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Hybrid Diesels?
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As for being overspeced. No theses Hybrid buses also need to travel on expressways at 55 MPH or 65 MPH depending what types of service is being required. Also Mass Transit systems are required in Emergencies to provide support. And a forty foot transit bus can safely move 60+ people at one time without being restricted to an external electrical power source which fail from time to time.
The Sandstorm, from the Hyundai Kia America Design Center, steers close to the familiar look of the classic dune buggy. Eco points for this "biodiesel electric plug-in hybrid" would come from features including solar-powered cooling, detachable recycling bins and recyclable polyethylene terephthalate (PETE) panels, so that riders can quickly change the color scheme to suit the mood.
good post, whereas I was calling to question incompetent design supporting unrealistic specifications you've taken it to a whole new level by tearing into the Cummins engine itself.
I've always thought of Cummins as a top tier supplier but according to you they have a head gasket problem at 120,000 miles. And if Cummins knows about this then they don't seem to be doing anything about it on account of the fact that they are less expensive than the more robust Detroit diesels ?
Hmm, I wonder if Cummins is aware that Toyota has bought into ISUZU to gain ready access to Isuzu's commercial market ? Cummins needs to get more serious about its defects or Toyota will do to them what it has done to GM.
I am not a romantic towards trams and trolleybuses but it is a simple fact that the costs asociated with railbed and power distribution systems were subsumed by those operators whereas the roadbed system being part of the 'commonwealth' was provided almost free to operators of diesel buses. If buses had to pay a more justifiable fee for use of the road bed commensurate with their usage then electric transport might still be around.
The Capital costs for Rail are much higher. 300,000 per bus and 1,000,000+ per light rail vehicle.
And I bet the average speed for the LRT is also three times higher and more deterministic, not sure thats a valid comparison.
In case you would bring up rail track costs I might remind you that the payback for libraries and opera houses is almost non existent as well. Should we not have them too ?
As for being overspeced. No these Hybrid buses also need to travel on expressways at 55 MPH or 65 MPH depending what types of service is being required. .
I was not suggesting that transit authorities limit themselves with lower power vehicles for their whole fleet but only for the 90% of the routes that do. Same argument as between hybrid electric cars and off road yacht-towing SUVs.
Also Mass Transit systems are required in Emergencies to provide support. And a forty foot transit bus can safely move 60+ people at one time without being restricted to an external electrical power source which fail from time to time
I would like to agree with you on this one but recent experiences with New Orleans showed that emergency services even in peace time by the most advanced nation on the planet are not competent to do this. Anyway I would see this as an unreasonable requirement of mass transport that is seeking to be as nonpolluting as possible. I might ask what emergency need was fulfilled in the past by having this capability ? This sounds more like a 'want' than a reasonable 'need' to me.
reliance on an external electrical power source which fail from time to time
OK, let's get back to diesel hybrids and avoid that problem!
T2
http://www.ornl.gov/~webworks/cppr/y2001/rpt/121813.pdf
I guess a persons views on reverse engineering depends on who's doing it. !
Pre-WWII trucks?
uh.. V8's have been in 'T' vehicles since 1998. They and the transmissions are doing fine thanks.
Now back to what this thread is about. Hybrid Diesels.
For a small fuel efficent car or truck a Hybrid diesel is not cost effective. A diesel engine is more efficent then a gas engine by about 20%. The cost of adding an existing hybrid system to a small diesel will not be recovered for many years after purchase. Think about it. It doesn't pay to spend more then it will save in initial costs. Gm already has a small hybrid diesel. It can't be sold here because of the emissions requirements. This soon will be overcome. But again the existing hybrid systems other then a mild hybrid like the Saturn VUE will cost too much to be practical. There is new engine technology like the Scuderi design which should improve engine efficiency while lowering emissions. Should be more cost effective and practical in the next 5 to 7 years. Why pursue the gas electric which companies like Toyota and Honda are pushing. Your only seeing what is being presented, go deeper. How about the MYT engine. I think its neat but I really don't think it will be fuel efficent. The Scuderi design has the best chance. Have you looked at Eaton's electric hybrid and hydraulic hybrid designs. They use whatever engine the user specs. Guess what! These are all American designs. Go figure, Oh, but what about Toyota. Using old technology found in US engineering schools for years. That is what Teas me off. Just give it all away and our children will pay for their parents buying US technology used overseas and sold back to us and there go the jobs. Go ahead buy Toyota then stick your head in the sand. Be careful soon the US "sand" may be owned by "Toyota". Good Day.
No hugging. No vehicle is made by divine hands so all are subject problems and potenial recalls. It's how the problems are handled. After 17 years and $400 in total 'unexpected expenses' they've earned my trust. Even the Prius which had the steering recall done last month cost me nothing and in no way put me out. It's a non-issue, it's fixed, it's done.
Now the rest of this rant is just goofieness..some of it's hilarious. 4c? ( You must be kidding ). The best V6 now is made by Toyota or Nissan or even Hyundai.
