1st Road Test w/ Rav4 EV and T-Rex Range Extender. I made it 200+ miles!

I drove from Ithaca NY to Albany NY. Then drove around the Chademo station to try to burn up some more electrons. Got to 202 miles and had much more left.

Some issues that I discovered that I need to work on.
1. Trailer bounce
2. 12v battery ended up dying on the way home. The solar panels couldn't keep up with the usage. I discovered that am using around 48 watts and the solar panel on top of the box adds 30 watts, smaller one provides 10 watts. That combined with the bouncing killed my 2 year old 12v battery just as I was leaving Albany. It was a nerve-racking trip home to Ithaca.

On the way home I drove 176 miles and had 8 miles left on the GOM. It was close because the ambient temperature had dropped as soon as the sun went down. Most of the trip was in the mid 50's.

Temperatures never became an issue even though ambient temp touched on 84 degrees.

The T-Rex is a range extending trailer that I built for my 2014 Toyota (Tesla) Rav4 EV. I came up with the name by combining Tesla, Range, Extender. Trailer, Range, Extender is another way it can be considered.

This was an amazing and fun project!! Looking back and watching these videos nearly 2 years later makes me cringe. I was so green. Green to electricity, batteries and EVs but also to youtube and how to edit. I have learned and I've grown a lot since these videos.

If this interests you feel free to watch them at 1.5x speed. That's what I did. They are hard to get through otherwise. lol Lots of "Um"s and no editing. lol Sorry.

Here is the link to the entire T-Rex V1 playlist. I hope you enjoy it.

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