# Electric RV



## arklan (Dec 10, 2012)

the idea of turning a RV in to an electric comes up every couple of months of so and the short answer is always no because they r too big and heavy
this looks like it will be the exception 
it will have the aerodynamics of a brick so if u had everything the same as your fiat your range would probably be 40miles instead of 85

to have regen braking you need to use AC which costs about 4 times the price of DC so id be going with dc for this project
how ever u go about this i dont see it being cheap, even with salvaged battery packs you still wont get 200miles range unless u get a tesla pack
to get it to do 100miles @ 60mph imo youd be looking at a 40kwh pack mainly due to the flat face


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## Moltenmetal (Mar 20, 2014)

The 3000 pound (empty) weight is all well and good, but is only part of the story. When you load this thing up, both with batteries and with the things necessary to make it a useful RV for its intended purposes, it will be both heavy and a brick from an aerodynamics perspective- too much frontal area to push through the air at highway speeds. 

You want too much range, and in fact you need too much range for a useful RV to make this practical. Even with salvaged Volt or Leaf (or Fiat) packs, your cost of batteries will be very substantial. I'd say you should stick with the IC engine in this thing and find something else to convert.


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## 22350 (May 1, 2015)

Fortunately aerodynamics isn't an issue. 

The designer of this van was an airplane designer. The front is very rounded. The rear is also very aerodynamic. Lastly, the bottom is completely smooth. 

On regeneration. If you were able to do Ac, can you do it with a transmission? I understand the concept of driving an Ac motor for power, but how do you drive it through a transmission?

Is Ac more because of the motor, converter, batteries, or everything? Has anyone taken a wrecked fiat and taken all the drive for a project? Is it too complicated?

Seems like like 50+ kWh will be necessary to get past the corner. How are people sourcing battery packs?


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## arklan (Dec 10, 2012)

i dont understand why having a transmission would affect anything, it will work with one
ac costs more but im not really sure why, it just sort of does
u could possibly transfer everything from a fiat in to this van but your top speed would be quite limited due to the wind resistance
aircraft designer or not, this is going to be pretty hard to push through the air

i hear everything your saying, but unless you have a lot of dollars its just not worth it, the weight of everything would require a trailer behind it

u could do what people here in australia do and use a big rv to drive around and they tow a little 4wd like a suzuki to do all the 4wdriving they want to do when they get there, u could convert that to electric and still have all the benefits, use its pack as your batteries to run the rv stuff and use the rvs alternator to (slowly) charge your pack when its down


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## tomofreno (Mar 3, 2009)

What model do you have, 600, 700...? According to this reference:
http://www.corvair.org/chapters/ultravan/history.html
they vary in weight, and the later ones got about 12 to 15 mpg. A rough rule of thumb is about 8kWh per gallon, i.e. if your vehicle gets 12 mpg, then when converted to electric it should get about 12/8 = 1.5 mpkWh, i.e, use about 667 Wh/mile. Of course that depends on vehicle speed, etc, but gives a rough rule. If you want 200 mile range, that would require at least 1.2*200*667 = 160 kWh pack (generally don't discharge the pack below 20% SoC). But a pack that large will be a significant portion of the vehicle weight. For example, a 180 Ah, 576 Wh CALB cell is 12.3 lb. A 160 kWh pack would be about 278 of them, or about 3400 lb, so you would have to factor in that weight to estimate vehicle range. You can see it gets to be a problem, and expensive. You might contact Otmar who owns the Stretchla and get some idea of requirements from him:
http://cafeelectric.com/stretchla/

Scroll down a bit at that site to see the stretchla.


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## 22350 (May 1, 2015)

My corvair van is the 3000 pound unit, which gets about 15 to 18mph.

Sounds like the battery weight is a flawed curve. 

Maybe the solution is a diesel electric model, like the Fiskar.





tomofreno said:


> What model do you have, 600, 700...? According to this reference:
> http://www.corvair.org/chapters/ultravan/history.html
> they vary in weight, and the later ones got about 12 to 15 mpg. A rough rule of thumb is about 8kWh per gallon, i.e. if your vehicle gets 12 mpg, then when converted to electric it should get about 12/8 = 1.5 mpkWh, i.e, use about 667 Wh/mile. Of course that depends on vehicle speed, etc, but gives a rough rule. If you want 200 mile range, that would require at least 1.2*200*667 = 160 kWh pack (generally don't discharge the pack below 20% SoC). But a pack that large will be a significant portion of the vehicle weight. For example, a 180 Ah, 576 Wh CALB cell is 12.3 lb. A 160 kWh pack would be about 278 of them, or about 3400 lb, so you would have to factor in that weight to estimate vehicle range. You can see it gets to be a problem, and expensive. You might contact Otmar who owns the Stretchla and get some idea of requirements from him:
> http://cafeelectric.com/stretchla/
> ...


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## nimblemotors (Oct 1, 2010)

What does make sense is to use a prius hybrid drivetrain, because it has an engine designed to give maximum efficiency on the highway. 
And then it also functions as a generator to power house loads.
You might need to add another electric motor to climb hills or another entire prius drivetrain. While the van is light, once you add stuff, the ultimate travel weight is much more. 

If efficiency is primary concern, drive a prius and tow a small low-profile tent trailer.


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## Moltenmetal (Mar 20, 2014)

You can make the nose and tail as round as you like, but that thing has a huge frontal area. Aero drag at highway speed will take significant horsepower to overcome. Take a look at the estimates of how big the pack will need to be. Even if you could get this thing to run at 300 Wh per mile, and you definitely will not unless you drive it very slowly indeed, the pack you will need for 200 miles range will cost you a mint....


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## piotrsko (Dec 9, 2007)

To do what you want really needs a salvaged electric metro bus for motor parts and controller, and 15 Chevy volt or Nissan leaf car battery packs, 3 tesla packs, 25 Ford C-max packs or equivalent house off grid power storage. 

then you need 200vac + and a 50 amp RV source to charge overnight. So you are limited to commercial campgrounds unless you go very large genset.

Huge project. Do able, but you'll need to persevere to finish. Aerodynamics isn't the issue here, nor is the size or weight. Your range requirements are what makes the project difficult.


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## Caps18 (Jun 8, 2008)

1. You would need to replace the fuel tank with a battery box that reinforces the 'frame' of the RV.

2. I don't think you will be driving 400 miles in a day or anything, but if you are just hoping from charging point to charging point, riding bicycles once you get to your camp ground, and hanging out in the campground for a few days, I don't see it as impossible. 60 miles of range might be problematic in many places unless you can create your own power.

3. I think a smaller motor will just use the same amount of energy if not more to move this much weight down the road. Although it really isn't that bad of a design if you wanted to come up with what an electric RV would look like.

4. Look at the electric Cadillac Escalade that EVTV made a few years ago. If that can be converted, this could be.

5. Just make sure you look at the PlugShare map to see where the chargers are and how that goes with where you would like to camp. It won't be the typical, drive all day to get to a destination and then drive back a few days later type of RV'ing. It is more of the stop and smell the roses type of travel.

I would guess that 50 kWh-70 kWh would be the minimum, so look into the weight and size that those take up. Look into getting an air mattress and cutting weight where ever else you can as well.


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