one wrong arm motion away from being upside-down or creating massive rooster tails of sparks as you get too close to a Jersey barrier or something, it’s all still there.
Let’s just say that driving a big RV is no picnic.
Driving The World’s First Hybrid RV
Okay, now the whole point of why I’m here: to drive the first hybrid motorhome. At first glance, it’s not all that different than the gasoline one; the scale and shape are about the same, but there are some big clues that we’re looking at a prototype machine: the interior is only partially built-out, but there is furniture and stuff inside there – this isn’t some empty cargo van, after all.
Also, if you look carefully, you can see the grille is 3D printed, which is a clever solution:
So what does it feel like to drive? Well, I should qualify first that I didn’t get to drive it on real streets, just a little track delineated by traffic cones in a parking lot. I was a little disappointed by this, but I did find that the key elements of what this hybrid RV is like to drive still came out even on this tiny track.
The first thing you notice is the acceleration, which is shockingly decent considering the massive bulk of everything. It’s not whip-your-head-back sports car fast, but it’s still surprisingly quick, given the context. You’re just not used to a whole furnished apartment moving with such urgency.
The bigger difference, though, has to do with weight, or, really, where the weight is. Electrified vehicles are always heavy, because batteries are heavy as hell, and while RVs are already absurdly heavy, in the case of the THOR Test Vehicle, the bulk of that weight is in dense packs of batteries way down low, in the chassis.
This changes the dynamic of how these big beasts drive, because the unsettling top heaviness, that always makes driving a motorhome feel like running with a stack of books or a large vase full of chili on your head, is pretty much eliminated. The hybrid motorhome felt planted, I could take sharp turns without encustardizing my pants, and overall the driving experience was significantly and viscerally better.
Here, watch some video of me driving it, which should give a good idea of what I mean, especially since they let me do some donuts, which I’d never attempt in a conventional motorhome:
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I don’t yet know what sort of fuel economy advantages the hybrid will offer, but I suspect it should be significant. If this can return numbers in, say, the mid-teens, that would be stellar, for a motorhome.
Then, there’s also the considerable advantage of a hybrid in that all that electricity stored in those big, heavy batteries should eliminate the need for a noisy, smelly generator. That’s a huge deal! When you’re out in the middle of beautiful nowhere you want to be able to have electrical power for making margaritas and your various massagers, but who wants to break the numinous silence with the rattle of a diesel generator? Not you! You don’t want to scare away all the sasquatches!
There’s plenty of power in those batteries for all the household needs, and with integrated rooftop solar panels, there’s the possibility of getting some free energy back into the system. Solar is generally useless for actually adding range, but for topping up power from household demands, it can be helpful.
The idea of a hybrid motorhome just makes sense. The advantages to fuel economy and eliminating the need for a generator are incredibly compelling alone, and the driving dynamics improvements are a massive added bonus. I think this needs to happen, and should be one of the most significant and meaningful changes to the otherwise (let’s be honest) pretty stagnant motorhome industry.
I’m impressed. I’ll be curious to see these come to market, and get a better idea of the advantages they bring.
Why all the instagram?
Fishing for followers.
Agreed. If you need an account to interact with it, I get it. If you need an account just to view it, nope. That crosses Facebook off the list too.
I think a diesel series hybrid RV makes sense, like a locomotive. What doesn’t make sense is that anyone can get behind the wheel of a huge RV and start driving without any training, at least here in MA.
As a truck driver, I agree. I went to classes for three weeks, plus 300 hrs behind the wheel with a trainer to learn to drive my rig. Meanwhile they will let anyone drive an rv, with the same inherent challenges. And most can’t drive them. My aunt owns an rv park, and you should hear the horror stories.
Locomotives are not diesel-electric for efficiency, they are diesel-electric because it’s the only reliable way to get up to 6000hp with many thousands of tons of train behind it to the rail, and it makes for very easy multiple-unit operation. The Europeans long proved that for sheer efficiency diesel mechanical or diesel hydraulic is better. Even the various experiments with hybrid battery diesel locomotives have been universally failures. They don’t save enough money to pay for their capital and maintenance costs.It makes no sense to save a dollar on fuel when it costs you a dollar fifty in capital and added maintenance costs.
Very much agree about needing training to drive an RV. Even scarier – in many states, you can drive an air brake equipped bus on a car license with no extra training if it is registered as an RV. As one who used to drive buses when dirt was new, that is terrifying to me.
I think an even better ideal solution might be a natural gas fuel cell. Bloom energy makes such fuel cells for industrial applications and they claim a peak thermal efficiency of 60% which is much better than any production hybrid ICE engine. Fuel cells are also essentially noise and vibration free which is great for a crowded campground. If it could run on propane too so much the better.
Regular fill-ups running down the highway would be problematic, though. I haven’t seen many propane fill stations along main routes. Most gas stations these days just have a tank exchange program instead of the propane refill tower.
I think there are some truck stops that offer NG and propane.
When you’re trying to camp, though, you need reasonable access. If you plan your trip around stops that have stations that were specifically set up for certain carriers on certain routes, you may as well just be a truck driver and get paid to do it.
