Adding a ICE to charge the battery for longer range?

Mitsubishi i-MiEV Forum

Help Support Mitsubishi i-MiEV Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

spchinch

Member
Joined
May 17, 2014
Messages
5
Hi

Spent the weekend looking at the BMW i3 and their extended range is nothing more than an engine that charges the battery. They have a capacity of 3 gallons of gas, so they claim an additional 90 miles or so.


Just wanted to know if anyone has thought about this, I am happy with the i-Miev so far.

I understand why some in this forum have put bioethanol diesel as a heating element, the range decreases a ton when using the cabin heat.

Tks
Chris
 
spchinch said:
HiJust wanted to know if anyone has thought about this
The furthest anyone has gone with this ICE concept is to prove that a Honda EU2000i genset can be used for L1 charging if the grounding circuit is manipulated to fool the EVSE's GFCI. For use after the car has parked and not while underway.

Once the car is running, the J1772 input is disabled… actually, it's the other way around: if there's something plugged into J1772, the car won't start. This means that a genset and charger would have to output directly into the battery high voltage, bypassing the i-MiEV's built-in charger... or maybe that circuit also could be hacked and the genset could feed it ac. Would hate to deal with the hacking and mounting and exhaust and all that ICE stuff. Too much trouble, IMO, and there are plenty of plug-in hybrids now on the market for those who own only one car and must rely on a longer range vehicle than the i-MiEV.

Since the whole idea of a BEV is to get us completely off fossil fuel (exception being judicious use for auxiliary heating), a number of us are tinkering with the concept of a battery-powered range extender - either paralleling the existing pack with another one or else using a lower-voltage battery pack and feeding the car's traction pack through a dc-dc. Work in progress…

I remember my first comment after test-driving the i3 was to ask whether they were considering simply replacing their REx ICE genset with a larger battery pack in that same volume. :mrgreen:
 
I've tinkered with the idea, but hit a wall trying to find a 360 volt generator. I may be building a parallel battery pack someday, but I'd like to find a second i-MiEV to test it on. The i3 REx has a pretty good power train. I like the fact that the REx only runs when needed, shutting off when stopped or when extra energy is not needed. It'll actually go further on battery power than a tank of gas. Due to the 2-3 gallon tank, it'll only take $8-10 of gas. You get a weird look when you put $5 on a pump and go back for change :lol: .
 
PV1 said:
You get a weird look when you put $5 on a pump and go back for change :lol: .
Reminds me of days gone by when I worked in a gas station as a teenager . . . . back in the days when someone actually pumped your gas for you. The boss's mandate that every customer got a free windshield cleaning made those kids (and some others too) who pulled in for a quick one dollar purchase very unpopular with us, since it was really hard to properly clean a windshield in the time it took to pump a bucks worth of gas. At 25 or 30 cents per gallon, they got 3 or 4 gallons . . . . and then they'd come back the next day for another buck's worth :lol:

Don
 
Got a weird look too :?
When I pulled up to a full service station and put $ 1.85 of diesel in the Miev for the heater.

I usually keep a small container (1 gal) at home to top off but had run out
and didn't want to freeze on the way home.
 
sandange said:
Got a weird look too :?
When I pulled up to a full service station and put $ 1.85 of diesel in the Miev for the heater.
:lol:
Would a 'big rig' diesel pump nozzle even fit into your heater tank? It'd probably splash back something terrible.

I can see the scene at a Flying J truck stop now. Sandange dribbles in his half gallon of dino juice, and the grizzled trucker next door says "Why'd ya bother stoppin?"
Sandange says- "Tank was empty, but that's all she takes!".
Mack grunts "Ugh.., one of them hybrids, eh?"
Sandange replies: "Oui, we get over 400 miles to the gallon, but only during the winter. During summer, we run on sunshine!" :mrgreen:
 
back in the days when someone actually pumped your gas for you. The boss's mandate that every customer got a free windshield cleaning made those kids (and some others too) who pulled in for a quick one dollar purchase very unpopular with us, since it was really hard to properly clean a windshield in the time it took to pump a bucks worth of gas. At 25 or 30 cents per gallon, they got 3 or 4 gallons ???
 
Back
Top