A "supercarrier" would be a lorry-sized one e.g. a monster like an EX70-HDQ[0]. A smaller BOO would be something like a maximog or a rally vehicle. There are also conversions for SUV-size chassis replacing the entire back half.
My 32' Winnebago sleeps me, wife, kids and dogs has a 4000w generator and 3000w inverter which runs off two golf cart batteries charged by shore, generator, alternator and 300w of solar.
It has 80 gallons of gas, 70 gallons of water, air conditioning, and giant awning and tons of storage. I carry just about all my tools.
It even has a built in desk in the passenger side dash which I can work remote from using the hotspot / router with external antenna.
I driven cross country multiple times towing my Jeep and taken it pretty far off the grid. Its not an off-road vehicle but you would be surprised.
There are a lot of choices in between mine and a Unicat as well, like a 4x4 Class B or Super C. Some of them are starting to do large 48v secondary alternators with lithium banks and no generator while still being able to run the A/C for up to 8 hours before recharging.
Its actually very hard to travel by normal car or air now, we just like taking the RV, the space, bathroom and kitchen while driving down the road, our own bed...
You really do need to be handy to own one at this point, it's like a 70's American car. Well the engine and transmission and chassis is fine but everything around it, wow. Luckily it is easy to work on and modify.
I have thought long and hard about trying to start a "Toyota of RVs", I think if you could make a solid, simple well made RV you could dominate the market.
(Many in the US have never heard of Hymer even though they’re huge in Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymer. They’re now owned by Thor, which owns Airstream, Jayco, and many other RV companies: https://www.thorindustries.com/brands)
If you want quality look at https://advanced-rv.com, not cheap.
I agree about Advanced. A notch down would be Safari Condo’s XL Flex and Leisure Travel Vans.
Downside: No bathroom, shower, stove, etc.
Upside: No plumbing to maintain. Lot smaller than an RV.
On the hand, if it convincs you make trips you otherwise wouldn't have made, I think it's a win. I love Road tripping because it forces you to deal with stuff, especially if you're doing it in less developed countries. Probably the most fun I've ever had is driving long distance in Africa. You really never know what's going to happen next!
In the end, this seems like different goals - some just want to enjoy nature but not live in any delusion that we need to be more paleolithic to have the most authentic experience, others crave this process more than the end location. I identify more with the former group, and an RV sounds like a better bet for people like that.
I would be curious to know which is the least destructive to the places been to and the environment though. If the RV is worse, maybe that's one argument. But I'm not sure that makes sense - someone who stays in the hotel might end up costing more in resources maybe?
Like poor neighborhoods have so much more community than rich ones because people genuinely need each other to get by. When you're completely independent and don't need anyone, I think you've lost one of the things that gives life its value.
Also towing a Jeep with us makes a huge difference being able to really explore anywhere around where we are staying and see the sights. I really love Colorado and a Jeep is the way to really see it.
If I was single I might have a smaller RV with just a motorcycle, but with the whole family this setup is perfect, and it seems like kids have really got a lot out of it, they frequently talk about the places we been in the RV and love traveling in it.
Right? [5] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094012/mediaviewer/rm150543104...
Class A diesel RVs are designed for retired couples to drive around the country and live quite well. They plummet in price the first few years and if you're past 10 years old (usually harder to get a loan), the price drops more, often to 25% or less of the new price.
They have pretty beefy systems, with 7kw diesel generators quite common. The engine and chassis will be designed to flat tow a car (or a huge trailer).
And some have pretty interesting features, like tile floors, two bathrooms, in-floor heating, two bathrooms and washer/dryers.
but yeah, choose a good brand.
I am convinced that if you do the math, it makes more sense for the couple months a year a retired couple will travel to just buy a nice vehicle and do AirBNBs and have no compromise in terms of Shower length, amount of hot water, and other amenities.
Also, don’t get me started on the cost of fuel relative to a normal vehicle. Their fuel economy is abysmal. Think: Russian Tank.
