Tesla RV

[Luke42]

Maybe you should just get off

My eyes can't roll enough at this.

Please also be careful about the distinction between mW and MW.

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[Crissa]

I'm pretty sure I'm not going to run into a time I mistake a milliwatt for a Megawatt.

-Crissa

 

[Luke42]

I'm pretty sure I'm not going to run into a time I mistake a milliwatt for a Megawatt.

I work with milliwatts at work (embedded systems / consumer products), and I used to work in a multi-megawatt datacenter (recovering large-scale systems sysadmin).

Both mW and MW are burned into my brain deeply, and I have a physical intuition for both. Being off by a factor of a billion makes the speaker look a little out of their depth.

It's unfortunate that our language is case-sensitive here and that we use a small h to denote the difference between instantaneous power and a bucket of energy -- which is a big difference that a lot of people mess up, leading to a lot of poor blogging on renewable energy issues.

If someone says their solor array makes 10kW, when they really meant 10kWh/day, that difference is confusing AF -- because both values are plausible on a home-scale solar array.

I didn't invent it this language, I'm just fluent in it.

 

[ldjessee]

A fully decked out Class A RV weights around 30,000 lbs, so a Tesla Semi could tow one and be considered a lighter load.

That RV includes a diesel engine, fuel tank, cooling system, drive train, such.

How about building one from scratch/DIY?

Start with a refrigerated trailer (it has insulation and 'AC' already) and that weighs about 10,000 lbs. Add 20,000 to 30,000 lbs for furniture, internal walls, water tanks, solar panels, battery, etc. Still going to be a lighter load for the Tesla Semi.

Make it a 'toy hauler' version and have room for your bikes, motorcycles, atvs, golf carts, and/or car and still not going to be beyond what a Semi designed around the 80,000 max gross vehicle weight can handle.

 

[CappyJax]

A fully decked out Class A RV weights around 30,000 lbs, so a Tesla Semi could tow one and be considered a lighter load.

That RV includes a diesel engine, fuel tank, cooling system, drive train, such.

How about building one from scratch/DIY?

Start with a refrigerated trailer (it has insulation and 'AC' already) and that weighs about 10,000 lbs. Add 20,000 to 30,000 lbs for furniture, internal walls, water tanks, solar panels, battery, etc. Still going to be a lighter load for the Tesla Semi.

Make it a 'toy hauler' version and have room for your bikes, motorcycles, atvs, golf carts, and/or car and still not going to be beyond what a Semi designed around the 80,000 max gross vehicle weight can handle.

A refrigerated trailer most often has a diesel ran refrigerator. But I have looked into building a tinyhouse on wheels, and I could get that under 7,000 pounds including the trailer. Composite insulated panels are very light weight and have excellent insulation qualities.

I also looked into vips which would be heavier, but you can have 1 inch thick walls and have better insulation than 4 inch foam. Of course the issue is maintainability. You would want some way to access the inside of the wall should a panel develop a hole.

 

[Luke42]

A fully decked out Class A RV weights around 30,000 lbs, so a Tesla Semi could tow one and be considered a lighter load.

That RV includes a diesel engine, fuel tank, cooling system, drive train, such.

How about building one from scratch/DIY?

Start with a refrigerated trailer (it has insulation and 'AC' already) and that weighs about 10,000 lbs. Add 20,000 to 30,000 lbs for furniture, internal walls, water tanks, solar panels, battery, etc. Still going to be a lighter load for the Tesla Semi.

Make it a 'toy hauler' version and have room for your bikes, motorcycles, atvs, golf carts, and/or car and still not going to be beyond what a Semi designed around the 80,000 max gross vehicle weight can handle.

This raises the question of why the RVs currently built on tractor-trailer platforms are so rare.

The little bit I've been able to glean is that an RV built on a semi-trailer has be insured as a commercial vehicle, which makes it much more expensive to operate.

But that was just a tidibit I picked up from a YouTube video, so it's a low confidence factoid. In other words, this hypothesis is low-confidence and surely isn't the whole picture.

The point is that there may be more to building an RV on the Tesla Semi than just the truck. The Tesla Semi uses the exact same trailer connection as existing semi trucks, so not having a Tesla Semi isn't slowing down the development of this trailer - you can just substitute in the Tesla Semi at the end. Also, this forum is definitely does not contain the first people to consider this idea -- but it's not commonly used. The question is why?

 

[Luke42]

A refrigerated trailer most often has a diesel ran refrigerator.

The owner's manual for common reefer units are available online. I drove by the reefer trailers at my local big box grocery store, noted the model number, googled it, and read the manual.

I was under the impression that some of these units can heat or cool, and so a refrigerated semi trailer might be a useful shelter in in some circumstances.

I'm remembering a PDF I downloaded randomly a couple of years ago, though, so don't hold me to it. The main thing is that these units look really easy to use, and well thought out for the constraints of a commercial trucking company -- but they could be repurposed fairly easily if needed.

 

[lqdchkn]

If you are talking about an ENERGY storage, you don't need to say MWh. The h is implied.

Not all readers understand what's implied. Better to be more explicit than confusing.

 

[lqdchkn]

A fully decked out Class A RV weights around 30,000 lbs,...

Exactly my point a Class A RV weights 30,000 now with a ~1500lb engine trans. combo. If you delete that you still would have to account for an additional ~12,300 lbs of battery for the OPs 1MWH battery request, lol

 

[CappyJax]

Exactly my point a Class A RV weights 30,000 now with a ~1500lb engine trans. combo. If you delete that you still would have to account for an additional ~12,300 lbs of battery for the OPs 1MWH battery request, lol

Dude, are you completely unfamiliar with the Tesla Semi????? They are using a battery in the 1MWh range already. It already exists.

 

[lqdchkn]

Dude, are you completely unfamiliar with the Tesla Semi????? They are using a battery in the 1MWh range already. It already exists.

So your plan is to use Semi as an RV?

 

[CappyJax]

So your plan is to use Semi as an RV?

Yeah, that is what I said in the original post, genius.

 

[lqdchkn]

Yeah, that is what I said in the original post, genius.

Well shit. I totally read over that part. My bad. Enjoy your thread

/unsub'd

 

[CappyJax]

i was just thinking. If the cyber truck gets half the range when towing, and we expect a 250kWh battery, then that means about 1kWh/mile. If Tesla made a 14000 travel trailer., they could put in the trailer a 500kWh battery to supplement the CT. That would yield around 750 miles while towing. That would still leave over 7,000 for the rest of the TT.

 

[ldjessee]

i was just thinking. If the cyber truck gets half the range when towing, and we expect a 250kWh battery, then that means about 1kWh/mile. If Tesla made a 14000 travel trailer., they could put in the trailer a 500kWh battery to supplement the CT. That would yield around 750 miles while towing. That would still leave over 7,000 for the rest of the TT.

From the slides from Battery Day, it looks like the CyberTruck will get the high nickel chemistry, which means the greatest energy density for the mass. Also, with the extended range and savings in weight, I expect the CyberTruck to have a 75 to 150 kWh battery pack.

But, I could be wrong, maybe it will go up to 200 kWh... but with the new cell & battery packs, I do not think that is needed anymore.