Depends on the range and where you want to go. If you’re sticking to the coasts or the Midwest you have a lot more options than say Montana or Nevada.
https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/natural-gas-locations#/find/nearest?fuel=CNG
One nice thing about NG is that it offers about 3x the energy of hydrogen for the same volume so you’ll get a lot further on a tankful. Since this is an RV room for tanks won’t be as tight as in a car. The Mirai manages to squeeze in 35 gallons of hydrogen storage so I imagine one could get a lot more into an RV.
Here’s a story about two hydrogen busses claiming a range of 1000 km:
https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/two-record-breaking-hydrogen-buses-with-ranges-of-up-to-1-000km-unveiled-by-separate-manufacturers/2-1-1532735
They store their hydrogen on the roof but again all else being equal you’d only need half to a third of that storage volume for the same range on CNG. I dunno what the range is on a traditional RV but I think a several hundred miles of range should offer a lot of flex on fueling options.
That’s fair. I’m used to Canada where the infrastructure for these things is slim. Other than planning detours for fueling, it could probably work
Hey now, southern Alberta and BC are looking pretty good!
It might work even better for oilfield workers who have to live in the field for weeks/months at a time and have access to NG wells as well as other equipment. They can’t use oil right out of the ground but NG doesn’t need much cleaning up to be useful.
I’m stuck in the self-identified center of the universe known as Ontario. We’ve got issues with infrastructure. Which is incredibly ironic given our population is larger than every other province.
Hell, AB was burying fiber optic trunks in the 80s, we’re still fighting to get fiber consistently across Ontario.
I live in San Jose, the capital of Silicon Valley and good internet took a surprisingly long time to get here too.
The fill stations are maybe a bit less convenient and less common, but they’re still fairly common at truck stops, U-Haul, Tractor Supply, etc. Less convenient than gasoline or even electricity, but doable. Not sure if they’d fill an RV directly instead of a tank, though, and I’m not sure they’d be prepared for the kind of volume it’d take to move a whole RV some distance.
Most of what I see for LPG or CNG involves “back to base” fuelling. They just run city units or highway tractors that run between yards they own where they can have their own infrastructure.
A lot of fancier campgrounds like KOA have propane fill as well, which might work for that.. but they’re definitely not prepared for that kind of volume. I bet they average along the lines of 5-50 gallons a day, and a single RV fillup would be more than that.
Hey, Torch, the most valuable thing I ever learned about driving something that big came from UPS Driver training: “aim high in steering.” It’s an awkwardly worded way of telling you to just forget about the size of the rig and look ahead down the road like you would in a Yugo. Once you stop looking down at the lane markers and trying to stay centered in the lane, you just start magically keeping the truck centered. It’s amazing how much easier this one little trick makes things.
Racing schools also give the same guidance, ie look as far ahead on the track as possible
It also gets you focused on upcoming obstacles instead of right in front of you, where you might not see it until it is inside your stopping distance. And that stopping distance is more than you think. 20000 lbs on 4 discs is not very good brakes. Semi trucks have 10 brakes for 80000 lbs, and good luck stopping in less than 500 ft (more than a football field and a half)
I think about that all the time, i.e. they may be fully loaded and therefore carring 80,000 lbs and likewise need a lot of space for braking…. when I’m driving around semis.
An excellent reason for Semis to drive slower in metro areas (no more than 55-60 mph), where it is likely to be crowed and or lots of traffic coming on and off…
And the exact reason not to jump in to the buffer space Semis leave in front of themselves.
Semi drivers either have to already have a healthy amount of patience Or they certainly must have an aptitude to build up their patience driving in traffic
Some have patience, some can learn patience, and some are nutcases that shouldn’t have a CDL.
Jason Torchinsky I was expecting Mercedes. Any how some thoughts. While RVs are meant for exploring I find like pickup trucks they drive from one spot to another then stay for the season. So recharge isn’t that important and a range extender could solve that. Given 4 month stay in RV parks hooked up to utilities I think EVRV is overbuilt. My issue, thanks to Mercedes knowledge is build quality and operation costs.
IMHO we will see RVs disappear in favor of small efficient homes instead of RV parks where people pay a fee for a small efficient home and drive in an efficient car at a repurposed RV park sort of like a timeshare.
You heard it here first
Mercedes is persona non grata after she dropped the hammer on Thor.
No, because we’ve already got that. Most parks will let you rent a little cabin where you can stay, and the degree of modernity and luxury depends on the place where you’re camping. A couple years ago I stayed at a place with a bunch of efficient cabins spread up the side of a hill and it was gorgeous (and the steep and rough grade we had to climb to get to it in a Sonata only caused minor ass puckering.)
RV people like RVs. They like traveling in their own house.
I have been telling anyone who would listen for years that this is how an electric truck should operate as well. Electric trucks are better at just about everything except range. More torque, more power, more efficiency, better towing. Everything. Except range. The answer is the same as this RV: a small battery pack and a beefy engine, maybe even a diesel engine (diesel fuel is more energy dense, less combustible, and diesel engines are more durable and can last longer). This RV could probably get by with a 100kWh pack or less, and a small Turbo 4 or Turbo 6 diesel. A standard pickup, like a Silverado or f150 could get by with a 40-60 kWh pack and a small turbo4 diesel. Imagine a Full size pickup 1/2 ton that tows better than any other, has a range of over 500 miles, and gets over 30 mpg, even has a range of 400 miles while towing. All for less than Chevy’s current Silverado EV.
Good stuff here Torch.
