Has anyone had any experience with a new product called the "Car Generator"? It is an emergency generator that supplies your home, etc., with 1,000w of power. It attaches to the battery of an ICE, PHEV, or BEV, then uses the ICE car's engine and battery to supply power in the form of 120v for your fridge, freezer, etc. I'm not sure if a PHEV must be running the ICE, or how the BEV must be "on". It supplys power for as long as the gas and/or battery runs. It's costly @ $695 but beats the **** out of a noisy, polluting, pain in the gas generator. Seems that the Bolt (or any BEV for that matter) would be ideal. The manufacturer has bigger and much more expensive models, I'm sure.
Car Generator
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I read a technical article a few years ago where an engineer put an inverter on his Prius's 12 volt battery and ran his house several days during an outage. The Prius would start itself every hour or so to bring the 12 volt battery back up. He noted Prius has an oversize alternator and battery because they start themselves often, in city driving.
The guy maintained his refrigerator plus some LED lighting, not everything in the house, or any high-draw application such as well pump, range or AC.
So its technically feasible.
I think thoughtful setup of an inverter would make that expensive 'Car Generator' unnecessary. But Bolt will have a smaller 12V battery than Prius because there's no starter motor to crank over, so maybe 1KW is a little too optimistic.
Does anyone know if Bolt will periodically recharge the 12 volt battery if it is used this way?
The guy maintained his refrigerator plus some LED lighting, not everything in the house, or any high-draw application such as well pump, range or AC.
So its technically feasible.
I think thoughtful setup of an inverter would make that expensive 'Car Generator' unnecessary. But Bolt will have a smaller 12V battery than Prius because there's no starter motor to crank over, so maybe 1KW is a little too optimistic.
Does anyone know if Bolt will periodically recharge the 12 volt battery if it is used this way?
I think all the ideas are sound but the battery in the Bolt is kind of a mini-battery, it's not robust by any means. Since we know, and have seen it is the Achilles heal of the Bolt and many other EV's, why compromise it? Spend that money, buy a small generator. Just thinking out loud.
Using Bolt Battery as home emergency backup
I saw a different thread on this, but then I read this article on Wired (sorry I cant post links) about people using the Leaf for backup during hurricane Sandy. I would never touch the 480v battery, but this is essentially using the car's own protections and 480->12v conversions to run some...
www.chevybolt.org
Thanks, kinda what I thought.
I didn't know that the Bolt battery was that small, stands to reason. Thanks.
And supposedly, the Bolt main battery DOES replenish the 12v battery.
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I bought a sine wave inverter from Amazon about a year ago. It attaches to the + 12V battery terminal and the ground lug. Turn the Bolt on, then the inverter and you have a small AC supply to keep your critical appliances going during a blackout. Tried it for an hour to test it, and it works fine for the purpose. There's threads about using an inverter in the ChevyBolt.org archive section.
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First hit on google:
- A typical refrigerator draws 725 watts, according to the United States Department of Energy.
- Divide that number by 120 volts to get the current that the refrigerator draws in amperes. A 725-watt refrigerator draws 725/120 = 6 amps.
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I looked at the Home Depot website, and only the smallest 18cuft refrigerators ran 750watts. 20+ were all over 1,000. I tried running a 800 watt A/C unit on a 1,000 watt inverter. The breaker was having no part of that. But I suppose the higher dollar inverters will take a higher surge draw.
I wish people would do a search on the threads before starting a new one. This topic has been discussed in great detail several times already. See one of the links, already posted, above.
The "Car Generator" is nothing but a gimicky, overpriced 12V DC to 120V AC inverter. These have been around for many decades.
The "Car Generator" is nothing but a gimicky, overpriced 12V DC to 120V AC inverter. These have been around for many decades.
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I haven't heard about such a tool before, but it looks pretty interesting, and it might be really helpful if in need. Where you bought it and how much you pay for it. Also, I am interested if there is a special car generator for every car model, or this tool is universal and you can use it no matter what car do you have. I read something that referred to this subject not so long ago on enginert.com, and it is really interesting for those who know how a car is made and how it works.
Sorry to add to the reawakening of this goofy old thread, but I couldn't resist....
Technically the 12V is just sitting there NOT being used. The Prius is powered up and using it's (?)260VDC old fashion Ni/Mh battery pack to run the DC to DC converter supplying the 12V bus.
When the HV battery gets to a low SOC the engine starts and charges the HV pack up.
Prii make great backup power sources!
Again, the 12V battery is just sitting there on the 12V bus. It's only job is to boot up the system and run a few things offline like emer flashers and headlights.
Well duh,,, how would the 12V battery work if it wasn't 'replenished' / on the 12V bus.
When you run a big inverter off the 12V bus/battery for any length of time, you have the car powered up so the power is coming from the HV pack.
Now, just to stir it up, how about Tesla saying "Don't do that. It will void your warranty."?
What's the latest on that goofy subject?
If you need more than a 1000 watt inverter, why not get a larger one? How large of an inverter can be safely attached to a Bolt?
Another currently active thread says 1500W.
The Bolt's onboard accessory battery inverter puts out 1600 watts max. There are background loads from the cars computers, etc, about 500 watts? People have pulled 1000 watts continuous from the battery, and the onboard keeps up. Higher continuous loads will drain the battery, and the DIC will display an alert for low battery.
You could run a much bigger inverter. The battery is good for 520 CCA. But this could only be momentary starting loads. You would need to monitor your average draw.
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