TerraLiner:12 m Globally Mobile Beach House/Class-A Crossover w 6x6 Hybrid Drivetrain

[Silverado08]

As regards safety & security: I couldn't help notice that in the video you referenced, when his motorhome was attacked he was "free camping". He was "free camping" in the sense that he had parked on a city street, where he didn't have to pay for the privilege. Further along he realizes that it might be a better to..... yes, we can see it coming...... camp on someone's property. Behind a gate. About 8 minutes, 45 seconds into the video:


The only problem is that he's still looking for "free". "Free camping for a big RV that is simultaneously safe camping " is an oxymoron in most countries, including many parts of the United States. The only possible exceptions might be Canada, Australia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. Or at least that's the basic safety premise that I begin with. Everywhere else you get what you pay for, and if you pay nothing, then you get poor security and poor safety.

Silverado, just wondering if you'd be willing to save me some time. Would you have even just a few quick links to the very best threads on "rv.net" and "cheaprvlining.com" where safety is discussed?

All best wishes,

Biotect[/QUOTE]
Yes,parking on the street wouldnt be my choice either even in the better neighborhoods,,to much noise and punks racing cars bikes etc..
There are better options when one is on limited budget,

http://www.cheaprvliving.com/boondocking-stealth-parking-2/
http://www.cheaprvliving.com/blog/category/stealth-city-parking/

Still its a sorry state of afairs when one cant park in many cities without fear of being robbed or have their vehicle broken into by some dopehead junkie looking for quick buck..
Ive traveled in japan recently and the politeness,services and safety are unlike anything we have in this country..not to mention the cleanlinnes
On the streets and trains buses..even the biggest cities are safe enougn for small kids to take subways train to school withour fear

https://youtu.be/P7YrN8Q2PDU

http://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/02/...-safest-city-in-the-world-osaka-number-three/

http://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/02/...llion-yen-of-lost-cash-turned-into-the-police

I was often wondering just how did they manage to create such harmonious polite society ?
?must have something to do with training kids from day one to respect everyone and everything..and the old samurai spirit of honorable behavior must have something to do with it too..

https://youtu.be/zSH4KWg-dXY

https://youtu.be/qLo0phnh-kA
https://youtu.be/gkCFmU2wzUs

 

[Silverado08]

Having some time I looked again at their site. They indeed have some test cycle, though they don't tell exactly what it is. They do tell however that:

So when covering 20% of the range with gas they burn at the rate of 100 MPG. If they did 100%, that would be 20 MPG. In undisclosed test cycle that surely can't bee too harsh, can it?

I doubt any company would try to fudge the mpg numbers to claim 100 mpg if it wasnt true,,
because in todays lawsuit happy society they would get nailed to wall by some big ugly lawyers real fast

Ive never driven hybrid ev so can only go by others who did,,watch this and then tell me if its possible or not

https://youtu.be/6rfnF2hL35c

 

[Libransser]

I doubt any company would try to fudge the mpg numbers to claim 100 mpg if it wasnt true,,
because in todays lawsuit happy society they would get nailed to wall by some big ugly lawyers real fast

Don't bet on that. The threat of lawyers and lawsuits is not enough to deter some companies, no matter how big or small. Consider the current Dieselgate from Volkswagen. Even death penalty does not deter crime, and one would think that's worse than a lawsuit.

 

[safas]

I doubt any company would try to fudge the mpg numbers to claim 100 mpg if it wasnt true,,
because in todays lawsuit happy society they would get nailed to wall by some big ugly lawyers real fast

Do you seriously believe that this heavy aero-disaster burns half of what prius does? Get real.

Ive never driven hybrid ev so can only go by others who did,,watch this and then tell me if its possible or not

https://youtu.be/6rfnF2hL35c

54 miles on gas, 1.16 gal of fuel = 46 MPG. Possible.
78 miles on electricity, 17.1 kWh ~~= 153 MPGe. I wrote ~~= because MPGe is calculated from the wall, not from battery. Assuming 80% efficiency from wall to battery, we arrive at 122 MPGe. Possible.