But an incomplete test here, unless you took a steaming dump in the can.
We want to know what Mr. Hankey thinks. (look it up DT)
Seriously…
Having this much battery capacity that sits in a storage lot or in a barn for 95% of its life strikes me as a waste of resources (more egregious than an RV by itself, which is also a waste of resources). If this RV could be used to store excess energy from household daytime solar generation, I might start paying attention.
So start a business time share RVs
The past 11 years I’ve been nomading in a van. I’ve seen tens of thousands of people — mostly retirement age — living and traveling full time in motorhomes. And then there are the snowbirds who live at least part of the year in motorhomes. It’s not simply annual family vacationers.
Its no less wasteful than a power wall in any suburban garage
I’m thinking this’ll target van lifers and retirees as it’s main market. Someone like my mother-in-law who is actively looking at selling her house and traveling via RV. (She’d use us for a home base, if required.)
This is essentially how diesel-electric locomotives work. The diesel engine runs a generator that powers electric motors that drive the wheels. Welcome to 1900.
This gets thrown around a lot, but the usage case is different. Locomotives spin up to a set RPM and then do steady state work for extended periods of time. The same with off road equipment like bulldozers. It’s the reason emissions systems are typically much simpler in off-road equipment, cause the engine spends the bulk of it’s running time at one RPM.
With Over-The-Road, you need a different methodology.
The implementation might be different but the combustion engine > generator > electric motor in series is the same concept — the essence, hence my use of “essentially.”
Then you could say that, “essentially”, all motive transport, whether land, sea, or air, operate the same. They take hydrocarbons to move goods and people from one place to another.
“Welcome to 1900”
One could say the same for almost any other motorized transport
Oh look, you threw a propellerized motor into a kite and now you’re flying .
Welcome to 1903.
It looks like major advancements are being made in the RV decal game with this thing. That looks way cooler than the swoopy turquoise swoops that you see on most RVs.
I’m kinda not surprised that Harbinger (Of
DoomThor) is more responsive than the Entegra – It appears to be a fair bit shorter than 30′, it has no heavy slides, nor any personal belongings inside.That said – a HD battery system with Solar backup like this is definitely is the way to go. Having stayed with my parents a couple times in their 40′ DutchStar – that APU was noisy as hell, they needed to keep up maintenance on that as much as they did the main propulsion engine, and the minimal solar panels on the roof really didn’t do much more than act as a trickle charger for main batteries.
Can’t wait to see the price on this buggy. Like the “Cyber Trailer” it will be in a category for those attending Burning Man.
I Googled encustardizing, only this article was returned. Torch coined another new phrase!
Be thankful that’s all that Google showed you. Some things are better left unknown.
Jason Torchinsky is a national treasure, the man really has a way with words. I’ve never thought of the word encustardizing in relation to shitting one’s pants.
Did you send Merc to Europe just so you could drive this thing first?
No, Thor Industries politely requested that Mercedes not attend. She has been properly critical of their quality issues in the past.
The truth hurts!
I know the second part is true but did they really ask for her not to attend? Damn. That’s some cred. That’s good journalism. Thor looked fair criticism in the eye and blinked.
The discussion of fuel economy in RVs reminds me of a friend with a class A RV that he would brag could get 13-15mpg in the right conditions. Of course, his one example of “right conditions” was the time he was on I-80 through Wyoming and had a 90+mph tail wind both pushing and trying to kill the RV.
Torch, how can you be torch and finish the article with a photo of a taillight but then not provide any commentary on said taillight!
When Ford developed the 7.3L V8 for their big commercial vehicles and RVs, I thought it was a waste of time and money.
And I still think that.
I would have preferred if Ford made a heavy-duty hybrid system with optional plug-in capability.
Something like the Ford Powerboost hybrid in the F150, but more battery capacity, optional plug-in capability and the regular 3.7L V6 running on an Atkinson cycle rather than the Ecoboost 3.5L.
And tied in with that, an electrical system with regular 120V outlets integrated into the electrical system with the high voltage battery pack aiding off-grid use.
Gas is 3 bucks a gallon and the added price for hybridization probably doesn’t work for most customers. If gas was 6 bucks a gallon it might.
But also factor in the cost of buying and running a generator that a hybrid vehicle wouldn’t need.
My Honda generator/inverter will run well over 24 hours on less than a gallon. With a load exceeding the recommendations.
And I can power my Jewish Space Laser with it, except when MTG is watching me…
YMMV
Also factor in some parks/campgrounds ban the use of generators for noise reasons.
An excellent point kemosabi…
Small generators like your Honda typically only convert at best 15% of the energy of gasoline to electricity whereas a modern Atkinson ICE can convert 40%. So you’ll need to run the ICE a LOT less.
Plus the 60% of the energy the Atkinson ICE turns into waste heat should also be plumbed into your HVAC (and ideally your hot water) via the cooling system whereas that 85% of the gasoline energy your generator does not turn into electricity just vanishes into the night.
Furthermore aside from the already mentioned noise there are also the other emissions to consider. The hybrid engine will have federally mandated catalysts etc while the small generator will pump out much stinkier exhaust.
Surely you’re running a 2200W or smaller with that level of consumption. That ain’t gonna cut it for most RVers. A lot of onboard generators are typically in the 5000-7000W range.
