On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 4:53 PM, Michael Torrie<[email protected]> wrote: > > I did read it and you're right that it's not 18 mpg. But I challenge > the 33 mpg figure. Not because it's wrong, but because it's useless. > For example, say you want to drive this wonderful electric hummer to > some wilderness area. The moment you exceed your electrical range, > you're essentially running on gasoline now, but in this case it's not > like you're running the original, beefy V-8. Essentially the vehicle is > now useless as an off-road vehicle with only half the horse power. So > yes you get 33 mpg on your trip to the mountains, but only when you're > going downhill with a tail wind. > > Given all this, I'm not so sure the government should ever invest in > this company. Interesting technology, poor application. At least with > a full-size engine and hybrid you'd still get pretty darn good mileage > in the city, and still be able to actually use the vehicle out on the road. >
They decided to start with one of the least efficient cars so that it would be a challenge for them to get it up to 100 MPG rating. Even at the worst that the new system gets it is a significant improvement over the stock configuration of the vehicle. Also because only the electric motors are used to drive the vehicle you get 100% of the torque 100% of the time. With an internal combustion engine you do not get that as it isn't possible with an internal combustion engine. (Sorry I don't know enough about internal combustion engines to say what the rules are for them but a Google search may yield some satisfying results on that subject.) So it doesn't really matter that the engine that recharges the battery is small sine it is not driving the vehicle directly. They have a similar type of setup on diesel powered trains where the diesel engine just produces electricity on a generator that provides power to the electric motors. That is they were smart enough to not have the fossil fuel powered engine directly drive the vehicle. They are doing so many things the way that I think a hybrid should be. My only suggestion is that they should to the regenerative breaking to capacitors that then send it to the battery or electric motor depending on which would be more efficient, IE does the accelerator get pressed soon enough that it would be a waste to send to the batteries or are the stopped long enough that it is worth sending the recovered energy to the batteries. I say that because capacitors can accept electricity much faster & safer then a battery can at a high rate which regenerative breaking could generate. /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
