Question for BrammoBrian - Charging while towing

[Brammofan]

Hi Brian -  I was thinking about my soon-to-appear Enertia and wanted to ask a question that I've had on my mind for awhile.  I plan to trailer it to events that might be outside the range, and let people take it for rides (assuming they have a motorcycle license, sign a waiver, etc.).  I might end up taking it to two or three places in a day.  I'd hate to arrive with an empty battery. 

I have one of those AC inverters that plugs into my Honda Pilot's 12V outlet and was wondering if I could run an extension cord from it, out the back hatch, to the Enertia so I can charge it while driving.  Besides the electric capacity question, would there be a problem with having the bike strapped down on a flatbed trailer with the fork in the left locking position? 

Thanks for any info you can share with me and the rest of these lucky folks.

[BrammoBrian]

First of all (you're probably tired of hearing it, but...), CONGRATULATIONS!  You're going to love this bike. 

There would be no problem charging as you've described, but you'd need a pretty hefty AC inverter, so I'm not sure how well a Honda Pilot's eletrical system would support this.  I found this over on the Radioshack website, which just might work:

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2360545

I'll speak to someboy smarter than myself in the Electrical Engineering group that can confirm this, but I think this would work.  You typically can pull 110-120V and 10-12 Amps from a typical US household outlet which would be about 1100 - 1440 Watts, so this should come close to what the charger on the bike is used to dealing with typically.  However - I have no idea if your car can handle such a large inverter as most car inverters are much lower power - in the 100s of watts. 

This will be a great experiment if you're willing take the risk... (You'd probably just blow a fuse either in the inverter or your car if it doesn't work)

[Brammofan]

Thanks for the response on this, and I'll look forward to any addendums/cautions by the electrical folks.  That is one pricey inverter.  I have a little one that I use to run my laptop on sometimes, but it sounds like it's not going to be able to handle it. 

And thanks for the congrats... I'm really excited about the bike and no, I never get tired of hearing about it.

[thespecialone]

Amazon and/or Walmart do this unit for about $108. But as BrammoBrian says this will really draw some jiuce....from my exprience of inverters you will need to run special cables..this is not going to work off the cigar lighter / 12v socket........

[enertia-ette]

Im still a little sick so you will have to be patient with me.
I would like to be able to charge off my Suburban. I have several events this summer that will be day events a few hours from my house. I wont know in advance if there will be a place for me to plug Dorothy in or not. It would be wonderful if I could rely on my own vehicle.
So, with that in mind... what do I need and how do I do it??

[Brammofan]

Even if one of these inverters would work, I doubt it would be able to charge the Enertia with the Suburban not running.  And think about what that's going to look like: I'm using my oil-guzzling air-polluting SUV to charge my bike. 

At the TTXGP at Infineon, Electric Motorsports started to do just that, using a big gas generator.  They were asked rather quickly to stop. 

It's not easy being green, but it's worth it.  Do it for your grandkids.