Michael Torrie <[email protected]> writes:
> Wade Preston Shearer wrote:
>> On 3 Aug 2009, at 15:47, Merrill Oveson wrote:
>>
>>> What company can "rig up a Hummer to get 100 MPG"?
>>
>> Raser:
>>
>> http://www.rasertech.com/media/videos/the-electric-h3
> Ironically, one of the pictures shows the hummer perched prominently on
> a cliff at the grand canyon. To get the vehicle there the electrical
> system and hybrid drive train are, of course, dead weight. The vehicle
> would have averaged the standard 18 MPG on the trip from Provo to the
> Grand Canyon. This of course illustrates the main problem with anything
> hybrid in cars. In a truck the difference between carrying the extra
> weight and not is probably negligible, so worst case you don't pay
> anything extra for gas than you would without. But with a smaller
> hybrid car, it's a bigger deal. In fact in many cases, a car with just
> good mileage could probably best a hybrid.
I don't think you read the tech specs very well. This is a plug-in
hybrid, aka an electric vehicle with a gas-powered range extender. The
ICE is a 2.0l Ecotec engine, and it supplies electricity to recharge the
batteries or to directly run the electric engine. Because of this, it
can always run in its most efficient range, so it's somewhat more
efficient than a vehicle powered directly by the 2.0l Ecotec, which in
any case would be better than whatever V8 engine comes standard in a
Hummer.
Apparently the range on battery power is about 40 miles before the ICE
kicks in. From there, the effective mpg rating starts to go down, but
in the end (for 200+ mile trips) you average 33mpg, which is about
double the mpg from a stock Hummer.
--Levi
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