... just floating this around for the engineers and the real gurus in this forum. Would someone be able to purchase and install (say in the trunk) a 3rd battery pack?
I would think that’s not really feasible as a DIY project. There’s not going to be an easy way to hook up to the cooling lines and incorporate the battery sensors Like SOC and temp into the computer package. I don’t see it happening (highly unlikely due to low demand IMHO) until some 3rd party company tackles it. I wouldn’t hold my breath on a You Tube video on this. Looks good on paper, but the engineering, reprogramming, and cost are the killers.
Electrical engineer here. People used to do this for Prius Plugins and the occasional gen 1 LEAF. It's not impossible, but the complexity is astronomical for modern vehicles, and any practical solution for cramming an extra battery in there will be kludgey to the point of being more worthy of a $3k rustbucket than a $35k car. The onboard charger would have to be replaced or revamped. A battery pack is made of dozens to hundreds of cells, each of which has to be monitored for charge balancing, typically done by the on-board converter. The firmware would have to be jailbroken and reverse engineered. The car's computers need to recognize the SoC% and total capacity to report range estimates and to know when to activate the engine and hydraulic brakes. If you don't wire your sensors in right, or rewrite the right parameters, expect nonstop angry bees. As KentuckyKen mentions, the glycol lines would have to be rerun, and the pumps possibly replaced. The temperature sensors would have to be moved, and the controller recalibrated for the decreased cooling efficiency. The suspension would have to be reinforced. This is easily 500lbs of equipment we're adding here. There are a number of cleaner options here. Do you want a bunch more EV range? Find yourself a BMW i3. Do you want 10 more miles to make it back from work? I suppose you could put a Yeti 3000 in the trunk and use it as a mobile recharger.
THevenin - thank you for the rationale and quality explanation... I think you wrote the perfect post IMO It was just a flight of though on my part - but hey... maybe my local RV joint can install an Onan genny in the trunk? lol I can drive around with the charge cable dangling from my trunk to the charging port (that after I rig/jailbreak/ruin the charging port and its effect on being open and preventing driving) i3 is too small and boxy (coming from a BMW groupie here)... Clarity is actually the best option out there for my needs and preferences, hence I got one. While on these kind of jokes - I am waiting for the meme of the Tesla driver leaning on the car on the side of the road, with trunk open and the charging cable plugged to a camping generator next to the car... caption whatever it may be.
I'd rather have a solar panel to extend the range of the batteries. Since the roof has no sunroof, glass panel, etc the roof area is so underutilized.
Hopefully the original post was more of a hypothetical question than anything else. Because let’s think about this: 500 lbs or more affecting handling and braking Tons of complexity Reliability, warranty, safety, and service issues Cost in the thousands For what.... the same range from a half gallon of gasoline or about 1 hour 15 min level 2 charge. Not worth it. PHEVs like the Clarity and Volt actually have a reasonable amount of EV range so you might actually need to find reasons to run the engine once in a while so it will not sit idle for weeks and months on end which is not good for an engine.
I can tell you no, the electric has a pack c basically and that sits in space occupied by the gas tank, charger and charcoal tank. The added pack I believe is 8.5 kWh as the Clarity Electric is spec'd to have a 25.5 kWh pack vs the PHEV 17 kWh pack See below
This is what I’d be more interested in. If a this party company wanted to start offering custom fitted solar roofs I’d be down. Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs
For your own safety, I would say NONONONONO. You will make your Clarity more dangerous than a Tesla by putting an electrical bomb in your trunk if you get rear ended!
https://us.sunpower.com/flexible-solar-panels/ the roof on the Prius Prime (133 MPGe) only adds 1-2 miles of range for a full day in the sun. We need better panels or ones that cover nose to tail of the car. there are also transparent solar panels being researched so that might work for roof and rear window.
The full electric Clarity already has a battery in the trunk area. Gasoline will also burn if the tank is breached and you get a stray spark during an accident and the tank is in the same place as the Electrics extra 8.5 kWh pack.
How about this? https://jalopnik.com/this-ev-nut-built-a-range-extending-battery-pack-traile-1829585212/amp