Just not for me, have done plenty of that and I like my RV better. I can drive 8 hours straight with the kids no stops to a great state park and be chilling by 3pm do it again the next day all the way across the country sleeping in my own bed.
Yes its horrible mileage, I mean I am dragging my whole house with me, but thats what makes it nice too. Its not for everyone but if you like the whole "super-carrier" thing you probably will like it.
There are tons of drawbacks in reality compared to romantic idea of 'dragging your whole home with you'. Financially it doesn't make sense. You become a slave of your motor home. It drives like shit.
But far worst for me is, you create your own bubble. You travel, yet want to keep your cozy 'home'. That's completely opposite to why I travel - experience unique, vastly different, exotic places, interact with strangers, other cultures, eat local food etc. Dive deep into the place. This is much more interesting goal of traveling compared to just 'seeing places and staying comfortable'.
You might think we're comparing uncomparable - cruising around rather homogeneous US vs traveling i say South east Asia. Not at all - here in Europe we have such a diversity of cultures that those 'exotic' experiences can be had quite easily with few hundred kms of drive. South is nothing like north, east vs west the same. Every country is pretty unique.
We have seen a lot of diverse stuff in the US and financially, well traveling for pleasure doesn't really make sense, its worth it to me so far.
I did do a good amount of work to make my RV drive better, again if someone could make a simple well made RV I think the demand would be high, its really nice way to travel and see the US.
Yes, they can also be $125k. Your AirBNB option can also cost $4,000/night. Picking a price toward the top of the line does not make for a good argument.
And yes, mileage is not great, but it’s not as bad as a tank - a Class A diesel can easily get 8-9 MPG without trying, and a bit of care can get you to see 10-12.
With a cutaway, the manufacturer takes care of all of the steering linkages, driving controls, etc so you have some assurance of quality -- everything related to driving is built by the company with the most experience in building trucks and cars rather than the RV manufacturer.
I don't know what you get in the $300K+ Newmars and other expensive rigs since that's way out of my (and most people's) price range.
The sprinter type campervan setups are a little more practical but obviously trade for space.
Plus when the trailer falls apart, which they all do because they're built like crap, you can just replace it independent of the pickup.
But fifth wheel is an overkill for most:
For most of them you need F-250/350 instead of F-150. F-250 doesn’t drive as nice as F-150 when unloaded. Preferably you need long bed (not to hit the cab when backing up). With the crew cab this is the longest truck possible. Modern diesels are expensive to run and maintain, 7.3L Godzilla just shipped, you want to give it couple years to get proven...
Then fifth wheel is harder to hitch up and you loose huge portion of bed space. Also bed is nearly impossible to access when hitched up.
Basically, unless you really need the space, go with 25-30ft trailer and F-150 (with 6 1/2ft bed of course, not this short nonsense).
It's debatable whether the truck+trailer is easier to manage than the RV + small car. Though since we tend to take the RV to state parks and such where we don't need to drive after we park, we rarely take the car.
A fifth-wheel is easy to backup when needed. A coach with a flat-tow car attached can't back up at all.
And as long as you have enough truck for the size fifth-wheel you have they tow much better in wind and handle curvy roads well.
But as you say, different use cases for different people - if you already have or want a truck (or other tow vehicle), a towed RV makes a lot more sense. But I don't want a daily driver that's large enough to be a tow vehicle and it makes no sense to buy a tow vehicle that's only used for towing.
I can tell you its really nice having the RV be usable down the road for the bathroom and the space.
I tow a 4 door Jeep which is actually much better for getting around and exploring once we are at our destination than a full size truck due it its smaller size and off-road capability.
https://www.rvmobileinternet.com for cellular / internet connectivity.
You can definitely build your own, many people do, there is a lot of work put into these thing and yes Winnebago makes a profit to do it for you. They are by no means ripping anyone off, good luck finding a 4x4 sprinter Class B for any less brand new. Good luck finding a 4x4 sprinter shell to convert, they are in demand.
