I understand that it doesn't make sense to take out good
diesel engines out for electric, but you have to understand that electric motors are far superior to fueled
propulsion in the long run.
There are far less moving
parts involved in an
electric motor to fail and most electric motors are designed for milions of hours of use before needing to be rewound with new
wiring and rebalanced.
I was only asking about it because this was a first for me to hear about it in a boat, he claims it works flawless in his boat and gets around using very little
diesel. He said he has
solar panels mounted on the roof and
deck of his boat that charges the
battery bank everyday the sun is out, so he can
cruise a little on basically
solar, then
anchor off enjoying the new spot while the
solar charges the
battery back up. He said he only uses the
generator when he is driving further than about 40-50 miles, because then the battery bank is depleted.
I know an electric drive, diesel
engine range extender setup can function well because i currently drive a chevy volt, this car is ALWAYS electric driven, the car runs off the
batteries tell it runs low, then the gas
engine comes on turning another
generator head that feeds power directly to the
motor controller circuit, so when im cruising down the highway doing 75mph, the gas engine is running only at 855rpms to maintain speeds, so a system has to be properly setup for it to function correctly and a lot of companies out there are still
learning this now as the use of this tech is still new...
Reasons i say electric is superior....
My uncle works for union pacific railroad, the trains use 4-8 electric motors to drive the heavy heavy train that has a
single diesel engine just barely idling to supply enough power to drive the train. He told me years ago when i bought my electric car that when they converted the trains over, they dropped
fuel consumption down to a factor of 1/10th of the diesel they used with just diesel engines driving the trains. The reasons for this is because the diesel engine can be reduced down to near idle speeds and use a turbo sized so it produces near perfect peak torque this low in the rpms, this allows for far less
fuel being used. Now he tells me they have dropped the train engines in half, and raised the
compression and tolerances to the point that at room temperatures the engine is to tight to turn over, so they have a
heating element encasing the bottom of the engine that heats the block up enough to allow the engine to turn over and start, then uses half as much fuel providing the same amount of output in power.
Electric motors are used in heavy
equipment all the time now, many of industrial
equipment has moved over to this, fork lifts, mining equipment, bulldozers... they are getting far more running hours out of the diesel engine, because its running at a constant speed and load.... and the electric motors are lasting very long and far cheaper to
rebuild vs a conventional diesel engine
Electric motors are extremely torquey, so like a 20kw
motor may only output 55hp, but around 100lbs of torque..
I am not claiming i am converting a boat over to electric, was just curious because this was the first ive heard of it on a boat and wanted to see what others running it felt.
I did manage to find a handful of trawlers with engine failures for dirt
cheap on boat traders, idk its idea i need to read more into.