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Comment by UI_at_80x24 | Hacker News Reader

Or, you could just put a generator on the trailer, and get unlimited range! =)

There was an excellent old website (it when by the name Mr. Sharkey but is sadly no longer around except in some archives with missing photos) which detailed a guys experiments with an old VW Rabbit EV. He actually built a range extender trailer for it based on the front of another VW rabbit. One interesting thing is he wasn't powering a generator but actually pushed the car via the tow ball and the engine and transmission from the donor car.

Found it on archive.org: http://web.archive.org/web/20121105135914/http://www.mrshark...

>but actually pushed the car via the tow ball and the engine and transmission from the donor car.

I'm sure that handled spectacularly on on-ramps. It would be like flat towing another vehicle and coming into a corner too hot.

I did say it was interesting! Safe, not so much.

To be fair, I think he basically fired it up when he got to the interstate, manually set the throttle to the speed he wanted to cruise at then turned it off again before coming off the interstate.

The early days of EVs reminds me of the early days of rock crawling. People tried all these wacky things because there was no instruction manual to follow, they were writing it.

That project was inspired by a pusher trailer built by JB Straubel[1] (co-founder and former CTO of Tesla), and in Straubel's write-up he addresses this:

> Dynamics:

> Despite the facts that I shortened the trailer of the Gen-2 pusher by two feet and added more IC horsepower and much more pushing force with the ability of the AT to downshift...I have still found it basically impossible to get into a condition of oversteer. (This is where the car would want to turn into the direction of the turn if you take your hand off the wheel, normaly if you release the wheel a vehicle will straighten itself out of a turn) Even in relatively tight turns with the trailer at nearly full power, the car wants to straighten itself out. The shortened trailer also drafts behind the EV much better further improving the mpg.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20120319173545/http://www.jstrau...

That contradicts the experience of basically everyone that's ever towed anything. I'm gonna ignore a bunch of second order variables here but if you come into a turn too hot for the weight of the trailer compared to the tow vehicle the trailer can and will push the rear of the car straight (over-steer). This is exacerbated by long trailer axle spreads and short tongue length (hence why flat towing a car feels the way it does).

Maybe he just drives really conservatively everywhere (wouldn't surprise me since a light foot was key for extending range on early EVs and many people developed that habit) or maybe the trailer is just light enough and being single axle makes it easy to steer enough that the natural tendency of the car to straighten out is greater.

I wouldn't trust anyone crazy enough to build this contraption to evaluate how safe it is. I mean, it's probably fine for him, but you wouldn't want your [stereotypical poor driver of choice] to be driving it on a wet day.

Honestly that isn’t a bad idea. It would also allow you to go on road trips where there is no charging network. Better than buying a fully ICE car instead.

I wonder if a electric car with a generator in a trailer would still be tax exempt...

No electric car I'm aware of allows you to charge while driving, even with software mods and hacks.

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