What I'm tying to get through to a Toyota biased person is that Toyota is no better then any other auto maker. So get real. Or could you be employed by Toyota or one of it's dealers? Ask a contractor who depends on their work truck who makes the best truck. Ford!!! And I don't like Fords in general. I like GM and Dodge. GM makes the best V6 engines and most durable transmission in general. Dodge makes the best four cylinder engines and small FWD trans. Ford makes the best breathing V8's and the best Straight 6 cylinder engines. The best V8 is the one use in the Corvette. And Toyota makes Toys for people like you.
And wait until you see what the new 5.7L in the Tundra does to the others. It is so far off the scale that you won't believe your eyes. How about this little tidbit.
New Tundra 5.7L vs F150 5.4L... The Tundra is faster 0-60 and then brakes to a stop before the F150 even gets to 60. It's ridiculous what this will do to the industry. Only the GMT900's are close to the new Tundra.
BTW don't be surprised if Daimler puts a bullet in the head of Dodge and Chrysler and keeps Jeep. Did you see yesterday that in order to move the 2006 RAMs which are becoming lot anchors Dodge has incentives of $15000 !!!! Despite how good they are... :surprise: ... apparently it hasn't been reflected in the public's willingness to buy them.
Now back to our regularly scheduled thread..
For a small fuel efficent car or truck a Hybrid diesel is not cost effective.
You are sure of this now? What if Toyuzu comes out with an $18,000 hybrid diesel that get's 70-80 mpg in 2010?
Gm already has a small hybrid diesel. It can't be sold here because of the emissions requirements
You will have to give me a link to what this vehicle is because it is unknown to me? You wouldn't be making things up would you now? Where can someone find this small GM diesel hybrid?
Oh, but what about Toyota. Using old technology found in US engineering schools for years. That is what Teas me off. Just give it all away and our children will pay for their parents buying US technology used overseas and sold back to us and there go the jobs. Go ahead buy Toyota then stick your head in the sand. Be careful soon the US "sand" may be owned by "Toyota". Good Day.
Your anger is getting the better of you again. When GM relocates most of it's facilities to China and Ford sells off it's European parts and moves everything to Mexico and Daimler kills off Dodge and Chrysler... you better hope that Toyota and Honda and Hyundai step in and hire new people to make up for the ones the detroiters ditched.
It's VERY easy for these things to spiral into personal disputes, so let's back off a bit right now please.
Rather than allowing Toyota to improve on GM's design...GM should just bring it to market first.. get the profits and take the glory.
Seriously now, Maybe that is the very point of all of this. GM should bring this to market in the same way Toyota and Honda did in 2000. Take the risk. It looks good. It'll probably get great gas mileage. Just Do It.
Since 2000 Toyota and Honda have shipped nearly 1.0 Million hybrids and gathered all the good press and probably some profit. They took the risk. If the GM product is more than a skin over an idea then put it on the market. If they keep dragging their feet then Toyuzu and Honda and Renault all will have the diesel hybrid here first, making money and getting the good press.
Now if it is just a skin over an engineer's dream then maybe it's not ready for the road. You can bet that in 2010 a Toyuzu diesel hybrid will be here. Gm better have this Opel ready as well.
GM faithful are dying for GM to do something dramatic, like the Saturn announcement this week, to show that GM understands the surge of buying interest in fuel efficient vehicles.
Isn't this vehicle being introduced in Europe? If so then gas prices would have to go down to hit $5/gallon. Actually I've never understood why manufacturers are making hybrid versions of these already fuel efficient vehicles like the 40 mpg Opal. Take a 20 mpg vehicle and increase its fuel efficiency by this same 25% and you'll save twice as much money on fuel.
When people talk about not recovering the hybrid premium they seem to rarely mention the resale value. If you get rid of your car after 3 years it will probably be worth about 50% of what you paid for it. So at that time you recover half of the hybrid premium.
I'd buy that car today if it were for sale in the USA.
Hybrid diesel 4-dr sedan, 108 MPG in the year 2000.
GM Precept
The hybrid-electric Precept is driven by a battery-powered electric traction system that moves the front wheels, and a lightweight, 1.3-liter, 3-cylinder diesel engine in the rear. The direct-injection engine, featuring turbocharged compression ignition, was developed by Isuzu Motor Co. Ltd., one of GM's Asian affiliates.
Looks like Toyota now has that engine, and they already have had the hybrid side, so all they gotta do is put 1 and 1 together, and with their superior HSD technology over whatever GM had in the Precept......we might get 110-120 MPG in the diesel/electric hybrid they build.
KDH, will you sell me one of these when they build it ??? :shades:
My Prius will be 5y.o. then and have about 200,000 miles so I'll be ready. :shades:
... This is a little harder to calculate, because I don't know the BSFC numbers from back then. The performance of todays vehicles is taken for granted but the level would take a non turbo engine of 1500 cubes. Back in the early Sixties turbos where almost as rare as they are ubiquitous today and most typical normally aspirated, 850 cube engines, made horsepower in the low two hundred level; today drivers expect 500 plus hp.
I know the major thing holding back all electric vehicles per se is battery technology, we can't get enough juice for the given size/weight to make an electric car go the distance we would want out of a family car (what about 350 miles on a tank) I also know that even the latest li-poly batteries still take a while to charge...
