Originally Posted by Rhinodart
I am not asking for perpetual motion, just add a couple alternators to give extended range! Racers have been putting pulley's on driveshafts for years hanging an alternator close the the rear end, so any rotating member could be used to put on a pulley and hang an alternator somewhere... work


What would that accomplish? What do you think is driving those alternators? Besides, the battery pack requires a heck of a lot more voltage than any alternator you might hang on a driveshaft, or wherever.

EV's already use regenerative braking to recoup energy to some extent. Read up on that because it sounds like you don't know what that is. At any other time the motor is driving things and all you are doing is wasting more power than you could recoup driving something to charge the batteries. Anytime energy changes state (electricity to mechanical, or mechanical to electricity) you have conversion losses. It the cost of doing the conversion. What the percentage of energy is lost is varies depending on how efficient the device is but absolutely zero of the them are 100% efficient. So you lose just in the conversions involved and you'd end up with worse mileage than you started with.

Even if you could make them 100% efficient you'd have a wash, same in as out. You'd have to be more than 100% efficient to gain anything and that's perpetual motion.