Re:How the 2021 Ford F-150's onboard generator works
by Truckaway on Wednesday July 01, 2020 @04:10PM
(#23705949)
It is a great way to view your car.
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 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.