I'm loving what I'm reading about the new cars that use the electric motors in each of the wheels. These motors also give electricity back by providing 85% efficient regenerative breaking. Stopping an RV on a down hill slope can put a healthy bit of power into your banks I'd imagine.

These motors put out 160 hp per wheel. My RV has 6 wheels, two in front and dualies in the back. That's 960 hp if you put them in all 6! (That's assuming they can be put into dualie wheel configurations.) My current RV has a Triton V10 engine, which is 362 hp. The Hi-Pa Drive motors they used come in three sizes. If they used the largest (HPD40) for the Mini, then the smallest (HPD30) has 1/3 the power, 320 hp for all 6 wheels. The mid power motor (HPD35) would be 640 hp for all 6 wheels. The smallest would be enough for most driving but it would choke crossing the continental divide. The other two would have way more than enough output.

Remove the weight of the engine and that huge axle and you've got lots of battery/capacitor space and weight allotment, which is good, because you're gonna need it! The motors like to see 350-400V DC and draw 400A. that's more math than I want to do right now but getting 400V out of my T105 Trojans would take 66 batteries which would weigh about 5000 pounds, so I'm thinking lead acid battery storage is out. I know LiION is smaller and getting smaller every year so this will just get better and better as the nanotube design strategies for power storage ramp up production.

A fat Onan geny will put out about 12.5KW continuously. Most of your power is needed in acceleration so that would come from the batteries and capacitors and then trickle back up when you get up to coasting speed. I'm not sure how long it would prevent you from running down your battery stores. Depends on the power necessary to keep something with such a massive drag coefficient up to cruising speed. At any rate, a dinner break or a rest stop excursion would let your bank catch up a bit.

Solar won't do much when driving, but when parked and powered down for a while I think it would be very helpful. If nothing else, running out of gas in the desert, you could let it soak in the sun for a couple of days and get your butt back to civilization. In dry dock it would certainly keep your batteries topped off. My 35' RV has 280 square feet of roof. After you subtract all the rooftop gear I think it's about 260 square feet of space the sun could hit. Of course solar efficiency is going up and up and that's a decent bit of space so it might help to cut down a bit on your diesel budget if the RV sits for long periods in the Texas sun. At the very least, you'd start off every new trip with a "full tank" when you pulled the old girl out of the storage slot.

I would love to work on a super green RV, and if certain projects come through, I just might get a chance to try it. Of course the project would *totally* be televised.