Towing with electric cars
Hi All. I may have missed this issue being discussed before but.
The evil of diesel and petrol is this week being pushed forward by a car maker with the EU hand up the back.
My concern is the ability of hybrid and electric cars to operate with an all up weight of say 2500 kgs. The dealers will say that their product will perform but cannot say for how many lamp posts between charges.
My true position on electric cars is that we are unable to support the rush to electric cars because of the lack of recharging infrastructure and if we accelerate the infrastructure development, we don't have the national power capability to support it. Of course with our current power stations we are only moving the pollution from the streets to those locations.
Has any one done work on this before on behalf of members?
Comments
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I have an electric Kia Optima as a company car but tow with a Freelander2 as the company wont permit towbars to be fitted.
Driven purely on electric the range is only 30 miles or so but run in Hybrid mode with a full tank both the range & economy are far better than the diesel. An average of 70-80 mpg is easily attainable giving a far greater range than the Freelander.
There appears to be a misconception that loads of recharging points are required but this is not the case. A full charge will last almost as long as a full tank of fuel in hybrid mode. Power delivery is sublime, instant acceleration & loads of low down torque just what we need for towing.
With the current trend for car manufacturers to make vehicles as light as possible the added weight of the batteries could just be the solution we need!
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Out of interest I phoned Kia customer services for advice about towing with one of their hybrids as my 12 year old sorento is going to need replacement one of these days.
The reply was that they do not recommend towing with a hybrid.
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That must obviously depend on how it's set up. Some hybrids only drive the wheels by electrickery, the engine is just to charge the batteries. Others, like Lutz's Lexus, have an engine that is capable of driving a pair of wheels directly ..... like any other car, but they're a hybrid as they have the option of driving the other wheels via an electric motor.
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There are two technologies, Series systems and Parallel systems.
A series system uses the engines to generate electricity, if the engine dies and the battery runs out your stuffed.
A Parallel system, as you say can still drive the road wheels directly from the engine,
Volvo have a system on their hybrid bus chassis that has a conventional 7 speed gearbox and attached to it is a thing called an I-SAM (Integrated Starter Alternator Motor) And a lot of other clever technology. One bit of it being when the engine needs restarting whilst under electric power the system bump starts the engine but does not fuel it until the oil pressure is up.
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The hybrid Outlander can tow but with a much reduced limit of I believe 1500kg, I've not seen any other manufacturers specifying limits, except Tesla of course, their Model X can tow 2270kg but I'd hate to see what that does to the range.
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I wasn't implying the optima would make a good tow car but hybrid technology with the additional weight of the batteries would be an ideal replacement for diesel
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I thought the whole point of electric vehicles is to get away from fossil fuels. Hybrids don't achieve that. Unfortunately in the UK which I believe still gets most of its electricity supply from fossil fuels neither do pure electric vehicles.
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That's correct. I work for a Kia dealership and have one as my demo. I love it to pieces, but it would not be any good as a tow car.
When we were last at the caravan dealer I saw a new X5 Plug in towing a largish Swift/Sterling on pure electric.
If there was a plug in hybrid version of our next tow car I'd seriously consider buying one.
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