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All electric Wrangler in 2023?

Reinen

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I mean, it's still using fossil fuels, but I love the out-of-the-box thinking.

As I mentioned above, there could be a whole industry of overland-friendly-electric-production gear, suited for different environments.

- Collapsible wind turbine
- Wood-burning generator (recharge your Jeep while chillin by the fire)
- Water turbine if you're wheeling near a river
- steam-powered

All things that generate electricity without needing gasoline or other fossil fuels.

The big question (and opportunity) is making them small/portable/affordable, and how to get that electricity *into* your EV Jeep.
Exactly. It will emotionally devastate the tree huggers but the reality is that a Jeep goes where there is zero infrastructure and EVs require infrastructure. Even then, how often do Jeeps travel farther than 1 battery full into the wilderness? Considering all the miles that all Jeeps cover, it's an extremely small percentage. Reverting to fossil fuels for that miniscule percentage of travel is still a huge win environmentally.

I unfortunately don't see the other generation methods you listed being viable. To get a substantial amount of energy out of them, they would either be too large or cumbersome to transport, would require very specific or transient conditions to function or would often be banned due to risk of wildfire. I'm out west so the wood burning generator (which could produce enough power) is just a complete no-no.
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agordon117

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I realize that. Which is why I listed it under "things the industry needs to figure out". It's *theoretically* possible, but not currently *technologically* possible. My point was that solar power technology is relatively infantile, today, and yet we're still seeing big gains in durability and efficiency, so it's only a matter of time.

The whole EV "thing" is basically the same as what the ICE industry had to solve ~120 years ago. It's the same problems, except that "humans" as a species have become exponentially more technologically advanced. EVs have actually been a thing for about as long as ICE, just not en masse quite the same.
This actually isn't true. It isn't "theoretically" possible to get a usable amount of range out of solar panels on a car. Solar panels are around 20% efficient in ideal conditions. And if you magically had those conditions for 12 hours a day (which, you can't, because the sun isn't fixed in place), you'd get like 9 miles per day of charge at tesla KW/mi efficiency, which the jeep won't even come close to. So the best you could do if every surface on your jeep was always facing the sun, and there was never a cloud in the sky, is something around 12-18 miles per day (accounting for tesla efficiency vs jeep efficiency) if you used 100% of the energy that hits the earth for that full 12 hour period each day. But since none of those things will ever be possible (efficiency levels), start hacking away at that 12-18 miles/day based on how inexpensively you want the solar panels to be and how much surface area is actually facing the sun correctly.

~1KW/square meter actually reaches us on the ground, depending on who you ask. You maybe could put 2 square meters of solar panels on the jeep, if I'm being generous. if you had an 80kWh pack on a wrangler, you'd maybe get a range of around 100 miles because the aero and rolling resistance are so high, so figure something closer to 160KWh for starters. multiply out the inefficiency of solar panels, you're returning .4KWh per hour of ideal sunlight. Even if you assume you have a 2 square meter solar dish that follows the sun for 12 hours per day, and you have 30% efficient panels (if we ever get beyond that, it will be decades from now), you're only going to return 7.2KWh/day. But that's an absolute best case scenario, and requiring lots of added complication for a dish that continously faces the sun.

If you actually start breaking down the numbers on the 17.3KWh pack (I'm reading 15 usable KWh), you end up with 681.81 Wh/mi, which is in line with my assumptions about how much worse the jeep will be than a tesla (teslas are rated at 240Wh/mi, and as an owner I can tell you that you never get that)

EDIT: fixed units
 
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rcadden

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Solar panels are around 20% efficient in ideal conditions.
*TODAY'S* solar panels, which again, was my whole point.

These numbers are for home/roof solar panels, but the technology exists. From 2012 to 2015, we went from 17.8% to 22.04%. In just the past ~6 years, testing has gotten up to 44.5% efficiency - double what's commercially available today. YES, I understand that higher than 22% isn't commercially available TODAY, but neither is a fully electric Jeep. Chart source: https://news.energysage.com/solar-panel-efficiency-cost-over-time/
Jeep Wrangler JL All electric Wrangler in 2023? 04.27_Tracking-solar-panel-efficiency_Blo


My point is that as solar technology advances, by the time a fully electric Jeep is available, it's highly possible that we're upwards of 30%+, and I don't predict that as a species, we'll "settle" for that. In fact, even the "theoretical efficiency limit" for solar power is up for grabs. Here's an experiment from 2018 that increased the *theoretical* limit by 33%. In fact, the current ~33% "limit" (Shockley-Queisser) was developed in 1961 - 60 years ago, and there are nearly a dozen documented methods of surpassing it.

In my experience, people who continually preach that solar and other non-fossil fuels "simply can't compete" are stuck thinking about it from *today's* technology. There are a TON of things that exist today that even 10 years ago were thought to be basically impossible.
 

agordon117

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The problem is developing something in a lab somewhere is in no way tied to reality in terms of consumer products. Show me graphene, solid state, or glass batteries that have apparently been developed in such settings. Even 22% efficient panels are going to be 3x as expensive as the already expensive 12-15% efficient panels, if we ignore the fact that they would need to be shaped for the roof.