There is nothing innovative about working with aluminum. As a technically proficient person with a shop I would be reluctant to make full cabinetry and bed frames out of the material because things are just trickier compared to wood.
Savvy of Winnebago to pivot their decades of experience in making things light to a new generation.
I find it hard to believe Winneago adds $110k of value to the van.
FWIW, if you want a camper van (and not a full RV), Metris conversions are a solid option. PeaceVans (Seattle) has two nice builds - a weekender (bed, pop top, no kitchen nor bath) or a camper (bed, pop top, kitchen, no bath). About $65k for the former and $85 for the latter. Using one of these (or a 40-year old VW Westfalia) limits you to campsites with toilets (or roughing it a bit). The Weekender build is available through your local M-B dealer (via an official up-fitter arrangement).
2-6 year old class B's (vans) usually sell in the 40-80k range, depending on the details.
If I'm taking a mobile home or... that thing... somewhere, it's generally a planned event. Whereas my "mobile base of operations" should be something that's always with me during my day-to-day, but also has a significant amount of resources I might need.
https://www.unicat.net/en/info/TC51hallround-MANLE142804x4CC...
I'm going to be building one based off an LMTV as soon as I can find a place to do it.
I drive a Land Rover Defender 110 and camp in the back of it. If I was looking for something for long-term camping, or to take a family, I would just buy fifth wheel trailer and pull it behind my Ram 2500, where I have a reliable and strong Cummins turbo diesel.
Every option is about trade offs. For my use an LMTV makes sense.
Minor: piques anyone's interest.
You can rent a truck for a day when you need it and save a lot of money and emissions.
Here, you have someone who might move their single horse from summer pasture to winter pasture, and as a result, thinks that they "have" to have a HD3500 "dually".
Speed limits. Americans generally refuse to slow down when towing. In most of western Europe, the speed limit is 20mph lower (give or take) when towing. In order to tow at a high speeds while maintaining stability, you need a long wheelbase and mass.
Liability and fear of lawsuits. My 2017 VW Sportwagen is rated to tow 2000lbs in the EU. It isn't rated to tow AT ALL in the US. There are no mechanical differences that would impact the tow rating. If a consumer wants a vehicle rated to tow, they literally can't use a mid-size sedan or wagon in the US (despite the exact same vehicle being able to tow a small travel trailer, horse, or small powerboat without problem).
In practice, a vehicle's safe towing capacity is usually not limited by the engine or drivetrain, but by the ability to stop the trailer safely. Brakes on the trailer itself help, but the big problem is that hard braking shifts more weight forward onto the hitch (trailer dive) and tends to lever the front wheels of the tow vehicle up, reducing their braking ability and in extreme cases eliminates your ability to steer while braking. A weight-distributing hitch counteracts this, but in the US light passenger vehicles are seldom rated for use with such a hitch. Towing at a lower speed also somewhat reduces this danger, by quadratically reducing the kinetic energy you need to shed in an emergency stop.
Think of the stereotypes that plywood falling out of the bed of a 2010 Tacoma evokes vs the stereotypes that plywood strapped to the roof of a 2010 Crown Victoria evokes.
This in combination with beefier rear frames on euro car models (and no truck sales this would cannibalize) results in a higher towing capacity rating. It is much more common to have a utility trailer for the 3-4 times a year you would need it.
In reality people go up to 60-65mph with a decent trailer, that is about 100km/h.
100 mph is… not likely though.
And unless you're using it more frequently than that, only a fuel efficient medium / small one makes sense.
(Possible exception: infrequent long-haul towing for extended trips)
Obligatory Money Mustache article:
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/04/28/what-does-your-wo...
Individually it won't make much of a difference, if it's about climate change or CO2 reduction you need a national plan and billions of investments in e.g. getting rid of coal power or discouraging energy waste on e.g. bitcoin.
