300Nutter
Senior Member
Seems to work well for the railroads....they’ve been running hybrids for decades.
interesting story on Tesla's possible fate and the electric car in general.....
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Seems to work well for the railroads....they’ve been running hybrids for decades.
commando1
Old Man with a Hat
Size and weight mean nothing to them.
70bigblockdodge
Old Man with a Hat
They have no battery. The diesel engine comes up to a rpm in it's power range turning a generator that supplies current directly to the traction motors.
They are essentially using the generator and traction motors as the driveline (clutch and transmission) for the diesel engine.
In metropolitan areas (NYC , Chicago) the current is provided by the overhead wires eliminating the diesel engine.
The battery and the combo, gas and electric driveline complexity is what makes these hybrid cars eventual failure. Neither system can stand on its own, rendering the car very $$$ and impractical value wise.
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I don’t care that they don’t need one but a car without a grille just looks so wrong.
The Mopar E-Torque replaces the alternator and is a 10hp small motor that I guess runs the car at a dead stop or low RPM's. I haven't heard any complaints about it yet.
70bigblockdodge
Old Man with a Hat
Does it provide dynamic braking or charge the battery to store up kinetic energy from the brakes?
If not it's a gimmick, to hold off the govt MPG Nazi's, and sucker people who probably should buy the 3.6 but think they need a Hemi to haul the stupid rug rats to soccer and back.
theadmiral
New Member
Not a rumor, just idle hallway speculation/observation at the office...Apple could buy Tesla easily, and then we'd actually have an AppleCar. And fanboys would buy it, even more than they do now. The only issue that I have with it is the horrific culture clash between those companies...and that Apple knows nothing about manufacturing cars, either.
Lutz' comments were okay -- yes, speculation, but he actually does know something about P/L in the auto industry, and cars in general (Dodge Viper, anyone?).
Lutz' comments were okay -- yes, speculation, but he actually does know something about P/L in the auto industry, and cars in general (Dodge Viper, anyone?).
70bigblockdodge
Old Man with a Hat
Alright a tick over gimmick. The gasoline it saves will never recoup the energy used to mine, refine, transport, and manufacture the battery. Not to mention the energy to remove and recycle the battery at it's life's end.
Pick a power train these car companies need to quit acting like a woman that can't decide which outfit to wear.
MarPar
Meat Man with a Hat
That **** goes for a lot of things nowadays...
rexus31
Senior Member
Thanks for sharing that Steve. It seems like Tesla is on the right path to profitability. I think once they develop the technology to allow 500+ miles on a charge we will see a lot more of them on the road. The question still remains: Are these throw away cars?
Mike66Chryslers
Senior Member
Lutz' track record at predicting what will sell and the future of the automotive industry has been hit-and-miss. Tesla may fail due to mismanagement, and based on numerous, very public mis-steps by Elon Musk it may be time for him to hand the reins over to someone else.
However, that's not to say that electric cars aren't viable. At this point in time, I don't believe Lutz would dare make that prediction. As the article points out, Lutz once said that Toyota's hybrid developments were nothing by a PR stunt. That was a poor prediction; look where Toyota is now, considered a leader in hybrid cars. Prius is a popular FAMILY of hybrid cars, with I think 3 models in production of different sizes, plus plug-in variants. Almost every other mainstream automaker also has some form of hybrid cars available and in development. Why? Efficiency of internal combustion engines themselves has just about peaked. Manufacturers need new tech to meet future efficiency and emissions standards.
Prior to Cadillac introducing the electric starter on gas engines in 1912, it looked as though steam power may actually win the war between internal combustion gasoline, battery electric and steam on which would become the dominant automotive powerplant. Each of the 3 propulsion methods had pros and cons.
Companies like Stanley and Doble took steam power as far as they could, using the materials science available at the time. At one time, a Stanley Steamer held the land speed record. However the "writing was on the wall" that steam had peaked while ICE tech was competitive on price, power, efficiency and convenience and would continue improving with further development. Stanley manufacturing ended in 1924. Doble hung in there and took steam development to its pinnacle, but ultimately folded in 1931.
