Is a 48 Volt RV In Your Future?

[RV2600RB]

While I can't explain every breakdown, there is a very good chance that those with a full battery who woke up to a dead EV, did not have the traction battery fail, but, they had the 12 volt battery die on them in the cold. As odd as it seems, these EVs have a small 12v lead acid battery that runs the contactors that "wake up" the high voltage traction battery. Without a good 12v battery, the car will appear to be dead. It's no different than waking up to an ICE vehicle, in the cold, with a dead battery.

For those who arrived at DC Fast Chargers and ran out of power before they could get plugged in, simply did not plan well enough for the cold weather. If you arrive at a charger with 10 miles remaining in your battery, and you know it is cold, and you know the Chargers will be extra busy and slow, and you sit waiting with your heater running to keep you warm, well, you are going to run out of juice before it is your turn. It is no different than waiting for your "Low Fuel" light to come on during a trip on a holiday weekend before you start looking for a gas station at the next highway exit and you are nowhere near an exit or a gas station, then once you get there you have to wait in line and you run out of fuel before you get to the pumps.

EVs are new and there will be some growing pains, part of those growing pains is not having enough DC Fast Charging stations in the right locations to prevent situations like what happened in Chicago where the reports you referenced originated. The situation that was on the news was a mess and I am sure it was not fun for anyone involved, however, I am certain that a large number of ICE vehicle drivers got stranded in that same cold weather event.

Only because they were stuck, not out of gas. Big difference.
Rich

[Scott'n'Wendy]

In RVs 48v would also be a sweet spot for reducing wire sizes throughout the whole coach as well as giving us more powerful motors for our stabilizers and slides. 48v would also help with energy efficiency for the motors in the furnaces and refrigerator compressors. Currently, the motors in the furnaces are simply "Power Pigs", hopefully a redesign to 48v will bring energy efficient design principals into the RV industry.

Additionally, 48v would be a sweet spot for everyone that is using an inverter to supply 120v for our appliances.

I would agree, 48 would be as high a DC voltage that I would want to see in my RV. Part of that is safety, DC voltage is more dangerous than AC when comparing equal voltages (imo anyway) and secondly, I don't have much faith in the RV industry assembling a safe dc system. It would need to be well thought out and implemented properly. At this point I see no evidence that the RV industry does either of those things.
It's also my opinion that 48v 'ain't gonna happen'. Our trailers have lots of things on them that could be improved but the RV industry just says it's good enough for most people. So they will leave it the way it is. Good, solid, well thought out modifications are up to the end user.

The people on this forum aren't 'most people'. You can take that as an insult or a compliment....lol ....up to the reader.

[huntindog]

I would agree, 48 would be as high a DC voltage that I would want to see in my RV. Part of that is safety, DC voltage is more dangerous than AC when comparing equal voltages (imo anyway) and secondly, I don't have much faith in the RV industry assembling a safe dc system. It would need to be well thought out and implemented properly. At this point I see no evidence that the RV industry does either of those things.
It's also my opinion that 48v 'ain't gonna happen'. Our trailers have lots of things on them that could be improved but the RV industry just says it's good enough for most people. So they will leave it the way it is. Good, solid, well thought out modifications are up to the end user.

The people on this forum aren't 'most people'. You can take that as an insult or a compliment....lol ....up to the reader.

I gotta agree here. 50 volts DC is generally said to be hazardous to humans. A 48 volt system will be over 50 volts in use. From the way I see the factory wiring installed, I would not trust them to make a 50 volt system safe. And I suspect thhe industry would not want to be liable for the huge awards they could be forced to pay when incidents occur.
I would also supect that an end user wanting to upgrade to such a system will find the cost too high for a retrofit. That may change someday, but I am not holding my breath.

[SolarPoweredRV]

I would agree, 48 would be as high a DC voltage that I would want to see in my RV. Part of that is safety, DC voltage is more dangerous than AC when comparing equal voltages (imo anyway) and secondly, I don't have much faith in the RV industry assembling a safe dc system. It would need to be well thought out and implemented properly. At this point I see no evidence that the RV industry does either of those things.
It's also my opinion that 48v 'ain't gonna happen'. Our trailers have lots of things on them that could be improved but the RV industry just says it's good enough for most people. So they will leave it the way it is. Good, solid, well thought out modifications are up to the end user.

The people on this forum aren't 'most people'. You can take that as an insult or a compliment....lol ....up to the reader.

The only thing that will move the RV industry to 48v would be cost (and weight) savings, the same motivations the Auto industry has.

Additionally, they could easily design 48v Air Conditioners, which would be more efficient and save costs by reducing the need for 120v in the coach.