Don't know why, but I've always loved cabover trucks.
It became kind of fashion thingie for those who don't understand cars, or basic physics. Soccer moms love them, since they often don't have good driving skills, it puts them higher so they have better overview of the road (while blocking any view of those behind). Pollution, higher maintenance costs, much higher danger of car rolling during accident (and break your neck) be damned.
Then there is category of these tiny 'SUV' (I think proper term is crossover), which are just bigger shopping carts, being a higher above ground. So from driving perspective, the worst combination - small, badly maneuverable car.
We still have big wagons for those who are numerous / carry around a lot of things. These I prefer - they drive well, trunk space is enormous. Compared to most SUV which look big on the outside, but not so much inside.
/rant
For a start, SUVs don't go off road. They are road vehicles. We had off-roaders for a long time in the form of Land Rovers etc. We called them 4x4s and they weren't really comfortable to drive on the road.
I like the idea of having the right vehicle for the right purpose. If I had to travel to work by car (which I've done before and don't want to do again), I would like to drive a Mercedes "Smart" or VW Up, or similar. These are crap, consumable, plastic cars, but they do the job just fine. For the weekends? A sports car or hot hatch would be fun. For long trips and camping? An SUV would be great.
SUVs and the much higher number of HGVs now also tear up the roads, which isn't great for your sports car. You'll have a better chance in an SUV yourself. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
The problem is that, in the UK at least, it's really only possible to run one car for various reasons (even if you could afford the depreciation on multiple cars). So the SUV becomes the default. Also I just want a reliable car. I don't want it to be a project and constant worry that my investment is going to fall apart. That means Honda or Toyota. But if I have to choose between the regular hatchback or SUV, I might as well go SUV because it will be more fun. There's the Civic Type-R. I owned one, but I don't really want one of the newer ones (I don't need 300+ bhp in a hatchback).
Unfortunately most people can't afford the "right vehicle for right purpose" approach they they pick the compromise that will be sort of a jack of all trades and master of none but cover pretty much all the needs. This comes with some drawbacks (larger outside dimensions, larger fuel consumption, less maneuverable, etc.) and some advantages (larger inside dimensions, more likely to fare better in a crash due to the added weight and ride height).
Normally I'd say that if you have a specific driving need only 1% of the time, rent rather than try to tack the feature onto your car's requirements. There's no point in driving around with those drawbacks 99% of the time for that 1% when you drive with the advantage. But something like the safety advantage is there all the time, unless the manufacturer really screwed up someplace else.
The biggest problem and misunderstanding lies with the CUV/CSUV segment. They are somehow viewed as "SUVs" but actually have almost all the disadvantages of a SUV with almost none of the advantages. Compared to the equivalent hatchback they sport a slightly larger body that increases drag and fuel consumption, and decreases maneuverability, bigger wheels and raised axles that just eat up more interior space, and probably have little to no safety benefit because the added weight contributes almost nothing to this (a Mercedes GLA weighs ~100Kg more than a normal A-class hatchback).
Growing up my family of five were able to comfortably fit all of us plus any luggage/gear in an early 80s subcompact hatchback.
We used to pack up our 5 member family and suitcases for 3 weeks at the seaside into a 2. generation Voklswagen Golf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Golf_Mk2
Us and every other family. I suppose the average american uses a 18-wheel cargo truck to go to vacation.
“On average, a professional water delivery service will charge anywhere from $175 to $380 per truckload., and the average truck will hold 6,000 gallons.” - https://www.howmuchisit.org/pool-water-delivery-cost/
Could buy a lot of those for the price of an SUV, especially sharing the price between all the people.
Inb4 the tournament is held on a remote mountain top inaccessible to tankers and hatchbacks alike and only accessible to 4x4s so there’s literally no other choice.
That easily fits in most cars unless we're talking about Smart's or sports cars.