But that does not make 115 MPG as the video maker claims.

 

[Silverado08]

Do you seriously believe that this heavy aero-disaster burns half of what prius does? Get real.
54 miles on gas, 1.16 gal of fuel = 46 MPG. Possible.
78 miles on electricity, 17.1 kWh ~~= 153 MPGe. I wrote ~~= because MPGe is calculated from the wall, not from battery. Assuming 80% efficiency from wall to battery, we arrive at 122 MPGe. Possible.

But that does not make 115 MPG as the video maker claims.

https://youtu.be/6rfnF2hL35c

You seem bit confused..Prius doesnt burn anything its EV,,

This car is Chevy Volt hybrid electric.and.his computer display shows 250mpg combined

While it used only 0.26 of a galon of gas,,,thats pretty dam impresive..

even if one needed to recharge it from wall all those public superchargers get power from the Sun and the cost maybe couple bucks to fully charge the battery

Even the most efficient diesel doesnt come close in price to EV not to mention its deadly dirty fumes from the tail pipe we can all do without..

The huge cost of getting fuel out of the ground and refining it is another downside no one seems to mention...

Electric motor is about 99% efficient plus it has the advantage of so much torque at low rpm gas or diesel engine cant beat it..
The future is electric get used to it

 

[Silverado08]

Don't bet on that. The threat of lawyers and lawsuits is not enough to deter some companies, no matter how big or small. Consider the current Dieselgate from Volkswagen. Even death penalty does not deter crime, and one would think that's worse than a lawsuit.

Im only quoting what VIA motors says,I havent tested or driven those vehicles either,
,I doubt very much they would lie like that bc if someone proved them wrong it would be the end of their business..
Only way to be sure is get in touch with them and go testdrive one,,
I sure would do this if I had the means to buy such hybrid electric truck

 

[Silverado08]

So too, Newell hired Porsche Design to do the exterior of its motorhomes, and the results are terrific. Newell coaches built after 2012 have what are probably the most beautiful Class-A exteriors on the market.

Perhaps Newell should hire Christopher C. Deam to come up with a standard template for the interiors of its motorhomes as well? This would be a template that middle-American customers who have more money than aesthetic taste would not be allowed to tamper with very much. Unfortunately, this would probably not work as a business model at this semi-custom end of the market. If Newell insisted upon only very minimal "owner design intervention", one can imagine lots of prospective owners deciding to buy elsewhere, i.e. buying from motorhome fabricators that don't have the guts, integrity, and honesty to tell aesthetically brain-dead rich middle-Americans that they have terrible taste.

Again, it's not their fault. But just because it isn't their fault, doesn't mean that it ain't so.

So let's not be too hard on American motorhome manufacturers. They can only sell what the market wants, and if the American market has bad taste...

Biotect[/QUOTE]
From what Ive read on www.rv.net anytime someone posts a pic of european designed rv many people love the looks and would no doubt be ineterested in buying such campers IF it was available here..
Even many australian rv are quite impressive looking..

 

[Haf-E]

Your Sprinter diesel analogy is wrong since biodiesel is diesel fuel also yes?

In those VIA hybrid trucks
the battery charge comes from the ICE,,it doesnt need to stop and recharge from any other source,
so the 100 mpg claim is stil correct imo..

You missed the point - Biodiesel is Biodiesel - diesel is diesel... I can go 2000 miles and only consume 1 gallon worth of diesel when using B99 (but I will also consume 99 gallons of veggie oil based fuel)...

The battery charging isn't coming from the engine in their example - its is coming from the wall when it is plugged in each night. It starts out fully charged - then during the drive it uses the battery and the engine for part of the time. When it done going the 50 miles, the battery is discharged. So if it uses 1/2 of gallon of fuel for the 10 miles, then it will have gone 50 miles on 1/2 of a gallon - hence the claimed 100 MPG figure. But this ignores the energy consumed from the battery.

