Range extender in electric vehicles increases their limited driving range. As well as no long charging time, because the battery charges while the vehicle is in motion. However, what are the main drawbacks of such range extender?
The range extender is also called an auxiliary power unit (APU). It is an added device that could be gasoline-driven internal combustion engine (ICE) or a turbine-driven by compressed natural gas or even a fuel cell. The function of this APU is to provide electricity to recharge the battery that drives the electric motor.
Disadvantages of adding APU:
1) Increased vehicle cost.
2) Adding design complexity to the power train.
3) APU could also be unreliable with various types of failure modes.
4) Additional weight in the vehicle.
Professor Yehia Khalil, Yale University, USA
Fellow of the University of Oxford, UK
Seems that a range extender takes an EV and turns it back into a fuel powered vehicle. Are you sure this is a good idea? If you want range it must be better to use a chemically fuelled vehicle to start with, and get one with electric assist like the Prius or Insight.
Yehia Khalil correctly identifies the disadvantages of the range extender, but in my view, as the driver of a range extender vehicle (BMWi3) the advantages outweigh the disadvantages: (i) range anxiety ceases to be a problem (ii) arbitrarily long journeys without recharging become possible.
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