Next-Gen Battery Electric Vehicles using Micro-Gasturbines as optional Range Extender

Micro Gasturbines as optional serial Range Extenders for electric vehicles seems to be the best fit, especially reducing excessive battery needs in larger EV applications like trucks, buses and ships - providing the most efficient and clean electricity generation from biogas, synthethic gas, natural gas, diesel, gasoline or kerosene, being 3 times as efficient as Hydrogen Fuelcell EVs and 4 times as efficient as ICE vehicles with a piston engine and a mechanical drivetrain.

When converting a conventional diesel truck to a TREV, it's range increases by 300% with the same amount of fuel, Co2 emissions are reduced by over 75% and NOX emissions by over 90% compared to the conventional piston engine diesel truck.

EVs like Trucks, Buses or Ships could be built as pure BEVs - Battery Electric Vehicles - with a limited Battery only suited for 100-200km range for deliveries inside and around cities, simply recharging the battery packs via the onboard charge-plug (Type2-CCS).

But the Type2-CCS Plug electronics also should be enabled to charge the battery during driving., so that a small range extender like a TREX - a microgasTurbine Range EXtender - packaged in a metal box - then could get loaded onto the truck only for longdistance drives and get plugged into the onboard-CCS-plug.

The modified EV charge electronics and software then will only trigger a charge request to the TREX via the CCS plug, when the battery drops below e.g. 20-30% causing the microgasturbine to start and generate power by running in its sweetspot. As soon as the battery is full or at least above 80-85%, where the possible charge load of the battery and the load from the electric motors might drop below the rated power generation of the TREX, the charging gets stopped by the EV via the CCS plug , so that the TREX gasturbine will automatically shut itself down again.

So basically a TREV (Turbine Recharged EV) is a BEV (Battery EV) with a plugged TREX (Turbine Range EXtender).

Fun fact when comparing a

• TREV (turbine recharged electric vehicle) in pure TREX mode with an
• FCEV (FuelCell Electric Vehicle) -

is, that in all cases of hydrogen (H2) generation - either from natural gas or from water through electrolysis - the TREV running with methane (CH4) from the same sources is more efficient "well-to-wheel" than the Hydrogen-FuelCell-Electric-Vehicle (FCEV) and in countries with a bad power mix, even greener than pure battery electric vehicles.

And when using the same gasoline or diesel tank as before in the conventional piston engine truck, the TREV-truck will drive 4 times as far and 5 times as clean, as the same truck before with the piston engine (see https://wrightspeed.com for reference).

A gasturbine generator has only one moving part - the turbine with the generator sitting on the same shaft - and is about 3 to 4 times more efficient than any piston engine when operated in the "sweet spot" producing maximum electric power with minimum fuel consumption. Also the weight and dimensions of a microgasturbine are about 1/4th of a diesel or gas piston engine with the same power.

This concept only works efficiently, when the drivetrain is not mechanic but electric - through electric motors that are actually driving the wheels or the ship propeller. A performant battery pack needs to sit in between the Range Extender (TREX) and the electric motors of the next gen car, truck, ship or even aircraft (VTOL, multicopter). That's why the concept of a pure BEV with an optional Range Extender, that can be plugged for on-the-go charging is so appealing and most efficient.

A gas turbine is far more flexible than any piston engine, because it can get operated alternating with diesel, gasoline, kerosene, and methan or any mixture of these - without reconfiguration. In the case of Methan use, this can be natural gas (CNG), biogas, or even Power-to-gas generated methan.

This is why microgasturbine generators as electric range extenders are the true bridge technology to energy transformation and electric drive vehicles - especially in the truck, bus and ship industries.

This is the right technology for the 21st century in technical, economical and ecological terms. Electrifying the powertrain and using a micro gasturbine as serial electric power generator means

• 65% to 75% less fuel consumption compared to diesel and gas piston engines,
• 90% less air pollution than diesel and gasoline piston engines.
• no need for expensive exhaust filters and AdBlue
• regenerative braking and
• torque vectoring
• in countries with a bad electricity mix TREVs (turbine recharged electric vehicles) are even cleaner than pure battery electric vehicles - less CO2 per kWh eletricity used.

What if the whole Truck and Bus industry worldwide would adopt this technology saving huge amounts of fossil fuels and air pollution and making "AdBlue" for exhaust cleaning needless - and therefore unable to be turned off by ruthless freight companies, which are today even increasing the pollution levels from todays Euro6+ trucks by 400% by turning of AdBlue exhaust cleaning. Turbine-electric propulsion does not need AdBlue - and would decrease the pollution caused by todays buses and trucks by 70-90% !!!

And also the ship industry, that is currently polluting our seas with huge diesel-type piston engines running on crude oil and pumping out more pollution into our dying seas than 8 million cars in the same time.

Why cant those ships be forced to run on much cleaner gasturbine generators running on light ship diesel fuel with electric powertrains behind it. That would save over 90% of sea pollution and more than 2/3 of the fuel consumption.

