Newell Gurus

forest and i were at all aboard america today having work done on his coach.  this late model 4 slide prevost was there having some repairs done.  this was george strait's personal coach.  it had 15k miles on it.  

it had 2 massive tesla LiOn batteries with two even more massive victron inverter chargers.  i chatted with the driver and he said they can run all 6 (yes six) roof airs for 8 hours and then the genny will recharge the batteries in 2 hours.  two huge alternaters on the engine.  

very pretty dark cherry coach.  

by the way, the driver asked me if my coach used DEF.  if so, to be careful.  the coach was there because they had accidently put DEF in the diesel tank.  it had the valve cover off and was having the injectors replaced and not sure what else.  the shop foreman said it was more common than you would think.  the DEF and diesel fill tubes are right next to each other.  they had both caps off and had accidently put the DEF nozzle in the diesel fill tube.  very expensive accident.  

i guess the key is to only take one cap off at a time.  i bet it wont happen again since both co drivers that are permanent to the coach were there.  nice guys

tom

Tom, this intrigues me. I wonder when Newell will be building something like this? I doubt the drivers could have told you the following, but
Who was the Coach builder ?
I wonder what the upcharge was?
How many have they built like this?
Was this a retrofit or factory installed ?

Very cool coach. Thanks for bring this to us.

we were there today. drivers were not there. forest is going back tomorrow and will get the builder. we just dont remember but it was on the side of the coach.

the coach was a 2015 shell and was just finished converting in the last year or so

the guys at the coach facility we were at guessed it was a 60-100k cost. but it was original to the build.

tom

Regarding coach builder, according to their website George Strait is a client of Hemphill Brothers.

I don't *think* Prevost offers that LiOn battery config as an option, so must have been Hemphill... assuming this is theirs.

A caution to anyone contemplating a Lithium battery installation. Keep away from Victron Lithium control products like the plague. Had my sailboat converted with a complete Victron installation in Holland and it was a total disaster. Was lied to from the very first regarding the companies capabilities and the state of development of the system. When it failed (multiple times over several years) the factory refused to answer any of our issues. Turns out that the real developers of the Victron Lithium system is a small Dutch company called MG Electronics. I know this because they spent many days aboard the boat trying to fix the software. The behavior of Victron was the worst I have ever encountered. Many good developers and products made here in the U.S. search them out and you will be much better off.

Wow, that is amazing! Maybe someday... what is the powder at the bottom of the picture showing the inverters? It’s not a very good place to hide Coke... maybe baking soda for acid???

built by All Access Coach Leasing

the white powder is the crystalized DEF.

the fuel tank access was behind the inverters and that is where they cleaned the tank out at.

tom