I also know that if we all made a slight change in our driving habits and if our workplaces would provide sockets for charging your car whilst at work and our respective governments help put in place the infastructure for charging your car at home(I live in an appartment without a garage, so running an extension cord out to the car would get me loads of more headache ) we could all live with and love the current best of breed electric cars (tesla roadster is an example of the right technology, but, the wrong application for most of us)
That said I also think a better more gradual change involves, hybrid cars that still run on petrol, but, eek out the most efficiency out of the fossil fuel and as a by product lower emissions drastically. Which brings me to the meat of my post, Ive posted some of this here before, but talked about a diesel engine powering a generator that charges an onboard battery and drives an electric motor that drives the wheels (a serial hybrid). I realise that by adding the conversion from fossil fuel to electricity and storing most if it then converting it back to motive power to the wheels involves a few losses of efficiency. But really how much are we talking here?
Im going to make some assumptions here: (these are not based in fact, just my guess)
Typical motor electricity to motive power efficiency: 85-90%
Typical generator motive to electricity efficiency: 80-90%
So a simple scenario where we replace the drive train (gearbox, clutch, drive shafts) with a generator coupled directly to our gasonline engine, which then powers a motor driving the wheels, would net us a lower estimate of about 68% of the engine output (85% * 80%).
With the original clutch/gearbox in place I know you lose some of the engine power too, what is this roughly, about 10-15%? Would this electric drivetrain be any lighter than the equivalent mechanical drive train(gearbox, clutch) I know drive shafts would be needed for the electric motor too, but with in wheel motors being talked about this too might not be needed!
How much loss in efficiency in using this electric drive train are we a talking about over the mechanical drive train? My of the top of the head guess would put it about 20%.
Now couldnt this be efficiency loss be made up in using a smaller lighter gasoline engine (3 cylinder, lean burn, 1-1.5 litre capacity) that has been tuned to run at a higher rpm with turbo charging if necassary?
Wouldnt focusing on a smaller lighter more efficient gasoline engine that dont need to provide a wide power band, just a very small highly efficient band of power producing electricity to power the motor. (you could even include some ultracapicators that could soak up the excess electricity produced if the car is moving too slowly for amount of electrical power the gasoline engine/generator combo is producing and if you were to use regenarative braking, this could then be used to provide extra power to the motor when needed, or when restarting the gasoline engine if its been shutdown)
Sorry that this post is long, but, Im fascinated by all of this, should have been an engineer instead of the desk bound computer programmer that I am !!!!
Any ideas, criticism is welcome as is any kind soul that can point out any huge holes in my understanding or concept.
Its all gone very quiet on this board of late!
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"engine and a hybrid transmission consisting of two 100 kW motors and a 600-volt, nickel metal hydride battery pack. The engine is coupled to an electronically variable transmission that provides an infinite range of gear ratios to drive the wheels."
After some digging I found that Cummins engines in the 250-280Hp are the prime movers for the above. And a max service speed of 65mph was quoted.
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Elsewhere someone provided these links regarding the iconic London Transport double decker bus. tfl= transport for London
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/03/17/first-hybrid-double-decker-bus-hits-the-- road-in-london/
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/press-centre/press-releases/press-releases-content.asp- ?prID=1082&source=RSS§ion=press
The release didn't state the manufacturer of the 1.9L diesel engine that powers this vehicle. The vehicle itself was built by WrightBus Limited. No indication was given either whether this was in fact a government funded project along the lines suggested by those researchers, that government funding be awarded only for designs with a 90Kw power ceiling.
In the light of what WrightBus have achieved it's hard to see why Allison would need 210Kw for their vehicle. But if I was running GM I would be asking questions.
T2
The Dodge Sprinter PHEV has the ability to drive up to 20 miles on electric-only power. It accomplishes this with a switch on the dashboard giving the operator the ability to manually switch between modes as needed, or automatically by the vehicle control system. Two different combustion engines are being offered in the Dodge Sprinter PHEV -- diesel or asoline. The diesel version will yield the highest fuel economy benefit and is the first fleet test of a diesel plug-in hybrid system.
link title
The latest diesel-powered cars offered in Europe come close to - and in a lot of cases beat - hybrid-electric cars like Toyota's Prius in the mileage stakes, so imagine what would happen if you combined the best of both technologies. France's Peugeot hopes to do just that and by becoming the first carmaker to launch a diesel-electric hybrid by the end of the decade.
The recently launched midsize Peugeot 308 hatch will be the first vehicle fitted with the new powertrain, but it's likely other models will soon follow suit if it proves to be successful.
The Peugeot diesel hybrid should average better than 70mpg (58.3mpg US), which would mean its emissions levels would be lower than most other cars except for pure electric vehicles. By comparison, the Prius rates 65.7mpg (54.7mpg US). However, most motoring mags have found its real-world fuel economy ratings to be much lower.
The only factor holding back the release of the hybrid 308 is the high cost of the batteries and electric motor, but engineers are working hard to make the technology more affordable.
Now they have it testing at 80 MPG on the Euro circuit, or about 67 MPG USA.
Of course the lucky Europeans will get it first GRRRRRRRRRR !!!