> > I was surprised to see that it's only 67 hp... I drove my mother's > > Prius a > > while ago and it seemed zippier than that. Lots of torque, I guess.
The advantage of electric motors is that the torque much less dependent on the revs/minute than with an infernal combustion engine. An eletric motor can provide full torque even when it's standing still, while an internal combustion engine will have ZERO usable torque under the same condition. That was a reason ehy it was tried to use an internal combustion engine to drive a generator which in turn powers an electrical motor to move the car. Since the internal combustion engine can be kept at the optimum rpm, such a car might provide a better mileage. The generator/motor combination could be regarded as an impedance or torque converter. Unfortunately, neither generators nor motors run at 100% efficiency, so the losses, the increased mass (and the addtional cost) apparently make this approach not very favourable. > ...and when you're accelerating hard, both the engine and the motor > are working together. Right. People buy a hybrid Lexus to brag about their "green attitude" and yet happily kick the pedal to the metal to get most of the 400+ horsepowers which both electrical and internal combustion engine together achive. They also do not count the gallons of jet fuel which are consumed when they charge their batteries during the daytime (short term electrical peak load is often provided by jet turbine generators, which are much less efficient that the normal "base load" power plants). Best rgeards, Klaus _________________________________________________________ This mail sent using V-webmail - http://www.v-webmail.orgg _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