This doesn't get away from the issue that the wrangler would need a 238KWh battery pack to travel 350 miles on a charge, which would weigh ~2800 lbs if they got the same capacity to weight ratio as tesla. That's not accounting for the loss of range due to carrying all of that weight around, but it's sort of beside the point.

I have a Model Y and I'm a JL owner as well, so I get all of the theory on every side of the argument, it just isn't feasible to talk about recharging via on-vehicle solar and the best case scenario math shows as much. if you have enough supplies to be able to wait days on end for enough charge to make it somewhere, you probably could have also prepared for that scenario in much more cost-effective ways.

It's way more cost effective to have at destination solar charging with a few dozen square meters of 15% efficient panels than it is to try to shape solar panels into a roof and all of the expense that it would incur.
 

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DaveNH

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The whole EV "thing" is basically the same as what the ICE industry had to solve ~120 years ago. It's the same problems, except that "humans" as a species have become exponentially more technologically advanced. EVs have actually been a thing for about as long as ICE, just not en masse quite the same.
Electric vehicles were MORE popular than ICE until around the late 1910s and early 1920s. It's taken them another 100 or so years for batteries to start approaching viability. EVs, for much of the last century were like nuclear fusion...always 30 years away. But while the batteries are getting close, the major infrastructure isn't close. It's not just the charging stations, but also the impact on the grid if millions are plugging in every night.
 

Oilburner

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This doesn't get away from the issue that the wrangler would need a 238KWh battery pack to travel 350 miles on a charge, which would weigh ~2800 lbs if they got the same capacity to weight ratio as tesla. That's not accounting for the loss of range due to carrying all of that weight around, but it's sort of beside the point.
If we can use the known 17.3KWh/21 mile range from the 4xe, a 238KWh battery would only go about 289 highway miles In an E-Wrangler. Not sure if that's apples/apples tho
 

agordon117

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If we can use the known 17.3KWh/21 mile range from the 4xe, a 238KWh battery would only go about 289 highway miles In an E-Wrangler. Not sure if that's apples/apples tho
Thats basically the same math I did except I used 15KWh because that's what I found for the usable capacity and 22 miles because that's what I found for the range. If you assume it takes more power to go less distance (which it usually does from experience), it just goes downhill from there.
 

four low

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Electric vehicles were MORE popular than ICE until around the late 1910s and early 1920s. It's taken them another 100 or so years for batteries to start approaching viability. EVs, for much of the last century were like nuclear fusion...always 30 years away. But while the batteries are getting close, the major infrastructure isn't close. It's not just the charging stations, but also the impact on the grid if millions are plugging in every night.
Until the self -starter was developed for ICE , electric was real competition. Hand cranking an ICE engine was hazardous, and limited who could physically do it. Once a starter was invented, the ICE ruled
 

Royal

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Aren't the Jeep Charging stations being installed at various trailheads solar powered? Is there any data available for them that indicates total storage capacity and 'active' charging capability? (By 'active' I mean if the storage is empty, how much charging is the station capable of when an EV is plugged into it.)

If Jeep can put those up and they can be self-sufficient enough to truly charge multiple vehicles a day, then personally I don't see the idea of infrastructure to handle EVs in general that is not burdensome on the power grids to be all that far fetched.
 

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gerlbaum

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EV range is also weird because a 500 mile range isnā€™t really accurate. They really donā€™t want to charging above 80% and discharging below 20% otherwise you risk harming battery longevity. So you really only have 60% usable range except for limited circumstances. Additionally, below 32 degrees or above 104 and youā€™ll get 20% less of that 60%.

Use a battery powered leaf blower to clean your yard. Then use a gas powered one. The electric is quick but will only blow dust and dry leaves. The gas take more effort to fill and start but it will blow the wet leaves off your yard and your neighbors yard. They each have a purpose, like an electric hammer drill vs a battery drill driver.
 

alksion

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Funny conversation. I know electric is the future. Thereā€™s no stopping it. Just sad because of love the roar of a V8. Collect these engines while you can. On a side note, I think it would be relaxing on forest roads through full electric.
 

entropy

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When you are trying to get through a hard obstacle the roar of a gas engine, or the whine of the turbo I4, adds to the drama. All electric is gonna be very anticlimactic, like watching mad max without audio.
 
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Rufus

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When you are trying to get through a hard obstacle the roar of a gas engine, or the whine of the turbo I4, adds to the drama. All electric is gonna be very anticlimactic, like watching mad max without audio.
Like this: ā€˜68 GT350 w Cleveland 351
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TCogs1

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I have 10 gallons in cans with me. Half a tank. Is there a battery pack that will do that yet? Didn't think so.
https://enphase.com/installers/storage/encharge-10 a bit large, but 3 or 4 would fitā€¦ I think the key is match the ev or gas store for the trail of interestā€¦ on some trails I go through a full tank of gas in - 30 miles in my jlruā€¦ EV will be worse, but itā€™s not impossible. I think Jeep is on to something by using a trans and t-case with EV, so that energy consumption is not wasted. Just like the guys that run 4 bangers with 2 t-cases.
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