Thanks. TBH, I know almost nothing about this subject, both generators and RVs. Appreciate the input and info here.
I just bought our tiny red Honda the day before Hurricane Ivan hit us in 2004. Probably one of the best $700 bucks I ever spent.
It has kept us going through several power outages from hurricanes without issue.
Have a good weekend.
Different usage cases. Managing in a power outage vs. average consumption are two very different scenarios. This is the same at the smaller RV scale.
As soon as you want A/C, you’re already at 2200W for a single roof unit, that’s if you’ve installed a soft start capacitor to help with the spike on start-up. If you want to power anything else in tandem, then the requirements continue to climb.
I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time assessing power requirements to camp off-grid and balancing what luxuries I can live without to manage with solar and a battery bank. A/C was the first on the chopping block for me, but many campers I know, it’s non-negotiable.
I don’t doubt your little unit serves it’s purpose incredibly well. It just would be under-powered for the typical RVer.
Understood, and appreciate it.
$3/gallon..if you can find it. Out in the boonies a cheap gas station isn’t a given.
We are seeing cheap gas as low as $2.50 and up in our area now.
Not expecting it to last though.
$4+/gallon here.
The 7.3L spends more time in 3/4 and 1 ton trucks, box trucks, and school buses. Companies are buying them for their fleets as the added purchase/running costs/maintenance/downtime of modern diesels is making the fuel economy hit irrelevant.
Having spent 20 years in the commercial diesel repair business, aftertreatment issues are roughly 90% of the work we do. The engines are great, the emissions controls just destroy them and the downtime is crazy.
Yeah I heard and read about that before.
But my thought is that a heavy duty plug in hybrid setup would be a more effective solution for replacing the diesels than a 7.3L OHV V8.
Yeah the 7.3 is designed to be reliable and durable.
But a properly designed hybrid can be just as reliable and durable… plus give better fuel economy than the diesel in usage cases like school buses which do a lot of stop-and-go driving and idling.
For the cost difference vs. run length, they’ve largely been just jumping directly to EV. I cannot overstate just how much cheaper the gas drivetrains are compared to everything else.
Oh definitely way cheaper on the initial purchase.
But for Total Cost of Ownership? I’m guessing a well designed plug in hybrid would likely have a lower overall cost… especially for commercial applications that involve a lot of stop and go driving.
And it’s not just the fuel savings. The regen also means the brakes last longer. And the fact that the engine isn’t always idling also means longer periods between oil changes.
And note, the 3.7L V6 I was talking about above would be a gasoline engine, not a diesel. So no diesel emissions system issues.
I’m not sure how other places do it. But where I live, most buses are taken home by the drivers. So you’d have to convince them to plug their company car into their own meter. I feel like that’s a hard sell. So other than the regenerative braking savings, you’re not gaining huge amounts as chances are they’re leaving home on flat batteries.
There is a school bus company near one of my offices and my Ex actually worked for them for a while.
For some of them, they park at the depot. For others, they park in rented lots or at the school parking lots that they pick up the kids for.
Very few of the drivers who drove the large buses parked at their own homes. The only drivers that would park at home were the ones with the minibuses… the ones based on Ford Econoline or Chevy vans.
Oh and during the summer, ALL the buses go to the depot. Plus during the school year, ALL buses have to go back to the depot once or twice for one reason or another.
And as a driver of a hybrid, even if you don’t plug it in, there will be big fuel savings. A 3.7L OHC V6 running on an Atkinson cycle will use a lot less fuel compared to a 7.3L OHV V8. And the regen helps a lot. And the lack of idling helps even more.
I observed first hand how school buses spend A LOT of time idling.
A hybrid powertrain is a far better option for them compared to a conventional gas or diesel ICE vehicle.
So with a plug in hybrid, they’ll save. And if they are able to plug in even some of the time, they’ll save more.
In order to make a go of a smaller displacement, they’d need to do a full electric drivetrain to get the torque required to work. So full tilt REV.
I’m not sure how well that would work cost-wise, again. I’m not sold on the fuel savings for a vehicle that rolls around a 100km radius for 6-ish hours a day. Especially rural routes, as series hybrids see the least amount of efficiency gains.
As someone who currently works for a city transit org, I can say that fuel cost is one of the lower-end line items for vehicle running costs in transit applications.
“In order to make a go of a smaller displacement, they’d need to do a full electric drivetrain to get the torque required to work.”
Nah… a hybrid setup like my C-max Energi gives you tons of low end torque with the ICE engine giving you more power at higher speeds.
“I’m not sure how well that would work cost-wise, again.”
You take the cost of a regular ICE vehicle, then look at how much more the hybrid would cost, then look at the fuel savings and add a bit for reduced maintenance and get your payback.
So in my case when needing to replace my 2008 Honda Fit, I could have gotten a newer low mileage Honda Fit for around CAD$12000 plus tax. But I bought a 2017 C-Max Engeri for about CAD$16,500 plus tax.
The C-Max has cut my fuel use from about 145L per month to around 45L per month. 100L of fuel costs about CAD$150.
So $150/month in savings translates into $1800/year in fuel savings.
$4500/$1800 means that my payback on the cost difference will happen in about 2.5 years.
I also anticipate the C-Max will last me at least 8 years or 200,000km.