We have now had 100+ years of improving ICE tech, and I think it's just about where steam was in the mid-1920's. Small turbocharged engines with computer-optimized combustion chambers, many-speed or CVT transmissions, variable valve timing, cylinder deactivation, stop-start systems, all under computer control. We've come a long way in optimizing the entire system of a drivetrain with an ICE at its heart. The easy improvements are all in the past. Continued gains will be small or increasingly difficult and expensive to achieve.
Automakers were hoping that new combustion cycles like GDI and HCCI would be the next revolution in ICE. But what they have found is that, when you make a gas engine that behaves like a diesel to extract more work from the fuel, it has the same problems as diesel. It's just a matter of time before governments crack down on particulate emissions (soot) from GDI engines. HCCI prototypes existed 10 years ago. So far, I believe Mazda is the only automaker to bring an HCCI-like gas engine to market, which they call Skyactiv-X, designed to run on a combination of spark and compression ignition. Even then, they've incorporated mild hybrid tech to improve the engine's fuel economy further.
Mazda’s New Skyactiv-X Engine Gives New Life to Internal Combustion
Meanwhile, there have been myriad improvements in batteries and compact high-torque motors, but until recently there was little investment in automotive applications because of entrenched interests. At the same time, there are still a lot of new developments to be discovered and commercialized in battery tech in terms of increasing energy density, decreasing recharge times, and bringing costs down. Pure-electric cars have only captured a miniscule percentage of the auto market so far, but there is a lot of pent-up demand, as evidenced by the number of Tesla Model 3 preorders. If manufacturers can get the range up and the initial cost down to where it makes sense for mainstream consumers, they will jump on the electric bandwagon.
As an aside, I see hydrogen fuel cell cars as a dead end. Hydrogen has always been touted as the "fuel of the future", and I predict it will remain so indefinitely. I have followed hydrogen developments for ~30 years because I initially thought hydrogen was promising. Today I think automakers still work on hydrogen prototypes partly to hedge their bets, and partly because governments give them grants and a lot of the developments are also applicable to gas-hybrid and pure-electric cars.
commando1
Old Man with a Hat
I'm on the floor laughing because it's so true.
There has to be 50 production vehicle different hybrid power trains out there now
Cripes, how many has Ford alone gone through?
You are correct, I am not sure what was meant that the railroads have been using hybrids for years. Last year we added two diesel electrics to our little railroad. see picture below:
We replaced pure electric locomotives with these GE units. Braking is ccomplished by converting the traction motors into generators and apply the power through a resitance grid. Thus the large ventilated structure at the rear of the unit. Just my two cents on the railroad hybrid thing.
Mike66Chryslers
Senior Member
That is a diesel-electric series hybrid.
Okay, I understand where you are going now. No problem. thanks,
theadmiral
New Member
I agree...but if they don't keep building that infrastructure, how am I going to convert my big block to burn hydrogen when we run out of liquid dinosaurs?
Mike66Chryslers
Senior Member
You'd have an easier time converting it to run on ethanol (E85), and that seems to be the direction that ICE engines are being pushed as we run out of liquid dinosaurs
.My own thoughts are that we should invest in mass production of butanol from fermentation of biomass. Gas engines can run 85% butanol (15% gasoline), and potentially up to 100% butanol, with NO modifications. Butanol has almost the same energy density as gasoline so there would be no fuel economy penalty, unlike E85.
Butanol fuel - Wikipedia
300Nutter
Senior Member
In other words, it’s a hybrid.
LocuMob
Fluid Technician with a hat
@70bigblockdodge is saying that an automotive hybrid contains a battery for the motor(s), whereas a train does not, and relies on the diesel engine to power the generator, which powers the motors. A hybrid doesn't generate all (if any) of the electrical current, but the diesel does.
Thanks Dad, for being a railfan!
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