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Comment by falcolas | Hacker News Reader

For most of the time, I'd be totally cool with an electric vehicle (this has changed in recent years as ranges and cold-weather performance has improved dramatically). However, that time when I'm traveling off the "grid" would be an absolute nightmare.

For example - taking a vacation up in the mountains. No power, limited direct sunlight for solar, and your car is your lifeline. Or cross-country travel that isn't on the highways (i.e. no superchargers every 100 miles). Limited to 400 miles in a day, and required to stay at a hotel or spot with a plug in. Or someplace not in the continental US - for example Alaska or Canada.

That said, I think my ideal theoretical vehicle would have an all electric power train, and a gas turbine generator for those long trips. Best of both worlds (combustion and electric).

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I think about it the same way as owning a boat. If you go fishing every weekend then by all means buy a boat. If you only go once a year for a weekend then just rent a boat. Same principal can be used for longer than 650 km drives

Probably the easiest answer. Not necessarily with the current car rental prices (it immediately adds $300-400 to the cost of a vacation), but overall a decent model.

Not sure why they would get a lot cheaper than they are today. For people who live in a place like NYC, it's pretty common to not own a car and just rent one when they go skiing or whatever. The driving factor tends to be not so much the cost of owning a car but the costs associated with keeping one (parking, etc.) in a place like Manhattan.

I dont' think it'll be so bad. Sure, you might not be able to do that at first as we won't have the infrastructure and accessories built for it. But we will. Folks enjoy such things. I can imagine being told:

Now, as part of your trailer, you have extra energy storage, perhaps some solar capacity to refill the trailer batteries, possibly using the movement of the vehicle itself too.

Trailer too much? You also have the option of a "luggage case" on top, which isn't as powerful as the above but still lets you have freedom and maybe has a little wind turbine that works as you drive.

And I'm pretty sure we'll have some cars that just automatically come with extra batteries, for exactly the sort of travel you are talking.

A wind turbine that works as you drive? Nonsense on stilts...

Probably won't stop someone from trying to sell it to people :/.

(For those who didn't have their morning coffee today: the power that this wind turbine would capture would be (fraction of) the one coming from your car's battery. I.e. this would do nothing but increase the drag.)

> Nonsense on stilts

Sigh. Time for a new keyboard.

I'm keeping that one around for awhile; thanks for the laugh.

Yeah, that seems a bit ridiculous to me as well and I wrote the thing :) Without tech being much better, that is, and even then it doesn't seem proficient.

But I can see it being sold. We put fake blowers, oversized spoilers, and other such things on cars now.

You don't even need a gas turbine. A simple ICE generator will suffice. I'd personally go for a DC generator (domestic power supply is AC), that plugs directly into the battery charging system of the car.

A few gallons of fuel can certainly add more than a 100 miles.

I'd still prefer a turbine, for many of the same reasons as an electric motor. Fewer moving parts, more fuel efficient.

As a point of their reliability, most of the old pumpjacks you've seen about (if you're my age) are powered by turbines. Turned on, and left running for years without stopping.

I am under the impression that as the size of a turbine reduces, to maintain the same efficiency, you'd have to increase the running speed.

So for small turbines and with safe speeds, I guess the efficiency is compromised.

Having said that, I have come across efficient micro-turbines.

I don't have enough knowledge to discuss the power/fuel consumption of miniature turbines compared to a similarly sized ICE, but for those with that knowledge:

http://www.jetmodelproducts.com/amt.htm

157 N/16KG thrust at 450 g/min (grams, not gallons ;))

Ok, this looks like a Jet, to provide thrust. But to me, those parameters look like very poor fuel efficiency.

I could manage easily without a car at home, I live in a city with good public transport and plenty of shops nearby.

For vacations though I tend to travel between two countries that have announced that all cars will be electric relatively soon. Maybe a solution for the future is a standardized small shipping container that goes with you by train to fairly near a destination then gets put on the back of something like a small electric pickup truck that you rent while there.

https://www.engadget.com/2017/08/09/bmw-i3-range-extender/

With a range extension of 115 miles, that's not quite the distance I'd like to see.

It's fine as a proof of concept, and maybe even for a daily driver with a bit of emergency range, but not for my aforementioned trips.

> With a range extension of 115 miles, that's not quite the distance I'd like to see.

It sounds like you want a Volt. 53-ish miles of zero-emission electrical driving. If your battery dies, the gas generator clicks on, and a single tank of gas gets you an extra 315+ miles at freeway speeds.

It's not perfect. But (IMHO) it's pretty close to the best of both worlds, since the i3 isn't allowed to have a real range extender.

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