Soothing Range Anxiety – A Look into the Past, Present and Future of Range Extenders

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As the world gets greener, there is a strong pull toward electrification of propulsion systems whether they be in cars, trucks, airplanes, boats, etc. However, due to the heaviness and bulkiness of the current state-of-the-art batteries, the vehicle’s range can be reduced sometimes significantly to leave room for driving and handling performance similar to conventional engines. This possible reduction leads to a well-known phenomenon coined as Range Anxiety. It denotes the fear that even though the range is more than good enough for day-to-day activities, users may need a boost to go the extra mile (a road trip for example).  Thankfully, the current polluting engines are still reliable and can, among other systems, be added to an electric vehicle to help top off the battery in order to extend the distance of travel without needing lengthy recharging times at sporadic stations.

Range extenders have been around for far longer than most people realize. They come in various forms as technology evolves and new concepts are developed. While their original structure relies on off-the-shelf internal combustion engines (ICE), the second generation is making use of new ICEs and the range extenders of tomorrow will take the shape of fuel cells (as the cost becomes  less prohibitive) or micro gas turbines (MGTs). As leaders in turbomachinery design software, engineering services, and training SoftInWay, Inc. has been dealing with gas turbines both large and small since its inception and we are already working with this new/future application for micro gas turbines.

In this webinar we will look into why range anxiety is a concern; how different firms are trying to soothe the phenomenon using different embedded vs. add-on systems;  as well as what are the past, present and future technologies for range extenders using numerous examples from several different applications.

The webinar session will include:

• Explanations on what range anxiety is
• Survey of several vehicles, their propulsion technology and their range
• Generations of range extenders
• Alternatives to range extenders
• Fuel cells vs. internal combustion engines vs. microturbines
• On-board vs. add-on range extenders

Who should attend:

• Engineers interested in surveying the different technologies used for range extenders
• Engineering managers looking to get an understanding of how others deal with solving range anxiety
• Engineering students wanting to get a head start in the propulsion systems industry

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