• brucethemoose@lemmy.world
    6·
    17 hours ago

    This is a good idea, though.

    Piston engines are way, way, way more efficient (and cheaper to make) when optimized for one RPM and a static load (like a generator). They can be tiny if running at 100% throttle all the time; a few horsepower is enough. Excluding the transmission saves weight/cost, and a generator for a few horsepower isn’t that big.

    Yeah, you get electrical loss, but everything else more than makes up for it.

  • Canaconda@lemmy.ca
    101·
    19 hours ago

    As funny as this is… Dodge released a fully electric truck that contains a V6 generator. Goes 690 miles one trip and can pull 14,000lbs.

  • Sam_Bass@lemmy.world
    1·
    12 hours ago

    Kinda defeats the attempt at circumventing the petroleum tit usually cited by ev users

  • DarkSideOfTheMoon@lemmy.world
    3·
    14 hours ago

    I ~~understand this is in Brazil (see the stores) and they have few charging places. ~~ Edit: not Brazil it’s Mexico. Not sure about EV infrastructure there.

    • wavebeam@lemmy.world
      2·
      12 hours ago

      It’s not just Mexico, this looks a lot like Mexicali, Baja California. It’s right on the border of California and a lot of locals there frequently hop back on forth over the border. Some live in Mexicali and work in Calexico or El Centro, some live and work in the US but cross regularly for family.

      Their infrastructure is spotty, but largely assembled to be compatible with the lives of these border crossers in mind, so there’s definitely some EV infra, but not a lot.

    • bazzett@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      16 hours ago

      Nope, it’s in Mexico. I can’t say what the situation is with charging stations, tho, since I don’t own an EV.

  • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    1 day ago

    Germany during WWII did something kind of like this. They modified some of their cars to run on wood gas and they would tow a wood stove on a trailer that generated the gas, with an attached hose that would feed it into the engine. A sensible plan when your only source of oil is Romania and all of your horses have been requisitioned by the army for its “blitzkrieg”.

      • antimidas@sopuli.xyz
        2·
        16 hours ago

        They’re an interesting thing to say the least. Finland had a lot of wood gas generators in use during WWII as what limited petrol we had went towards the war effort. Other substitute fuels were used a lot as well, e.g. pine turpentine which we had a lot of as it’s a side product of refining wood into pulp.

        It’s a relatively efficient system, and burns quite cleanly in the engine (as soot and other contaminants are filtered out by the generator). Though they’re quite dangerous, since wood gas is mainly pure carbon monoxide. The amounts they produce are so high that leaks or topping up the generator can cause carbon monoxide poisoning even when outside. In Finnish we actually call the generator häkäpönttö, which in English would be a carbon monoxide can (häkä colloquial Finnish for carbon monoxide, pönttö a colloquial Finnish word meaning a can, container, carton or someone dumb in a usually non-derogatory way – closest equivalent in English would be dummy).

        • Dasus@lemmy.world
          2·
          16 hours ago

          Yeah that’s actually how I googled it. Couldn’t for the life of me get “wood stove generator” into my head but “häkäpönttö” is easy.

          And I’d agree that, like many Finnish words, it doesn’t properly translate. A pönttö would be closer to a barrel, I’d say, than a can. A can sort of implies a smaller one. Although yes, “garbage can” would be a can as well and nearly on a similar scale as a häkäpönttö.

          It’s sometimes crazy hard explaining all the implications of a given word. You know them but listing them would be hard.

          But yeah especially with how much forests and forestry we have, it was a very good solution in WWII. We needed the proper petrol for all those tanks we stole from the Ruskis. We started the war with genuinely a few old Pösö tanks from WWI and stole most of what we had by the end of the war. (That’s Peugeot for non-Finns haha)

          • antimidas@sopuli.xyz
            2·
            15 hours ago

            Good point with the barrel, truth is probably somewhere between the barrel and a can. After all, there’s also pönttö, both vessan- and linnun-, which again are on the smaller side. I kinda love how much nuance and double meanings there are in especially the spoken language.

            True meaning can only be grasped with enough exposure.

            Didn’t we also have some Vickers six-tonners at the start? Next to useless by then but probably could penetrate at least a BT-5.

            Edit: now that I think of it, a canister probably fits quite well between the sizes of can and barrel. But to me it would then be a closed container, which a pönttö doesn’t necessarily have to be.