Over that 8 years, I will have saved about CAD$14,400 in fuel compared to driving a manual Fit
Subtract the $4500 extra I spent on getting a plug in hybrid and it means I’ll be ahead by about $9,900.
And that does NOT factor in other savings like reduced brake wear and less frequent oil changes
And that’s also comparing a smaller vehicle (the Honda Fit) to a larger/faster vehicle (C-Max Energi).
So essentially the same kind of math would apply when buying a new hybrid school bus vs one with a 7.3L gas engine.
The only difference is the numbers are bigger and they payback might be a little longer when buying a new vehicle.
This is the same reasoning that resulted in the Toronto Transit Commission to buy more hybrid buses and is also why they are buying more battery-electric buses.
Are the new conventional diesel buses way cheaper to buy?
Yes.
But does that mean they have a lower Total Cost of Ownership?
No.
You’re operating under the assumption that your cost analysis translates to commercial units. It does not.
Your c-max isn’t moving commercial vehicle weight. The drivetrain needs to be able to move the weight. Current ICE-only options are installed at the smallest displacement that will still move the load effectively, to reduce fuel costs. Going smaller will cost more elsewhere. There’s no free lunch.
At current pricing, a 40ft diesel powered transit bus costs us about 900k. An electric 40ft bus costs us 1.5 mil.
School buses are similar. An EV bus is 300k, the diesel counterpart is about 150k, the gasoline usually knocks another 20k off that price.
The math isn’t there to offset the fuel cost vs. purchase cost.
“The math isn’t there to offset the fuel cost vs. purchase cost.”
The math absolutely is there. That’s why transit operators have moved to hybrid buses as well as gradually moving to electric buses.
“Your c-max isn’t moving commercial vehicle weight.”
Don’t be silly. I’m not talking about using my C-Max for commercial activities.
I’m talking about the price difference between putting an old-school OHV gas V8 in a given commercial chassis compared to the same chassis with a heavy duty hybrid V6… and the kind of payback you WILL see over time.
How much time depends on how much it’s used.
The V6 will not hold up to the use case.
Again, as someone who works for a transit org, and is part of the procurement process, we’re not saving money by going hybrid and electric. It’s due to an attempt at decarbonization of public transit. Transit is the last thing that should be on the decarbonization list cause your emissions per person moved is WAY more efficient. But that’s a story for another day.
We are rapidly going deeper into debt, even with large stipends from government. Here’s a few of the biggest cost sinks for a fleet of roughly 800 transit buses attempting to transition:
-Bus purchase cost, we’re up 60% per unit to buy
-Infrastructure, We’re re-building all of our indoor parking for charging ability.
We had to re-engineer the entire roof structure to support the weight of pantograph chargers.
We’re building an entire new parking building as the EV units cannot be stored outside like the diesel ones.
We’re building a FOUR MEGAWATT natural gas generating substation to be able to charge the fleet in the event we lose power.
We have to retrofit every single work bay that does high voltage work with air conditioning, approach boundary protocols, and AEDs/rescue equipment
-Staff & training, we need to get our techs certified to work on high voltage, supply them with the PPE and tools, and they have to work in teams of two on the high voltage.
This is far from an exhaustive list, but it is expensive as all holy hell.
. never mind, I see you mention both.
A lot of those issues seem to apply only to BEVs.
If they’re plug-in hybrids, you still have the charging infrastructure, and any high voltage systems still require the safety protocols and training/PPE.
I forgot to mention, our BEV buses still have 135L of diesel onboard, to run the diesel coolant heater, which has zero emissions controls, to get the range we require.
If they’re not plug in then you’re off the hook.
“our BEV buses still have 135L of diesel onboard, to run the diesel coolant heater, which has zero emissions controls, to get the range we require”
IAt that point why bother with a BEV at all? You get more than enough heat as waste from the ICE in a hybrid.
No you do not. This is getting exhaustive.
-Diesel engines quite often barely produce enough heat to keep THEMSELVES warm in inclement weather. That’s why winter fronts are so common. They block to the rad to keep the heat in the engine.
-Now say you have 40ft or 60ft of bus that is opening all it’s doors every 3-5 minutes in -30 degree weather.
This takes a LOT of BTUs to re-warm the cabin for occupants.
This is such an issue that just the booster pump failing, which is used to shove the coolant to the front of the bus will result in a “dead bus” as the driver has zero heat.
Even worse? Those heaters are needed in the summer time.
The A/C system on a transit bus runs in something called “reheat” mode. To ensure passengers stay comfy, once the A/C kicks on, it stays running. It runs full tilt.
So, when you have anywhere from 24 to 42lbs of r134a to circulate, you don’t want to shut down that system and lose the response time. This requires that you keep the system running so that cold air is always at the ready (our systems target 70 Fahrenheit).
SO, how we maintain that temp is all our evaporator cores ALSO have coolant lines running through them. This way the same core can supply heat or A/C.
What that also does, is when the A/C is running, if the temp drops too low, the cores get flooded with hot coolant to balance the temp. This is like if your furnace kicked on to fight your A/C.
Problem with this, the A/C is TOO GOOD at moving BTUs. We’ve had the A/C system regularly pull the engine below operating temperature when the auxiliary heater is inoperative. This is on day above 30 degrees Celsius.
This takes a LOT of BTUs to re-warm the cabin for occupants.