 

[biotect]

Hi All,

Fascinating discussion! I am having some serious computer problems right now, so this posting will be brief (and was posted from my iPhone......) A while back "Top Gear" did a wonderful product comparison between an "old-style" ICE-based BMW M3, and the radically new and different BMW i8, a hybrid. For discussion of the i8, advance 3 minutes 20 seconds into the video, at www.dailymotion.com/video/x2h9uzy :



[video=dailymotion;x2h9uzy]http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2h9uzy[/video]



When the presenter first introduces the i8 he merely repeats BMW's claim that the i8 can get 134 miles to the gallon. This might be an accurate figure in a German lab in Bavaria. But as both the presenter states at the end of the video, and as i8 owners have been discovering empirically in real-world use, the i8 's actual fuel economy is something more like 31 mpg, or thereabouts.

So there is no question that the mpg figures for most hybrid vehicles are massively hyped. It's probably wise to begin with the assumption that such figures are outright lies. After all, if a very prominent car company like BMW will lie so blatantly about a very visible, very talked-about hybrid product, then it seems safe to assume that most or even all hybrid mpg figures are wild exaggerations, exaggerations that have little relationship to reality. So personally I agree with safas on this basic point.

But even still, in the case of the Terraliner specifically, there are still lots of additional reasons why hybrid drivetrain would be very desirable, reasons already enumerated throughout the thread:

- increased design flexibility and generator placement options
- better weight distribution
- instant torque from electric motors
- fail-safe redundancy
- easy part interchangeability
- silent glamping for at least 7 to 10 days before a 200 - 260 kW battery pack would need to be recharged
- fast recharging of the same, in just a few hours, by the TerraLiner's approx. 200 kW primary generator
- etc etc

Even if it tuns out that in the real world the TerraLiner's drivetrain is only as fuel-efficient as the 600 HP motor + Allison transmission in a Newell motor home, or at best only 5 % more efficient, there would still be lots of good reasons why the TerraLiner should be a hybrid.

With that said, once again, very interesting discussion!

All best wishes,


biotect


PS - please remember, my computer equipment is going through a reconfiguration process right now, so my responses will be infrequent and short, for a least another two weeks.

 

[safas]

Silverado, I give up, the discussion is over for me.
Bio, you're wrong that I'm against hybrids. I'm not, they are a very viable technology. Especially plug-in ones. But the lies that surround them do get me. What UE done with them gets me even more.

 

[biotect]

Hi Safas,

Actually I didn't think for a moment that you are against hybrids!! Quite the opposite, if only because you showed interest in turbine-generator technology.

I simply wanted to repeat Haf-E's excellent point made a while ago, that for a vehicle specifically like the TerraLiner, hybrid makes lots of sense, for multiple reasons. The possibility of better fuel consumption is just one reason, and perhaps not the most important one.

Note that like you, Haf-E also has strong feelings about the lies that circulate in the world of hybrid technology, lies that are officially permitted by the EU and other institutions, lies that are giving the technology a bad name. And yet, even still, just like you, Haf-E is simultaneously pro-hybrid for the TerraLiner, and he has been since the beginning of the thread. In other words many here on the forum very much share your disappointment and frustration with "hybrid hype", even though like you, they are still enthusiastic about the potential of hybrid technology. You are not alone!

Stepping back a bit, it's wonderful that a conversation about the possibility of a large hybrid motorhome has at least begun on the thread. As far as I know, no hybrid motorhome has yet been created by anyone, anywhere; even though, once one begins to think about the possibility, it's a natural enough hybrid application, because motorhomes are so loaded up with electrics in any case. And now many have large solar arrays too.

So once again, any and all postings about hybrid technologies, especially as implemented in larger vehicles, and hybrid vehicles used in demanding environments (for instance John Deere's new hybrid loaders, or Pisten Bully's snow groomers), would be most welcome indeed. The more examples and possible precedents, the better, especially hybrid buses, as well as all-electric buses......