As a matter of fact, Winnebago already has produced a prototype Class B van with 48v architecture including a 48v Air Conditioner. So, all hope may not be lost on the RV industry just yet.

[WhittleBurner]

Only because they were stuck, not out of gas. Big difference.
Rich

No it wasn't snowing the cars just died and would not take a charge. They were told to drive around to warm the batteries up to see if that would get them to charge. Problem was they were dead so they couldn't drive them. One said they did get it charged but was only able to go 30 miles before it died again. I'm sure some of the problems were from running their heaters full blast. When it's below zero if you can't use the heater that's a problem.

[BeerBrewer]

I would agree, 48 would be as high a DC voltage that I would want to see in my RV. Part of that is safety, DC voltage is more dangerous than AC when comparing equal voltages (imo anyway) and secondly, I don't have much faith in the RV industry assembling a safe dc system. It would need to be well thought out and implemented properly. At this point I see no evidence that the RV industry does either of those things.
It's also my opinion that 48v 'ain't gonna happen'. Our trailers have lots of things on them that could be improved but the RV industry just says it's good enough for most people. So they will leave it the way it is. Good, solid, well thought out modifications are up to the end user.

The people on this forum aren't 'most people'. You can take that as an insult or a compliment....lol ....up to the reader.

I have to agree with what you and others have said about 48V DC power. It can be very dangerous. I worked in Telecommunications Engineering for almost 35 years and we used 48V and 53V DC power plants in all of our central offices. I was taught to be extremely cautious when entering the power room. I've heard of many horror stories of people getting injured (electric shock and severe burns) in there. Unlike AC when you come in contact with DC it has a tendency to grab you and it can be hard to pull away from. For this reason I always made it a habit of putting my left hand pocket at all times when inside the power room.

[SolarPoweredRV]

No it wasn't snowing the cars just died and would not take a charge. They were told to drive around to warm the batteries up to see if that would get them to charge. Problem was they were dead so they couldn't drive them. One said they did get it charged but was only able to go 30 miles before it died again. I'm sure some of the problems were from running their heaters full blast. When it's below zero if you can't use the heater that's a problem.

Yes, some of the problems were from running the heating. The problem with EVs and their heating systems is that they take energy to operate. Many of the OEMs use resistive heating to warm the cabins, whereas, Tesla (and a few others) use Heat Pumps to warm the cabins. Resistive heating uses about 3 times more energy than Heat Pumps.

The problem stems from EVs needing to use energy to heat the cabin versus an ICE vehicle that heats the cabin with waste heat from the combustion process. That waste heat is very hot and it keeps us nice and warm inside the vehicle with very little penalty to our Miles Per Gallon.

Once EV owners adjust their driving habits by not allowing their batteries to get as low as they might in good weather, many of the news stories will abate.

I know the argument that you shouldn't need to adjust to an EV, the EV should be able to operate just like your gas car, however, during the Winter months, I never let my gas car get much below 1/2 tank because I always knew there was a chance I could get stranded in a traffic jam for hours (which I did in fact experience). The same holds true for EVs, don't arrive at a DC Fast Charging station with your batteries almost drained and expect nobody else to be there.

Another issue that probably exacerbated the problems that were shown on the news; is that cold batteries do not charge as fast as warm batteries, so, reports of slow charging once the people actually got plugged into a charger were simply an issue of their car not pre-conditioning the batteries to accept a DC Fast Charge.

Most of the issues that were presented on the news (except for the dead 12v batteries) could have been prevented with a little bit more knowledge and a lot better planning on the part of the EV owners. These are simply the "growing pains" of adopting a new technology. I am certain that the switch to gasoline had many, many, more examples of people being stranded and needing to be rescued by the old method of transport, i.e.: horses.

Like I said previously, EVs may not be the right fit for everybody right now, simply because we do not have a robust charging infrastructure, however, eventually the charging infrastructure will become robust enough to fit everybody's needs. In reality, if you have a two car household, and you live in a place where you can take advantage of home or workplace charging, there is no reason that one of your two vehicles couldn't be an EV.

[RV2600RB]

As to the original question re 48vdc vs 12vdc...I've always thought trying to power 120vac appliances with a 12vdc storage system is a crazy idea. Huge wires, lugs. High current is annoying to deal with. 300amp fuses.
Imo, get the storage voltage up and make the 120vac side of the equation easier to accomodate.