How many? Out of curiosity I looked into bus diesel heaters and they range considerably in BTUs. The biggest I’ve found so far is 125,000 BTUs.
So I will ask this: What is the BTU rating and Diesel consumption rate of your heaters vs the fuel consumption rate of the bus itself?
I can’t remember the specific output, but they burn 0.8gal/hr from what I remember. They’re Webasto Spheros 300.
The buses average approximately 3mpg, or one liter per KM.
I was hoping for a bit more of an apples to apples (gal/mile) but OK.
Here’s how a typical heavy duty vehicle diesel engine distributes the energy from the fuel it burns:
“The reference heavy-duty diesel engine converted 39.1% of its fuel energy to brake power over the SET engine cycle, with 35.5% lost as exhaust heat, 10.6% lost to engine coolant heat transfer, 6% lost through
heat rejected from the charge air cooler (CAC), 3.4% lost as heat to the surrounding ambient air, 2.3%
lost to friction of engine components, 1.7% lost to engine pumping, and 1.3% consumed by parasitic
losses due to engine accessories such as water and oil pumps.”
https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/HDV_engine-efficiency-eval_WVU-rpt_oct2014.pdf
3 MPG works out to 0.333GPM. Assuming an average speed of 12.7MPH
https://cityobservatory.org/urban-buses-are-slowing-down/
That translates to 4.2 GPH.
If the 10.6% of that heat lost to the coolant were dumped into the cabin rather than to the outside by for example replacing the heater core with the engine radiator that would be the equivalent of a heater that burned .45 GPH or a bit more than half the heat of your Webasto Spheros 300.
Is that enough? Hard to say. That Webasto isn’t going to be 100% efficient either. A lot of heaters only put half of the energy of the fuel burned into heating air, the rest is lost to the exhaust. This also assumes your engine is operating at maximum efficiency which much of the time it is not. So a larger percentage of the fuel burned goes to waste than brake power.
The point is ICE coolant waste heat is indeed within the ballpark of a diesel heater. Don’t believe me? Try relocating the radiator to the cabin and see just how warm it gets.
“This is getting exhaustive.”
Maybe it should be. Because your engine is dumping 3x as much energy into the exhaust. If the coolant heat is not sufficient then capturing even some of that exhaust heat to add to the heat from the coolant and you have well over Webasto Spheros 300 levels of free heat.
Unfortunately, if you start capturing exhaust heat, you start working against the aftertreatment, which needs to control exhaust temp to get an effective burn. Something that is already incredibly difficult to do in urban stop & go settings. Aftertreatment issues are our biggest cost sink when it comes to power train repairs.
That’s not a transit problem, that’s an urban problem. Highway tractors and long haul rarely have issues cause they can do passive regens at highway speeds for hours on end. The lack of constant off/on throttle also creates a lower soot load, and the temps are consistent.
The solution to that I think is to insulate the exhaust as much as possible, perform the treatment as far upstream as possible and run the still very hot treated exhaust across a gas/liquid heat exchange to heat either oil or water/glycol to bring the heat into the cabin. Insulating the exhaust would also help control the temperatures.
You won’t pull out all the heat but you will likely get enough.
“The V6 will not hold up to the use case.”
How can you be so sure of that given that the version of V6 I’m talking about would be a low-stressed non-turbo design?
“We had to re-engineer the entire roof structure to support the weight of pantograph chargers.”
Hmmm… interesting that you guys are doing indoor charging. The TTC is doing it outdoors.
https://www.ebmag.com/poweron-and-ttc-unveil-new-electric-bus-charging-pantographs/
“We’re building an entire new parking building as the EV units cannot be stored outside like the diesel ones.”
Is that purely due to concerns about fire risk?
And it’s interesting that you’re getting your own NG power generation plant.
I bet setting that up along with the related infrastructure and training is expensive as hell.
But once it’s set up, running the electric buses will be cheap in the long run.
-Unless your V6 can easily move 20,000lbs, then it will not be “low stressed”.
-That is a bus layup at a station between runs, that’s not their storage area. There is a difference between topping off for 10-30mins and storing with the unit off in inclement weather (buses stay in EV mode while hooked to the pantograph, so heaters and whatnot are active)
-The parking/storage requirements are set by the OEM. Unless you like bearing all the cost when stuff goes wrong and/or getting sued, you follow manufacturer’s recommendations.
-The question no one has answered is where/when we’re getting the mains power to NOT use the generator all the time. Cause currently, our demands require that we run all-new infrastructure from a new source. We cannot physically pull any more power from the current grid.
It’s actually apt that you mention TTC, they had 40 buses in use, and the local power company asked that they not charge more than 10 units concurrently as they were causing brownouts.
-The long run you speak of will be beyond the service life of these buses. The ideal life cycle of a transit bus is 14 years with a full refurbishment at year 7. A lot of units get retired by 10 years.
By that point, the savings of electric will likely be offset cause road taxes have to come from somewhere, and if it’s not from fuel, it’ll likely be vehicle licensing. So the savings will taper as energy costs and regulatory costs climb.
“-Unless your V6 can easily move 20,000lbs, then it will not be “low stressed”.”
Nope… the V6 will be there for power generation and to supplement the electric motors. The electric motors, if spec’d right, absolutely would be able to move 20,000lbs just fine.