I rammed into the back of an Uber Cadillac SUV (who had hit someone in front of them) on the highway doing about ~50-60km/hr upon collision and my subcompact car completely crunched in while the SUV bumper barely had a scratch.
This almost makes me want an SUV rather than not. But I get what you're saying.
It's like wearing masks during COVID, it mainly only prevents you from getting others sick, not the other way around... but that's half the battle.
Typical SUVs (excluding more modern car-chassis based ones) use body on frame construction - the chassis of the car is a big and heavy steel ladder. It doesn't have the same crash performance - even though it may look less damaged, the accelerations experienced by the passengers are greater.
SUV are objectively safer due to size and mass. This comes at the cost of efficiency (fuel, space), and damage to other "softer" traffic participants (pedestrians, cyclists, smaller cars).
This effect is exaggerated by the fact that when braking or hitting something all cars lean forward and the nose goes down. So a small car crashing into the back of a SUV when both are braking (or the SUV just impacted someone in front) will definitely slide under the SUV and see a lot of damage. Also the back of a car is not designed to crumple as much as the front so it will see a lot less damage.
And because I see a wave of downvotes without an actual counter-argument, I will leave this here [0] and quote the essential:
> Research by the Highway Loss Data Institute shows that drivers and passengers in a hybrid are 25% less likely to be injured than those in the same model with a standard gasoline engine. And the death rate for drivers in hybrid crashes also was lower. The hybrid advantage is all about weight, it turns out.
Putting 2 and 2 together, between cars built to the same safety standards and level of quality, the heavier one is safer. I though this would be obvious for the technical crowd, especially the ones willing to get past reading just the first half a sentence from a comment.
[0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/crash-test-hybrids-safer-than-o...
In single-vehicle collisions against approximately immovable objects (trees, barriers, etc) though, that mass is no longer an advantage, and if the crumple zone doesn't function as well because of the frame design in a larger vehicle then you'll be worse off.
It's probably also worth mentioning that heavier vehicles tend to be more susceptible to rollover. More importantly, traction scales sub-linearly with vehicle weight, so stopping distance, the ability to not slide off a curve, and whatnot all have reduced performance. That increase in the chance of an accident matters.
It might be the case that most accidents are completely unavoidable multi-vehicle collisions where one would want to optimize with a heavy, sturdy vehicle. That's a bit of a different argument from just pointing out that heavier vehicles suffer lower acceleration when colliding with lighter vehicles.
There are many small conveniences that come from having a personally owned vehicle, but I would ecstatically spend an hour or two loading/unloading my car every couple weeks when I go on a trip as long as it meant I didn’t have to sit in traffic for hours every morning because everyone wants to have their own personal aircraft carrier sitting outside their office for whatever reason.
But the car industry at large is so invested in this car-as-sanctuary idea that jumping into a random rental is often a frustrating experience. Pairing a phone for navigation or audio is a whole big thing. Finding a place that can rent a companion bike rack or other accessory like that for an outdoor trip is difficult, and supplying your own is usually forbidden - if you even feel comfortable betting on a generic enough model. Those 1% of activities where I really benefit from a car can be really difficult without the aid of a friend who owns their own personal vehicle, and it feels like that is by design a lot of the time.
Well, one can dream anyway.
There's a reason renting Jeeps in Death Valley is something like $200/day--assuming you have your own insurance that will actually cover how you intend to use it.
With subways like BART allowing bicycles, going around traffic jams and being economical and somewhat social, basically cars, taxis/Uber and public transit are fundamentally different services that strongly overlap.
Which means no one is going to be happy eliminating any of these and that makes it even harder for any self-driving taxi system since it would have to indefinitely navigate human filled roads and would add-to, not replace, all the traffic that exists now, threatening considerable congestion.
Ha! Part of my family owns an auto shop that I used to work at many years ago. I always thought of vehicles as "mobile trash cans" as it is actually quite common for us to be working on a car that has garbage that is level with both front and back seats. Even sometimes with trucks/vans, only with the higher seats that means the garbage is 2 ft deep. Perhaps it is just like their "living room".
