Thor Forums

[Chance]

Originally Posted by dstankov

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The point I was making is there are tradeoffs. If adding the additional alternator increase fuel consumption from 8 to 6 MPG how many people are going to back away from the market.

Also, a 13,000 dollar option package at 2.50 per gallon will buy over 5,000 gallons of fuel, which at .9 gph of gen run time equates to 5777 hours. The break even point for me would be somewhere in 8 to never range. My prior coach had less than 300 hours on the generator and my current coach has less than 50.

For me to shell out that kind of money for a coach where I have to kneel in the aisle to load the refrigerator and never see a return on investment just doesn't make any sense outside the "cool factor". I buy practical and useful, I don't by cool especially since cool is usually short lived or constantly changing.

Dave, a large motorhome uses roughly 10 gallons per hour during cruise, right? That's 70 MPH while getting 7 MPG. Running an alternator would no doubt have to reduce vehicle MPGs somewhat, but I don't see how total fuel consumption would be any more than if running a separate Onan generator engine that burns close to 1 GPH. Incremental load on a Ford V10 is much more efficient than a small Onan engine running lightly loaded.

And you are correct that the E-Trek is expensive, but it is not $13,000 additional over a traditional generator. Not even close. Minus solar charging it runs the same price as an installed diesel generator. And I'm asking about this system in place of and not in addition to a generator.

Granted a gasoline generator is less expensive, but I've checked the cost of components and if mass-produced in larger volumes a system like E-Trek would be far less expensive. They are basically adding a 150 Amp X 24-Volt engine-driven alternator, a few extra 200 Amp-hour 6-Volt AGM batteries, and upgrading the size of the inverter (a smaller is standard). This should all cost less than $3,000 which is comparable to a Onan generator.

The Roadtrek is no bargain, but that it cost way too much has nothing to do with the E-Trek option. If I recall correctly, Roadtrek offers this system on cheaper Class B motorhomes too. To be honest, I don't care about the merits of the coach itself because I would never buy one like it. The electrical power generation is a different matter -- I can see it working better for me than a traditional generator 95% of the time.