            • Dasus@lemmy.world
              2·
              15 hours ago

              Ture, “bird cans” aren’t especially large. But they’re not like beer cans. You could never really say “annappa se kaljapönttö” unless you were talking about a barrel or a small bucket of beer.

              Didn’t we also have some Vickers six-tonners at the start?

              If you say so, alls I remembers is one of the tanks we stole from Russia is still being prominently displayed in the Häme Regiment base in Lahti… checks on his facts Fuck, I’m too old for this shit. The Häme Regiment (HämR) was a regiment that was shut down in 2014. I mean, it was about time. But I’m still curious as to what happened to the tank I was talking about… Well, say what you want about LLM’s (and they do sort of threaten a lot of society but) but it was pretty good in searching for info like this. I explained to Gemini where I did my service and asked about the tank.

              ​Where is it now? After the Häme Regiment was disbanded in 2014, most of the heavy historical equipment was moved. That T-34 was relocated to the Parola Armour Museum (Panssarimuseo) to ensure it was preserved and maintained, as the Hennala site transitioned into a residential and civilian area.

              So yeah. Anyway, my point was that I just remember reading the sign saying how many we took from the Soviets. And also our lieutenants and whatnot military fanatics giving us some history on them. Then I couldn’t remember the number years after so I googled it and saw we only had some puny WWI tanks before. Honestly, I don’t even know what a Vickers six-ton is, but I’m guessing British…? (Because I do know what a Vickers gun is) Checking.

              Yah. Thanks for the info.

              Finland – used 33 tanks since 1938 (including an evaluation tank). They were bought unarmed, without optics and radios. Some were armed with short-barreled 37 mm Puteaux guns and later equipped with 37 mm Bofors anti-tank guns as their main gun with a coaxial turret MG and a “tank SMG” in bow plate. They were used in the Winter War with the USSR. After this war, the Finns rearmed Mark E tanks with captured Soviet long 45 mm guns and DT MGs as used in the T-26. The Finns designated the rebuilt Vickers tanks logically as: T-26Es. They were used in combat from 1941 to 1944 and remained in service as training tanks until 1959.

              Oh yeah.

              So about half and half apparently:

              Before the Winter War (Nov 1939), Finland’s tank forces were minimal, consisting mainly of 32-34 obsolete Renault FT-17 light tanks (acquired 1919) and about 30-32 recently purchased Vickers 6-ton light tanks, which were still being fitted with armament. They had no medium or heavy tanks

              So we had like 60 light tanks. By the end of the war we had captured and destroyed, quite a few.

              Oh yeah and about the languages, yeah, if you speak both Finnish and English fluently, it’s awesome what weird shit you can combine because of the different natures of the languages. My friends used to think me a bit pretentious for inserting English phrases or words into Finnish, but that was like 10+ years ago. Nowadays most speak Finglish pretty fluently and it doesn’t matter if you add a bit of London while completely speaking Finnish, as long as you’re not doing it just to be pretentious, but because the word/phrase suits better (or you’ve just forgotten the Finnish word, which happens to me quite a bit nowadays.)

    • imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      4·
      23 hours ago

      I got triggered on this! Very weird place to put a huge OXXO sign like this. They have probably done it to underline their Gas Station chain roots. It is just stupid in my eyes to do it in a city where your convenience store is located in densely packed street. Maybe on the roof or something but not on the street so close to your building.

      • BanMe@lemmy.world
        3·
        19 hours ago

        You would love my city. They will happily install street lights in the middle of sidewalks. The city doesn’t maintain sidewalks so half of them are broken to bits or grown over, or a lot of folks just park on them. Pedestrians go into the streets, you’ll sometimes get stuck behind an old person in a walker crossing an intersection. It’s maddening but no one cares.

  • azureskypirate@lemmy.zip
    10·
    1 day ago

    Refraccionera = repair shop, mexican dialect

    Sign with E in red cancel mark is No Estiocionar = No parking

    Oxxo = Convience store common in Latin america

    Street sign says Avenida Sur = South Avenue

    It’s probably not AI, güey. No mames

  • GenosseFlosse@feddit.org
    161·
    1 day ago

    Not buying it: How would you charge (generator) and discharge (motor) the car at the same time? The electronics and software is designed to only charge the battery when parked. My car won’t even shift into gear if it’s plugged in.

    • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
      6·
      1 day ago

      I mean, this one is fake, but there is a company creating haluers that do pretty much this. Have a small battery they recharge with a generator. According to them, a generator is a lot more efficient and enviromentaly friendly compared to normal engine, since it runs at constant rpm.

          • GooeyGlob@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            5 hours ago

            Correct, parent should have said EREX (electric, range extended) or EREV, but not PHEV.

            The Fisker Karma and BMW i3 (well some of them) were this type of EV. My wife had an i3 Rex and loved it, though it irritatingly had only a 2 gallon gas tank.

            Mazda was working on one but it never came out in the US. Supposedly the Scout EV will have a Rex, that would be nice.

      • LordKitsuna@lemmy.world
        41·
        1 day ago

        Actually, the constant RPM ones are less efficient, the inverter generators that are able to vary with the load that are more efficient. But yes, they are better at turning the fuel into usable power. Traditional ice engines lose something like 40% of the power made just in Losses from gearing transmission axel etc. So while it may seem silly technically using a generator to charge an EV is more efficient

  • TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world
    1261·
    2 days ago

    This is basically what every EREV is. The generator is just integrated into the car, otherwise it’s essentially the same thing.

    • JcbAzPx@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      19 hours ago

      It’s also how modern freight trains work minus the battery. The big diesel engines only produce the electricity for the electric motors.

    • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
      26·
      2 days ago

      At the same time, I’ve wondered if it would be helpful for EVs on some long-distance road trips to tow/stow a generator for overnight and emergency charging. Charging stations are popping up more and more, but if you’re saddled with an obsolete or under-served charging port type (e.g. Nissan Leaf), having a generator would be valuable insurance.

      • azertyfun@sh.itjust.works
        10·
        1 day ago

        Every EV can just hook up with a (mostly) passive adapter to any outlet and get a charge. It won’t be fast (especially if you are cursed with a 110V outlet), but even in the boonies an overnight trickle charge will get you to the nearest fast charger. Just get the relevant adapters for your car.

        This is basically what your generator would do except you want to lug it around instead of leveraging the cables that we pulled within driving distance of everywhere but the most remote trails? The whole point of electricity is its versatility and ubiquity!

        FYI using a wall plug to charge an EV is a perfectly normal thing to do. For a small(ish) commute, regular 220V@10A is way more than enough to get back to full overnight. It won’t give you 500 km of range, but only freaks and truckers drive 500 km every day.

        • Trainguyrom@reddthat.comEnglish
          2·
          18 hours ago

          FYI using a wall plug to charge an EV is a perfectly normal thing to do. For a small(ish) commute, regular 220V@10A is way more than enough to get back to full overnight. It won’t give you 500 km of range, but only freaks and truckers drive 500 km every day.

          When I’ve crunched the numbers in the past, more efficient EVs would get something like 50 miles overnight for a commuter with just a 120V outlet to work with, so if you get one full charge over the weekend, it’ll still be fully charged by the next weekend if you didn’t deviate from your commute, or a maybe a bit lower if you did.

        • anomnom@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          1 day ago

          Mostly right but in the US we have way more dead zones, and we also have 110-120v outlets in most places. There are 220-240v outlets, but mostly only for electric ranges, dryers, and big AC units, and almost never outside a house or hotel. And charging at 120v 20amps does kinda suck. About as much as using this generator would.

          • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
            2·
            17 hours ago

            That’s all true. And FWIW, I’ve only ever charged my EV on 120v at home, so I’m familiar with the limitations.

            I’m thinking of the worst case where my trip planner accidentally sends me to a location where the intended charger is long gone or in-use, and I have too little charge to make it to the next viable location. Also: it’s 3AM and nobody is open. Sure, I could sleep that off in the car and/or throw myself on the mercy of some hotel, but that’s sketchy in other ways. Or maybe I’m stranded due to a moment’s inattention?

            To me, that all reduces to “be resourceful” so why not pack some additional resources?

        • entropicdrift
          1·
          6 hours ago

          The new ones have the standard fast charging ports, but before the 2026 model year they’re stuck on an old DC fast charging standard that’s only available at a fraction of all charging stations.

      • grue@lemmy.world
        3·
        2 days ago

        I’ve been thinking about getting a Slate truck eventually, and I’m suddenly realizing a generator on a trailer might be good for overlanding, since there aren’t any chargers on remote trails.