The irony is we don't really mind these customers. They are not the ones that try to sue us for getting grease on their seats or scratching their windows. Yes we actually had someone complain that we scratched their window, as if our mechanics just walk around with diamond tipped drill bits putting .5" scratches on random glass.
I'm always confused when I see cars with a bunch of expensive non-functional aftermarket accessories on their car. Like, why would you spend money on that? Then I remember that for me, my car isn't really part of my "self", but for others it is.
> Presumably, with power and fresh water, the flight deck could be converted into a rather sizable garden. It even has access to sunlight and protection from pests.
You'd need dirt too, and lots of it.
In such a scenario, it'd probably most practical just to anchor or dock the ship somewhere safe near land, and use its facilities to jump-start a settlement. I'm guessing with the maintenance possible in such a scenario, all the ship's systems would break down within a decade or so (and it'd need to be refueled with enriched uranium at about that point, too), so you really wouldn't want to stay dependent on it for too long.
You could do hydro/aeroponics. You have plenty of fertalizer in the form of human waste, fish waste, and other things.
What vehicles are you driving/living by? Vehicles made in the past 10 years have virtually no smell once the engines are warmed up unless something's wrong with the catalytic converter.
However, even a single diesel vehicle can make the air in a half-block radius harder to breathe for minutes after it passes, even relatively recent ones. It is really shocking to me that such vehicles are legal, even if only by grandfathering in. Maybe I'm uniquely sensitive to them or something.
But even the fumes from my hybrid are a noticeable bummer if I’m out of the vehicle.
I once made a pickup like this for a big camping road trip by putting 100W of solar panels on the canopy roof rails of a 1990s truck. An extra car battery went in the back, and it worked fantastically.
I could keep all of my stuff charged while camping, which let me stick around longer in the forests and parks. And it could buffer enough energy to keep a Switch or laptop charged for the occasional stretch of inclement weather.
Of course, 100W of panels did not generate enough power to run climate control or a refrigerator, but compared to a traditional generator, I thought the silence was worth that tradeoff.
Putting a beefier and smarter generator in passenger cars makes a ton of sense. There's already an alternator anyways, which my '90s donor car manual actually refers to as a "generator". And I think the newer Prius cars, at least the V models, can run climate control off the battery and automatically turn on the engine to recharge it when necessary.
Also, this trend might make thickly-settled campgrounds more palatable. It would be nice if they didn't always turn into a susurration of ancient sputtering generators at sunset.
Oh, and the idea of using the outlets to charge electric dirt bikes? Now that is exciting.
I wasn't on a supercarrier but I did render humanitarian aid in Indonesia from an LHD. This is absolutely one of the missions these ships are capable of.
But imagine if you could retool these ships with a singular primary goal of disaster relief. Imagine if every carrier group was some internationally funded disaster response team.
This isn’t just idle fantasizing; I actually use these capabilities all the time. It’s hard to imagine how much flexibility a well-equipped vehicle gives you when you’re living in a dense urban center without a car (which is how I often live a few years at a time).
And, of course, having a high-quality SUV makes the logistics of my equipment-heavy interests way easier. I often have to lug around scuba gear, ski gear, big rifles, power tools, etc., and often on extremely shitty roads (muddy, potholed, iced, you name it). This would be completely infeasible with a non-“aircraft carrier” commuter vehicle.
As an additional side note, many of the spaceships in the series are sentient and have interesting names, two of which SpaceX used to name their own drone ships.
I actually don't think solar panels are really needed today unless you're doing stationary vanlife, like setting up an aid camp in Africa. It's just so much simpler to charge your battery from your alternator while you drive.
