Range anxiety is the fear that your electric vehicle will run out of battery power and won’t reach its destination, stranding occupants on the road. But there’s nothing a gas-powered generator can’t fix.
The pure-electric vehicle may very well be tomorrow’s solution, but it’s powered by today’s technology, which isn’t quite up to par with customer expectations. The biggest drawback of most electric vehicles remains the insufficient range, but this e-Golf owner may have found a glitch in the Matrix.
According to Rhys Millen’s Official Fan Page, someone drove the EV to a remote filming location and brought a Honda gas-powered generator to charge it in order to make it back home. We heard of range extender, but this is ridiculous.
Basically, that someone “converted” the e-Golf into a REEV plug-in hybrid, adopting a solution similar to that found on the Chevy Volt and Fisker Karma – where an internal combustion engine powers an electric generator to extend the vehicle’s range after its battery capacity drops to a predetermined threshold.
Sure, REEVs do it on the go, but a recent video with a Renault Twizy and a generator strapped to its roof proved that everything is possible (…please don’t try this at home).
Currently, Volkswagen’s all-electric small family car has a 24.2 kWh battery that allows it to travel about 134 km (83 miles) on a single charge. The 2017MY’s battery, however, will have a 35.8 kWh capacity, which is said to allow for an NEDC rated range of 300 km (186 miles). A significant improvement, but not near as capable as a conventional car.
H/T to Jalopnik!