But remember, the TerraLiner will absolutely NOT be an all-electric vehicle, for reasons already explained in previous posts. The weight-to-power ratio of batteries is still not even remotely comparable to fossil fuels, and will not reach anything even remotely approximating parity for at least another decade or more. Sure, the TerraLiner will carry a large 200 KW battery pack, in order to facilitate extended silent glamping. But that's completely different from being an all-electric vehicle.

As long as this is understood, it would be great to see more postings about possible battery technologies, as per Proterra; and especially postings about the "next technological step" just beyond Lithium-ion. Arguably Lithium-ion battery technology has now matured, or is very rapidly maturing. So it would be interesting to discuss a bit what might be next for batteries.

In the meantime, back to filling in my back-log of semi-completed posting series......:smiley_drive:

All best wishes,




Biotect

 

[Silverado08]

Hi All,

Fascinating discussion! I am having some serious computer problems right now, so this posting will be brief (and was posted from my iPhone......) A while back "Top Gear" did a wonderful product comparison between an "old-style" ICE-based BMW M3, and the radically new and different BMW i8, a hybrid. For discussion of the i8, advance 3 minutes 20 seconds into the video, at www.dailymotion.com/video/x2h9uzy :



[video=dailymotion;x2h9uzy]http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2h9uzy[/video]



When the presenter first introduces the i8 he merely repeats BMW's claim that the i8 can get 134 miles to the gallon. This might be an accurate figure in a German lab in Bavaria. But as both the presenter states at the end of the video, and as i8 owners have been discovering empirically in real-world use, the i8 's actual fuel economy is something more like 31 mpg, or thereabouts.

So there is no question that the mpg figures for most hybrid vehicles are massively hyped. It's probably wise to begin with the assumption that such figures are outright lies. After all, if a very prominent car company like BMW will lie so blatantly about a very visible, very talked-about hybrid product, then it seems safe to assume that most or even all hybrid mpg figures are wild exaggerations, exaggerations that have little relationship to reality. So personally I agree with safas on this basic point.

But even still, in the case of the Terraliner specifically, there are still lots of additional reasons why hybrid drivetrain would be very desirable, reasons already enumerated throughout the thread:

- increased design flexibility and generator placement options
- better weight distribution
- instant torque from electric motors
- fail-safe redundancy
- easy part interchangeability
- silent glamping for at least 7 to 10 days before a 200 kW battery pack would need to be recharged
- fast recharging of the same, in just a fewhours, by the TerraLiner's approx. 200 kW primary generator
- etc etc

Even if it tuns out that in the real world the TerraLiner's drivetrain is only as fuel-efficient as the 600 HP motor + Allison transmission in a Newell motor home, or at best only 5 % more efficient, there would still be lots of good reasons why the TerraLiner should be a hybrid.

With that said, once again, very interesting discussion!

All best wishes,


biotect


PS - please remember, my computer equipment is going through a reconfiguration process right now, so my responses will be infrequent and short, for a least another two weeks.

I dont understand why is it so difficult for anyone to comprehend how efficient hybrid ev are when the computer displays exactly how much
Gasoline the vehicle uses
Heres another example of Volt mileage over 9000 miles..

https://youtu.be/hn_osO8bt6U

That said,,I seriously doubt anyone buying million $$ motorhome gives a hoot about fuel economy...or its dirty emmisions..

 

[Haf-E]

With the Volt or any other "plug-in hybrid" type vehicle - the gas mileage display it shows is a gimmick as it does not include the energy contributed by the grid when it is plugged in and charges. Someone with a display that shows 9000 MPG must drive only short distances and always plugs the vehicle in so it runs nearly completely on the energy stored in the batteries from charging off the electrical utility grid.

Using your logic, an all electric car should have a display that says it is getting INFINITE gas mileage since it uses no gas at all!

Energy from the grid is a fuel source - just in the form of electricity instead of gasoline. It should be included in the efficiency/performance calculations.