Anyway, me weekend vehicle is a VW T5 Transporter and you can pry it’s dirt spewing 2.5L turbo diesel from my cold. dead. hands. It’s a massive piece of shit with regard to anything bolted to the engine, like the whole rest of the car, but it handles like a dream and uses fuckall diesel.
I’ve owned vans for two decades now. There’s no going back.
I wonder if you could use it to power your house during an outage, given pg&e was trigger happy with turning off northern California's power last year this could be a great use case.
The reason you can't find such a cord at Home Depot is that it's dangerous and a generator should only be connected to a home electrical panel through a transfer switch that prevents paralleling it with the utility supply.
It would also be more economical to install a stationary generator or battery system for emergency power.
The load of the neighborhood looks a lot like a short to your generator. The lineman should be grounding the line because the power company and other linemen kill linemen by energizing things much more often than homeowners kill linemen and he wants to avoid that. Even just momentarily grounding the line shorts your generator. Most linemen are going to assume the line is hot (it often is) and work accordingly so either your genset breaker will flip when your generator tries to power the rest of the grid or you'll break something when the grid forces your generator to instantly synchronize with it.
There was a big thread on a popular VS owned forum that shall remain nameless and they were able to find two instances in North America of linemen being killed by back feeds and one of the stories didn't conclusively say the death was caused by a generator back-feeding the grid.
Yeah you should use a proper transfer switch but it's not nearly as risky as internet commenters make it out to be. The real reason to use a transfer switch is so that the system is stupid proof enough that you can make a different member of your household go plug in the generator when the power goes out in the middle of a hurricane.
You're right that temporary protective grounding protects power workers from inadvertent energization, but that is primarily to protect from sources of hazardous energy that can't be isolated (like lightning or induction from parallel lines). Temporary grounding can fail too (improper application, bad jumper, an accident severs the earth connection after the job begins, etc) so we provide multiple levels of protection instead of relying on just one thing to keep people safe.
Electrical systems need to be stupid proof because although you might be smart, the next person who comes along won't be. I agree that improper use of a home generator is unlikely to injure someone, but the job as electrical engineers is to think of unlikely but hazardous things and prevent them from happening.
Even the 5+1 apartments that are disliked for their uniform aesthetics are a big step up on quality/price than the approaches of decades past.
Interesting that Ford is coming out with a truck with a power supply so closely after Tesla's. Too close I suspect for it to be a copy-cat move. Which leaves 'great minds think alike' and 'someone got tipped off.'
Having a "second aux battery" would be a nice factory option, so you don't worry about draining the starter. There are mods you can do to vehicles to make this work.
I'd like it in an SUV, and I'm willing to bet if offered, folks would jump on it, but I agree it's a lot less likely it'd be heavily used.
Re: Adding another battery, I've considered (and done some napkin math) adding solar panels and a second battery to my car to power the computer I run onboard. But it's something I don't have the time or money to play with right now.
Get the specs of you generator and you can see how much you can sustain while your engine is running. The inverters do usually create a square voltage "wave" rather than a good sine one, but it has never been a problem in my experience.
Under good conditions and direct sunlight, the total power that reaches the earth's surface is about 1000 watts per square meter. The best (commercialized) solar panels right now top out right around 20% efficiency. Ignoring losses due to conversion, you're looking at about 200 watts tops.
Over an entire day of ideal summer conditions you'll maybe get enough power out of it to make a quick pot of coffee.
Not affiliated with them, I just think it's dope and I wish I had a place to plug it in and an excuse to spend that much money.
It keeps us warm or cold. Powers everything. Has entertainment. Shelter. Carries all my supplies. Having a small SUV in the parking lot of the beach turns my morning trip into a whole day trip with my toddlers napping and taking a break in the shade.
It’s what gets me about the supercarriers. If warfare suddenly disappeared, you’ve got these mobile bases you can anchor off the coast of a disaster zone with massive capabilities for logistics, a nuclear power plant, water purifier, hospital, machine shops, etc. Etc.
So this F150 power generator thing resonates with me.