“-That is a bus layup at a station between runs, that’s not their storage area”
Nope… that’s the TTC Birchmount Garage
https://transittoronto.ca/bus/8304.shtml
“It’s actually apt that you mention TTC, they had 40 buses in use, and the local power company asked that they not charge more than 10 units concurrently as they were causing brownouts.”
No… they HAVE 60 electric buses in use (though ‘in use’ is a bit of a stretch when it comes to the 10 unreliable buses BYD provided)… Bus numbers 3700 to 3759.
And I can tell you right now with 100% certainty that the Ontario Power Generation has a surplus of power capacity… especially at night when these buses would usually be charged. This website says so:
https://www.ieso.ca/power-data/this-hours-data
On a day like today where it was a bit cold and peoples furnaces are running a bit, peak demand is around 17MW.
And OPG is capable of generating 21-24MW.
And even if there is the odd time that isn’t enough, Ontario isn’t like Texas. We have grid connections into the US and Quebec. Quebec typically has a surplus of power as well.
So I’d be interested to know who told you the TTC is limited to charging only 10 buses because I’d like to go to that source and ask them some pointed questions.
Especially in light of the TTC having another 340 new electric buses arriving between now and 2026
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ttc-new-battery-electric-buses-1.7336342
“-The long run you speak of will be beyond the service life of these buses. The ideal life cycle of a transit bus is 14 years with a full refurbishment at year 7. A lot of units get retired by 10 years.”
I’m pretty sure you’re wrong about that.
First… fuel is more expensive up here.
Second… Looking at the TTC’s retired roster here:https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/Toronto_Transit_Commission#Conventional_buses_2
What I see is some buses, like the GM T6H-5307N lasting as long as 30 years.
And I see other buses like the OBI (owned by Daimler-Benz) 07.501 NG HEV that was retired after 10 years like because those 1st gen hybrids were crap… and initially (and idiotically) spec’d with lead acid batteries. I’m also guessing that “German quality” and the fact that OBI was shut down in 2013 also played a role in their early retirement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_Bus_Industries
Currently the TTC’s oldest buses in use are about 18 years old.
So really the only buses that get retired after 10 years are the ones with a bad design or some sort of issue that makes them not worth keeping.
Most of the time, the TTC keeps their buses for longer than 14 years.
Third… I recall reading about their procurement requirements for new electric buses… and it included the requirement that they be designed to last at least 18 years.
Fourth… Based on past real world cost-per-mile studies done by TTC, there absolutely will be a payback and a net savings over the life of the vehicle… IF they last as long as they’re supposed to.
I’m based out of Ottawa, I’m talking canadian bus lifecycle. We also use more salt here than TO.
My numbers were from the original procurement, as TTC doesn’t regularly share their numbers, I’m not the most up to date.
I’m not sure how they’re getting a full day and only charging at night as we are absolutely charging during the day. Typically after the morning rush runs.
The V6 will not hold up to the use case
Volvo uses turbo diesel I4 in their hybrid busses, even in the double deckers:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_B5LH
So a V6 should be fine.
That is a FIVE LITRE I4 turbo diesel. This is not the usage argument you think it is.
Most of the commercial diesel world is running around on inline 6s, but they’re large displacement and turbocharged.
For instance, all of our diesel buses run on a version of the ISL9 8.9L Cummins engine, rated for 330hp.
Yes it is. So what’s to prevent a manufacturer from making a 5L 330 HP turbodiesel V6?
(Nobody implied the V6 had to be rated for a motorcycle.)
The reason we have (relatively) lower performance per displacement in commercial engines is for longevity. We’re expecting 1,000,000 or more kilometers out of these buses in their lifetime, in stop & go scenarios. Our pre-emissions units (pre-’07) were seeing 980,000 before they were coming in with low oil pressure cause the bearings were shot.
Now with emissions, were lucky to see 500k out of the exact same engine.
Your plan is to now work a smaller engine, harder, and expect better results? When a longblock costs 50k + labour, you better be saving a boatload of fuel.
Except you’re not working that smaller engine harder. That’s the whole point.
The EV motors are the ones doing the heavy work of moving (and stopping) the bus. In a purely electric vehicle they do ALL the work so they are certainly up to the task.
Depending on the configuration the ICE either contributes a reduced portion of the load to directly move the vehicle or in a REX none at all. Either way you don’t need as much engine as in a pure ICE vehicle. If that ICE is a REX all it needs to do is spin within a narrow RPM range with a relatively fixed load. How long it lasts is up to design and maintenance. All else being equal though it should be a lot more efficient at turning diesel into mechanical power since better fuel efficiency is the biggest selling point of these things.
As a bonus the brakes should last a lot longer too. I dunno how much that matters to you. Electric motors are certainly a much quieter way than brakes to slow a bus. To me as a passenger and passerby that does matter.
Regenerative braking saves us a lot of wear indeed. On the noise front, buses use transmission retarders to slow down instead of engine brakes.
And the only way to make a smaller engine work would be to make an EV bus with a REX. Which we’ve already discussed is costly. It can be done, but a lot of fleets are opting for the lower cost gassers.
That wouldn’t be possible in most US suburban communities. There would be nowhere to park!
Our urban-based drivers typically have a deal to park them in a nearby parking lot of a business or shopping center, which also don’t have electrical hookups.
Not yet anyway.
