# Ford Transit Custom PHEV



## RIPPERTON (Jan 26, 2010)

https://www.drivingelectric.com/ford/transit/822/ford-transit-custom-phev-prototype-review
14kWh and a 1 liter 3 cylinder petrol engine to drive a generator.
Drive is fulltime electric. Pack is under the left side where the diesel tank used to be. Gets a paltry 300miles hybrid range, (480km)
I have a 2014 version of this with 2.2l TDI and it gets over 1200km on 83 liters of diesel. Hard to beat but anything is better than that diesel stink.


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## frodus (Apr 12, 2008)

Sweet, I like this idea in vehicles. 30+ miles range and a range extender. 

I got a Volt in December and love it. Only filled maybe 4 times, and that includes 2 long trips. Saves a ton and is charged when I wake up on 110VAC charging overnight.


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## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

It's unfortunate that someone came up with the term "range extender", so they could call their series hybrid vehicles "electric vehicles with range extenders". Yeah... my gasoline car is a soap box racer (just rolls downhill without an engine) with a "hill extender". 

This Transit is a series hybrid; that means that power to drive the wheels is always coming from an electric motor, even though the energy is coming from an engine. Saying that the engine never drives the wheels is like saying that in a conventional car the engine never drives the wheels, because it just drives the transmission. Pure series is a rarely-used configuration due to the inefficiency of running the engine's output through both the mechanical-to-electric conversion of the generator and the electric-to-mechanical conversion of the motor. The usual fix is to also provide a single-ratio fully mechanical power path for highway speeds, giving it both series and parallel modes; the Honda Accord and Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV are examples.

There are some pure series hybrids:

BMW i3
Nissan e-Power Note and van
some off-highway heavy dump trucks
some transit buses
The BMW i3 is a good example of the efficiency problem: despite carbon-fibre construction, ultra-low rolling resistance skinny tires, and other tech, it gets worse fuel economy while being powered by the engine than a typical cheap gas-only compact.

This Transit is presumably intended for urban delivery, which is the ideal scenario for a series plug-in hybrid. The comment about geofencing to enforce the electric-only mode shows what it is for: it will run on stored energy in the battery when going through restricted areas (such as a city core allowing only EVs), but with only 14 kWh of battery, in a commercial application it will run almost entirely on gasoline. As InsideEVs puts it:


> The main idea to offer such type of a PHEV is to reduce local emission and comply with ultra-low-emission vehicle zones.


Many people commute to work on almost entirely electrical energy from the grid (not the engine) in plug-in hybrid cars such as the Chevrolet Volt, but there are probably approximately zero potential buyers who need a one-tonne van and will only drive it 50 km/day.

The fuel-burning range is described as 300 miles, not 300 kilometres. Ford's press material confirms that, listing a 500 km range. That's suitable for a day of its intended use, and a typical range for a car.

https://www.ford.co.uk/future-vehicles/new-transit-custom-phev


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## RIPPERTON (Jan 26, 2010)

With a 14kWh pack I would consider purchasing as a kit. ie an incomplete concept where I would then go and design and build a proper battery for it.
I dare say I could fit a full Tesla pack under there.


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## RIPPERTON (Jan 26, 2010)

Even the ICE would have to be switched over the LPG or LNG


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## NiallDarwin (Sep 29, 2018)

brian_ said:


> Yeah... my gasoline car is a soap box racer (just rolls downhill without an engine) with a "hill extender".



 Very good!


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