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Stellantis EV Day tomorrow. Expectations for Jeep?

rallydefault

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I'm less bullish on solar as a portable charging solution -- the best panels today produce <2kWh of electricity a day under ideal circumstances (amount of sunlight and ambient temperature). That's... not much; the battery in the 4xe is 17.5kWh. To be meaningful to charge an EV we'd need several orders of magnitude more efficient panels (to say nothing of size and weight). Maybe that's coming?
Yea, as it stands solar panels on an electric JL wouldn't contribute much, I guess. The sun would have to be baking on it all day just to give you a bit of juice at the end of a run to get to a station. Or maybe it could give you enough for the jeep to run in some kind of super low-energy mode where it would give you just enough to move the vehicle at a slow speed without any other systems until you got to charger.
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Reinen

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Yea, as it stands solar panels on an electric JL wouldn't contribute much, I guess. The sun would have to be baking on it all day just to give you a bit of juice at the end of a run to get to a station. Or maybe it could give you enough for the jeep to run in some kind of super low-energy mode where it would give you just enough to move the vehicle at a slow speed without any other systems until you got to charger.
The good news is that today's solar panels are only 16-18% efficient at converting solar energy to electrical energy. So there is 4x more energy there to harvest if we figure out how. The bad news is that even at 100% efficiency it will still take nearly 2 days of good sun for a single 4x8 solar panel to charge the 4xe battery. So needing a large solar array is never going to go away. Not to mention those standalone solar recharging stations Jeep is making can't possibly recharge a lot of vehicles per day. I assume they have to have a battery bank inside so it doesn't take days to charge up and It would need a lot of down time between vehicles for the recharger to recharge itself.

Solar is great and all but you need a large array of them to get a substantial amount of power out of them. They can only be improved so much.
 

OINC

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The good news is that today's solar panels are only 16-18% efficient at converting solar energy to electrical energy. So there is 4x more energy there to harvest if we figure out how. The bad news is that even at 100% efficiency it will still take nearly 2 days of good sun for a single 4x8 solar panel to charge the 4xe battery. So needing a large solar array is never going to go away. Not to mention those standalone solar recharging stations Jeep is making can't possibly recharge a lot of vehicles per day. I assume they have to have a battery bank inside so it doesn't take days to charge up and It would need a lot of down time between vehicles for the recharger to recharge itself.

Solar is great and all but you need a large array of them to get a substantial amount of power out of them. They can only be improved so much.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Jeep charging stations weren't some customized version of the Beam EV ARC 2020, which is actually pretty neat (the canopy tracks the sun for maximum efficiency). It does have an integrated battery. See:

https://beamforall.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/BEAM-EV-ARC-2020-Info-Sheet-v1.1.pdf
 

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I would be excited just for a recessed and blacked out B-pillar.

Jeep Wrangler JL Stellantis EV Day tomorrow. Expectations for Jeep? 1625778400010
 

Reinen

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I wouldn't be surprised if the Jeep charging stations weren't some customized version of the Beam EV ARC 2020, which is actually pretty neat (the canopy tracks the sun for maximum efficiency). It does have an integrated battery. See:

https://beamforall.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/BEAM-EV-ARC-2020-Info-Sheet-v1.1.pdf
The specs of these things bugs me. Yes they have uses and benefits but SO many people overestimate what this can do. It's only a 4.3 kWh array with at most a 43 kWh battery. This will only charge at most 2.5 4xe's per day. Yet they offer this thing with up to 6 charging cables. It can't fully charge that many vehicles! smh.

This would be great for private use or in the middle of nowhere where only 2 vehicles pull up per day, but this is way underpowered for the demand of even a lightly populated area.
 

OINC

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The specs of these things bugs me. Yes they have uses and benefits but SO many people overestimate what this can do. It's only a 4.3 kWh array with at most a 43 kWh battery. This will only charge at most 2.5 4xe's per day. Yet they offer this thing with up to 6 charging cables. It can't fully charge that many vehicles! smh.

This would be great for private use or in the middle of nowhere where only 2 vehicles pull up per day, but this is way underpowered for the demand of even a lightly populated area.
I don’t think these are intended to be a primary charging station — rather, something to top off while you’re shopping or dining or what have you. But you are right that they also very much show off the limitations of solar as an EV charging solution in 2021.
 

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Range anxiety is different for a Jeep though. I'm routinely out where there's no cell service, no gas for 70+ off-road miles and it could be days until someone happens to wander by. By comparison, being in a Tesla on an interstate is zero anxiety. The worst case scenario is really just inconvenience.