They could conceivably set up public commercial charging stations. But if current costs in the US are any indicator, there will not be much savings beyond fuelling at public stalls.
Well there IS the benefit of not tying up a working public stall with a big frickin’ bus.
You could just as easily do that with an ICE bus.
How about we figure out the infrastructure for everyone else, then come for public transit last when it’s all sorted? Cause 100 people on a bus is way more people pissed off they’re late for work than one guy in his Tesla.
You could just as easily do that with an ICE bus.
You could but why would you park an ICE bus in a public EV charging stall?
How about we figure out the infrastructure for everyone else, then come for public transit last when it’s all sorted?
Counterpoint: If the infrastructure can’t be figured out for urban transit how in hell is it supposed to be figured out for anyone else?
Urban transit uses a “return to base” model for fueling. They can’t be filled anywhere else as they use a posilock system.
That’s the current infrastructure and it’s efficient and works. So leave the working model that moves the most people alone, sort out the bugs for commuter cars, then apply that tech to transit once it’s proven and consistent.
That’s the current infrastructure and it’s efficient and works.
When it works I wholehearteldly agree, it’s great. Commuter busses especially can be a godsend. I used one for a few months till I moved on from that job and it was amazing to just get on a bus and let someone else do the driving. IIRC it was cheaper than gas too. I do recommend.
Trying to use regular public transit to get around here can double or triple the time needed to get from point A to B vs a car though. It’s also hard to get the stuff from a large shopping trip home using the bus. Unfortunately some of the local *unhoused* use pubic transit as rolling shelters which makes such transit much less pleasant.
As to infrastructure my local system uses a mix of diesel electric, regular diesel, and BEV busses. The system is in the process of replacing many of the diesel busses with hybrids. They also have a local microgrids like you are putting in to keep those electric busses charged. These are solar/battery though:
https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/Santa_Clara_Valley_Transportation_Authority
https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/Proterra_Catalyst_BE40
https://www.masstransitmag.com/bus/vehicles/hybrid-hydrogen-electric-vehicles/press-release/53096590/santa-clara-valley-transportation-authority-vta-santa-clara-vta-receives-first-two-hybrid-buses-featuring-allison-egen-flex
https://www.masstransitmag.com/bus/maintenance/power-converters-battery-chargers-and-inverters/press-release/21254916/santa-clara-valley-transportation-authority-vta-santa-clara-vta-rolls-toward-cleaner-greener-future-fleet
https://newsroom.sunpower.com/press-releases?item=122843
Two problems that I’d like to see addressed:
I’d also like to see them using lighter materials in a hybrid test vehicle. I’ve always thought solid stone counters and floors were silly in RVs anyway, doubly so in one focused on efficiency.
I wonder if the extra mass of the vehicle changes the efficiency issue with a series hybrid. A 4 cylinder motor can generate quite a lot of electricity, but to contribute meaningfully to the tractive force would a much larger motor be required? I could see packaging issues too.
The idea is that you’re running a significantly smaller displacement that can meet demand for steady-state cruising. You dip into your electron reserves to take hills, but tend to gain a decent amount of that back when coming back down.
Edison Motors is applying this ethos to diesel-electric hybrid trucks. If they’re making it work hauling 140,000lbs gross, it’ll work for 20-30k lbs of RV.
Of all the potential automotive applications, RVs (as well as semi tractor-trailers) would be the best candidates for turbine-electric hybrids. That 4 cylinder (diesel?) in the Thor does nothing but make electricity. It otherwise contributes nothing to forward motion. A turbine, however, would be used to generate electricity while also being usable to generate forward thrust with the exhaust. In addition, if air intake is drawn from the front of the RV and exhausted out the rear, as would be most logical, then it would reduce air pressure in the front and increase it in the back which should aid greatly in wind resistance at highway speeds.
As a final cherry on top, the exhaust is also usable to deter tailgaters! It’s a win-win-win!
I like the cut of your jib!
I wish my jib was uncut.
As it was back in the 70s when GM built the turbine buses and semi trucks, turbines need high combustion temperatures to be fuel efficient which means (very) expensive metallurgy.
True, but turbos utilize similar metallurgy due to their also high operating temps. Mass production and modern alloys can bring prices into more tolerable range. This pro/con list on wikipedia really shows how many potential advantages, some very significant, there are to turbines. Half of the cons wouldn’t even be an issue for a series hybrid application. Biggest issues are cost, as you said, dealing with the waste heat, and the noise. Definitely non-trivial issues, but I believe they could be solved if someone were willing to throw enough money at it.
That metallurgy is a problem I’m pretty sure was solved by Soviet rocket engineers in the 60s but wasn’t discovered by the west until the 90’s.
Locomotives tried turbines. Didn’t work out well. I expect that using one in an RV would yield much the same results.
Turbine efficiency decreases dramatically with size. An actual turbo fan from a jetliner would be gross overkill for a hybrid RV, I think an APU of a 737 might be the closest equivalent and at 15% TE those are grossly inefficent, on par with a small ICE generator. Even at best typical jet engine thermal efficiency is like 50% which is a number some ICE engines have already achieved.
Plus yeah, they’re noisy AF.
Jason doing his best to make Thor love Mercedes again.
This makes so much sense. Gas/Diesel RVs already have to have a generator and batteries, so just make them bigger. Crazy nobody has done it yet frankly