To the second subject this thread seems to be addressing......lol....I have read more and more about EV's costing the same or more to maintain and recently, locally, I have heard they are raising insurance premiums for EV's. The tires wear faster and cost more because the cars are heavier and the tires are EV specific.
We have been car shopping for the last few months. Wanted to buy an EV. The EV suv sticker ranged around $65-$70k. Comparable ICE suv's were $32-$39k. (I'm talking Canadian dollars) While I really started on the shopping journey wanting an EV for local commuting, the math just doesn't work for me yet. With the disparity in cost, I figured we could drive our ICE powered car for 7 or 8 years basically for free compared to buying an EV. It would take that long of buying gas just to equal the original purchase price of the EV. Is there something I'm missing that makes an EV attractive? As I said, I originally went looking for an EV, I like the idea, but the cost....it doesn't seem to work right now?

I agree. The cost factor doesn’t work for me either.
Rich

[DaveMatthewsBand]

Since you guys brought up the subject of Tesla, I just wanted to chime in (with one of my standard super short posts) because I know the vast majority of members are probably either anti-EV or just unaware of some of the facts. One point I wanted people to be aware of is that Tesla isn't the only game in town. Not all EVs are expensive or flashy.


There are a lot of low-cost alternatives to Tesla on the market; viable EV options for folks who just want an inexpensive vehicle that has basically no upkeep. EVs are much less expensive to maintain than a conventional internal combustion or compression ignition vehicle. (gas-powered or diesel-powered)


If I had a daughter (or son) who was going off to college, I'd buy them an EV without hesitation, just not a Tesla. Especially if they knew nothing about the upkeep of a vehicle. Don't know how to change the oil? No problem.


I bought a Chevy Bolt EV back in 2020 for about $20k.


These are awesome little vehicles that you still get used, for around $20k. You can pick up a 2020 model Premiere which is the fully-loaded one for about the same I paid 4 years ago. So ignore the rumor mills that say their pricing is bloated or "skyrocketing". Maybe for the Tesla Plaid which goes for $120k or the Rivian EV Truck, or the Ford Lightening EV, all which cost way more than I want to spend on a vehicle.


The Bolt EV is a smaller car than a Tesla but very reliable. Now, they did have some issues with the LG batteries a few years ago but they recalled them and replaced them. That is no longer an issue at all.
The local Chevy dealership replaced my battery and my 5 year old Bolt came with a new 8-year/100k mi warranty! Do your research. There are good and not-so-good EVs. The Nissan Leaf, as an example, is not-so-great as it has no internal cooling system for the battery. So owners experience pretty significant battery degradation over time, much more so than Bolt EV owners. You can go well over 100k miles with a Bolt due to Chevy's fantastic cooling design and only have about a 5% to 8% loss over your original range. Keep in mind, during that time, you would have spent on average $15k to $25k on fuel, over that 100k miles.
The Bolt EV is the single most reliable vehicle I've ever owned. Far more reliable than my diesel pickup. Way easier and cheaper to maintain than any Ford, Chevy, or Dodge I've owned over the past 35 years.


Replace the cabin air filter once a year and the wipers. That's about it. My Bolt comes with heated leather seats, front & back, heated steering wheel, a nice stereo, huge display screens and the best heater and air conditioning I've ever had in any car, and we could typically go about 230 miles on a charge. That charge cost $10 of electricity. So... equal to about 3 gallons of gas? Call it comparable to an ICE vehicle that gets 77 miles per gallon.


Sure, if you drive a LOT and drive long distances regularly, maybe buy a Prius Hybrid. But MOST people don't drive more than 30 miles to work, 5 days a week and 5 to 10 miles to the grocery store or to pickup the kids, then park the car in the garage or driveway. You can easily drive 200+ miles with pretty much any EV.
The "issues" with a lack of charging infrastructure people talk about is over-hyped.
I think for most EV owners it is a complete non-issue. I've never even used a public charger.
I just plug the car in when I get home, which let's face it, is where most cars spend most of their lives, sitting in the garage or driveway. I liked not having to plan on stopping for gas on my way to work when I'm in a hurry or on the way home when I'm tired and hungry, either way in rush hour traffic. With an EV you fuel up while you sleep.


These "cheap" little EVs are also a lot of fun to drive. They're "zippy" and since most of the weight is below your seat, it corners like it's on rails. Even though it is pretty small outside, it is very roomy inside.
I traded in my F250 for this car and it has more headroom and more legroom by a large margin and I'm bigger than most of you by quite a bit. I'm 6'5'' about 245 lbs., and can easily fit in the Bolt EV.
It blew my mind the first time I sat in one.


I'd also like to point out the Hyundai Kona EV and Kia Niro EV are very comparable to the Bolt EV but have a few extra amenities. You can pick up any of these EVs for around $20k with very low miles. I just want people to be aware there are alternatives to the super expensive Tesla, Rivian, etc.
There are inexpensive EVs out there that are really good, fun, reliable vehicles.

[Hoopy Frood]

Amazing that $20,000 is considered "inexpensive". Maybe to you anyway...