See embedded videos (below or to the right) for further explanation.

Links:

• WRIGHTSPEED (Trucks & Buses):
• https://www.wrightspeed.com/
• https://www.trucks.com/2017/02/21/tesla-electric-garbage-trucks-wrightspeed/

• IPG Transport (UK):
• http://ipg-transport.com/
• https://www.focus.de/auto/elektroauto/stromer-mit-gasturbine-aufladen-nicht-noetig-briten-loesen-reichweitenproblem-des-elektroautos-ganz-einfach_id_10048341.html

• CAPSTONE Turbine Corporation (Microturbine Generators):
• https://www.capstoneturbine.com/

• Delta MITRE (Micro Gas Turbines for Cars) :
• https://www.borntoengineer.com/delta-mitre-micro-turbine-offers-huge-range-boost-electric-vehicles
• https://www.powerelectronics.com/automotive/hybrid-electric-sports-car-use-micro-turbine-range-extender

• TECHRULES (Chinese company / entrepreneur Matthew Jin) built a showcase Hypercar EV with a micro gas turbine as serial range extender - and now plans to provide a micro turbine based range extender package for EVs of all kinds to the automotive industry for about 1300 € per package :
• https://www.techrules-news.com/
• http://www.techrules.cn
• https://www.chip.de/news/Techrules-Turbinen-Trick-loest-Reichweitenproblem-bei-E-Autos_135588518.html (german article)
• https://www.focus.de/auto/elektroauto/techrules-plug-in-hybrid-turbinen-trick-wie-das-reichweiten-problemen-von-elektroautos-billig-zu-loesen-ist_id_8577015.html
• Interesting article about TechRules and Capstone: http://www.gasturbineworld.co.uk/techrules.html

• HYBRID GENETIC GROUP (China) & Pininfarina

new type of cars, the K550 and K750 SUVs, and the H600 saloon feature micro-turbine generator range extenders with 50,000-hour lifespans and 621-mile-range battery packs, with 50,000-charge-cycle lifespans - include V2H, V2V and V2G capability(*) and will be available to consumers by 2020:

• (* Vehicle to House, Vehicle to Vehicle, Vehicle to Grid)
• https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor-shows-shanghai-auto-show/pininfarina-and-hybrid-kinetic-group-reveal-two-ev-suvs
• https://insideevs.com/say-what-now-2020-hybrid-kinetic-h600-charges-at-50c-is-v2gv2v-capable/

• BLADON JETS Microgasturbines:
• https://www.bladonmt.com/micro-turbine-genset/the-bladon-mtg
• http://www.alternativantriebe.com/gasturbine (german article about the TREV idea and Bladon Jets MGTs)

• Other Links:
• http://www.gasturbineworld.co.uk/techrules.html

SHIPS

Please see the wikipedia article about "Queen Mary 2", the first huge passenger ship with a huge electric propulsion system.

The diesel engines and gas turbines drive electric generators, which provide the power to drive four 21,500 kW (28,800 hp) Alstom electrical motors located inside the podded propulsors.

The four 16-zylinder diesel piston engines running on crude oil weigh 212 tons each and each provide 16.800 kW of eletricity generation consuming together 3,1 tons of crude oil (HFO) per hour on full power setting.

Compared to these 212 tons heavy piston engines the two gasturbines on board of the Queen Mary 2 only weigh 95 tons each, but provide a power output of 25.000 kW each and consume the higher quality marine diesel fuel (MGO).

Unfortunately the gasturbines are only used for higher speeds - probably because the marine diesel fuel (MGO) is much more costly than the crude oil (HFO).

It might be a good idea for saving our planet and a longer survival of mankind to make the use of HFO more costly by putting high pollution fees on this most dirty kind of fossil fuel that is currently in use abundantly in the large international shipping industry - or force the use of gas turbines like the Siemens SGT-500, that is even capable of burning HFO in a much cleaner way than the currently used large diesel piston engines.

Queen Mary 2 Wikipedia Article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Queen_Mary_2#Power_plant_and_propulsion_system

German Wikipedia article about Queen Mary 2 with some more details about the machines weight and power:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Mary_2#Maschinenanlage,_Antrieb_und_Versorgungstechnik

A great improvement to the Queen Mary 2 concept would be the use of a newer Siemens development of a gasturbine that is capable to use HFO (crude, heavy oil):

• http://www.china-power-contractor.cn/Siemens-Gas-Turbine-SGT-500.html

This Siemens Gasturbine produces 19.10 MW(e) of Electricity at 33,8% efficiency - the perfect match to replace diesel-piston-engines on huge freight and passenger ships like the Queen Mary 2 - forming a turbine-electric propulsion system, that is able to use any liquid or gaseous fuel even down to the "dirty" HFO, burning it in the most "clean" and efficient manner.

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