 

[egn]

The only problem is that he's still looking for "free". "Free camping for a big RV that is simultaneously safe camping " is an oxymoron in most countries, including many parts of the United States. The only possible exceptions might be Canada, Australia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. Or at least that's the basic safety premise that I begin with. Everywhere else you get what you pay for, and if you pay nothing, then you get poor security and poor safety.

I don't agree here, as we were boondocking in whole Europe, Russia, Turkey and Australia since more than 25 years without any problems. The same is true for a lot of friends that are doing this regularly all over the world.

Of course, boondocking with a camper is not safer than being at the same place without a camper.

If you feel unsafe at a place then move on. We avoid cities unless there is some kind of official parking space for RVs, and stay either hidden at lonely places or establish contact to locals, to get their "protection". This has perfectly worked for us.

Regarding power requirement I use a spreedsheet that was available on the net some years ago. Here a the estimates values for BT:

This shows that heavy off-road vehicles need a lot of power and of course fuel.

The fuel consumption can be about 15-20 % better with modern engines using about 190 g/kWh instead of 225 g/kWh.

 

[biotect]

Hi egn,

Good to hear from you.

Interesting power chart. But would you be able to upload it in a more legible version? Either higher-resolution, or by putting it through a sharpening program, or both?

Remember, ExPo accepts images up to 4 MB, which it then compresses itself. You don't have to reduce the image to 500 KB just before posting, if the image started out as a GIF-grab file. There are lots of ways to fiddle with things, so that graphs and charts upload legibly on ExPo; see what I wrote to safas on this topic, at post #2032, at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=1968874#post1968874 . That post should provide you with everything you need to know about how to upload charts and graphs onto ExPo, so that might come out looking more readable. If you know how to use PhotoShop, it has additional brightness/contrast and sharpening tools that also help tremendously. Whereas the graph that you just posted was basically indecipherable....:ylsmoke:

It would be very, very useful to have your power figures for Blue Thunder, egn; they just need to be readable....


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Interesting observations about about how to achieve "safety" when wild-camping.

I've written a few previous posts on the subject, and as you know, safety varies dramatically from country to country, and continent to continent -- see post #1553 at http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...w-6x6-Hybrid-Drivetrain?p=1923988#post1923988 , and #1616 and #1620 at http://www.numbeo.com/crime/gmaps_rankings_country.jsp?indexToShow=main&title=2015-mid&OK=OK .

No single map covers everything, and unfortunately the "Peace Index" maps are heavily loaded with political criteria that peacenik-Leftists love, but criteria that are irrelevant to the concerns of campers. In all of the maps below, the fact that Russia has a big nuclear arsenal and a large standing army makes it appear much more dangerous than it actually is. Russia even shows up as more dangerous than South Africa, which is absurd. In terms of petty crime and camper safety, South Africa would be a much more dangerous place to travel than Russia:








Notice also how in the all of the maps above India appears as equally dangerous as South Africa, or as more dangerous, which is simply nonsense, at least from the point of view of an intending tourist or overlander. But like Russia, India has a big army and a nuclear arsenal, so Leftist peakniks will consider India "less safe."

If one looks up the "Peace Index's" methodology, it includes data irrelevant to the overlander or tourist, data like "nuclear and heavy weapons capability" and "military expenditure as a percentage of GDP" -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Peace_Index . So because India is a nuclear power, it gets rated more dangerous, and reaches or surpasses the level of South Africa. Which once again is complete nonsense, at least from the point of view of tourist safety. The various "peanik" or "Leftist" criteria that are loaded into the Peace Index are all fine and good if one is thinking in terms of peace conceived very broadly. But what matters most to tourists and overlanders is the local level of small-scale petty crime, and homicides.

On the upside, notice how in some of these peace-index maps (they are not all the same) Colombia and Venezuela rate as very unsafe, on a par with South Africa, which they should. But on other maps Colombia and Venezuela rate as less dangerous than Russia, and again this seems just absurd.


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