In a Jeep off-road on the other hand, all you need is to discover the trail you planned to take is impassible (river flow is too high, trail washed out, too much mud, landslide, etc) and suddenly you don't have enough fuel to take the shortest detour or double back. That's what the jerry cans are for. Only the very reckless would plan on using them.
So in stead of a Jerry Can your backup could be a small portable generator, which are about the same size as a Jerry Can. Which would also come in handy for an overnight camp. :)

Might take 10 hrs to get 20 miles of range, but it could work :P
 
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Reinen

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So in stead of a Jerry Can your backup could be a small portable generator, which are about the same size as a Jerry Can. Which would also come in handy for an overnight camp. :)

Might take 10 hrs to get 20 miles of range, but it could work :P
It would be a lot better than that. A typical 20lb propane tank can produce 121.5 kWh of electricity. (propane generators are more efficient than gas) That's enough to completely charge a Tesla Model S Long Range Plus 100 kWh battery (the 4xe is only 17.3 kWh). That's with a generic AC generator. A purpose built generator would be more efficient as it only has one job, recharge the EV battery, and it can be fine tuned for maximum efficiency. It doesn't need to deal with AC conversion, variable loads, or device start surges. All of which add inefficiency. It would just convert propane to DC with a steady load at maximum efficiency and steadily pour it into the battery.

10 hrs would certainly be enough time to bring your EV from 0% to 100% and give you another 300 miles of range (or however far the vehicle can go on 100 kWh). Just by carrying an extra 20lb propane tank. It wouldn't even need to be down time, it could run while driving.

Strap on two 20lb tanks, which isn't unreasonable, and you can get from NYC to Chicago. Off road would be less of course but that's more than enough range to work with.
 

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TimmH

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It would be a lot better than that. A typical 20lb propane tank can produce 121.5 kWh of electricity. (propane generators are more efficient than gas) That's enough to completely charge a Tesla Model S Long Range Plus 100 kWh battery (the 4xe is only 17.3 kWh). That's with a generic AC generator. A purpose built generator would be more efficient as it only has one job, recharge the EV battery, and it can be fine tuned for maximum efficiency. It doesn't need to deal with AC conversion, variable loads, or device start surges. All of which add inefficiency. It would just convert propane to DC with a steady load at maximum efficiency and steadily pour it into the battery.

10 hrs would certainly be enough time to bring your EV from 0% to 100% and give you another 300 miles of range (or however far the vehicle can go on 100 kWh). Just by carrying an extra 20lb propane tank. It wouldn't even need to be down time, it could run while driving.

Strap on two 20lb tanks, which isn't unreasonable, and you can get from NYC to Chicago. Off road would be less of course but that's more than enough range to work with.

Except most portable small generators are 2-3000w, so your going to charge slow. bringing along a 20kw generator kind of defeats the purpose.

and this is just the current 4xe battery....
The maximum charge rate of the 17.3-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion hybrid battery is 7.2 kilowatts. Recharging a depleted battery takes 2.4 hours with a 240-volt Level 2 charger and a longish 16.5 hours with a 120-volt Level 1 unit. The Wrangler 4xe is not fast-charge-capable.
Apr 27, 2021
 

Reinen

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Except most portable small generators are 2-3000w, so your going to charge slow. bringing along a 20kw generator kind of defeats the purpose.

and this is just the current 4xe battery....
The maximum charge rate of the 17.3-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion hybrid battery is 7.2 kilowatts. Recharging a depleted battery takes 2.4 hours with a 240-volt Level 2 charger and a longish 16.5 hours with a 120-volt Level 1 unit. The Wrangler 4xe is not fast-charge-capable.
Apr 27, 2021
The Wrangler 4xe is also a really crappy EV. Because it isn't an EV, It's a hybrid that is primarily an ICE vehicle. Ignore the 4xe. Look at what actual EVs (like Teslas) are currently capable of.

You're also looking at the wrong generator. You're talking about a generic DC generator, converted to AC supporting a very wide range of watt loads, converted back to DC and used to charge a basic auxiliary battery not capable of rapid charging. A sea of inefficiency. You're right, that isn't worth it but that isn't what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about a fast charge capable 100 kWh battery (which only exist in Teslas atm AFAIK, theoretically designed into a Jeep) combined with an onboard DC generator specifically designed to only produce the DC power provided at the plug of a Tesla rapid charger with no DC/AC conversion, no varying load levels and no surge demand with maximum efficiency. Solid state batteries have the potential to be a complete game-changer here.
 
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daveprice7

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EV + integrated propane generator sure seems like a sound approach to range or out-of-fuel concerns. Propane keeps forever, so even if you never use it, it's there in an emergency. Propane is also cleaner burning, so it at least satisfies some of the environmental aspects of an ICE if you were to use it to extend your range for a long trip. My dad used to have an old cargo van that ran on propane, which iced up when it was cold outside; so, there may be something there to work out...
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