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With the continuing talk about PHEV cars, I started wondering again. Are we likely to see cars where the non-electrics, ie ICE or more likely fuel cell, could be removed for daily use of the car & plugged in for long distance driving. I guess an alternate would be an EV car with the ability to haul around an engine the way others hook up a small trailer.

Even the smallest engines are going to be over 40/80 lbs (gokart sized), but really something bigger would be needed for highway travel in all but the most slippery vehicles. To remove something that big, either you would go & have an ICE installed at a dealer, or you would need a block & tackle in the garage, or the thing would have to drop out of the car and have the car pick it back up.

If you had an EV that could tow, I don't see any reason why it should be difficult to make it into DIY series hybrid for highway trips by using a tow behind generator http://productpagesct.atlascopco.com/index.asp?Lng=EN&Country=ZZ. Tow behinds are kind of expensive though.

I don't have a good feel for the efficiency of existing generator sets, they probably should be tuned for an EV interface. My intuition agrees with yours that for FE and space considerations that you wouldn't want to haul around the ICE all the time and that a custom tuned portable generator set (ballpark of 20KW?) would be a logical accessory option for an EV.

The gen set would be nice to have in case power went out at home too!

My understanding is that if it were a plug in hybrid, that if you didn't have a place to plug in it would just convert to a regular hybrid.


--des

fuel cells need to be purged with nitrogen anytime they are removed, else youll have a fire when hydrogen gets to the anode.

Even with a small ICE, I think it is too much of a hassle and too many connections to have a removable power unit.

IMO, there is too much liability, potential release and other issues for this to be feasible.

Quantity of batteries being carried around though... if the electrical connections were safe enough and non-arcing, could be feasible by virtue of the modular, sealed design...

JMH