How come we cant have a hybrid 4wd pickup,with electric drive on the rear and FWD on the front? I can think of several advantages,wish my Dakota had been configured similarly-Kevin
Dakota almost had rear drive with electric drive on the front wheels, but Chrysler dropped the idea for some reason.
@Keith,thanks-do you have a link for this-Kevin
Hybrids don’t make $$ sense for heavy loads, diesels work better for that. Mid-size cars and smaller do fine with hybrids, but the battery packs needed for heavy duty use cost lots.
The electric drive on the front axle of a rear wheel drive pickup seems like a good idea. With minimal battery capacity the front drive would be available like mechanical 4 wheel drive to get out of mud or ice or act similar to a compound low gear to initiate pulling heavy loads away, and especially useful pulling a boat out of the water. A few seconds would be all that is needed in such situations and having the added motive power available would allow for a smaller engine and transmission, possibly resulting in better gas mileage. Over the years I have owned and driven many 4 wheel drives and rarely engaged the front axle longer than a few seconds.
@Texases,could be -but have you seen some of the big stuff thats turning Hybrid now,some class 8 trucks and even excavators(Cat 336,with hydraulic accumulators.etc) hybrid make perfect sense for energy recovery,the aforementioned Cat 336 boasts a 25% fuel savings{and these bigger excavators drink pretty deeply}- not to mention the compound Diesel electric equipment that has been around for a long time-Kevin
San Francisco has diesel electric buses with kinetic energy storage. apparently, someone think that makes sense economically. Regarding pick up with electric motor, I would imagine the motor would have too big to fit under the truck’s bed.
Could GM have done this with the now previous generation Hybrid Pickups? It’s an interesting idea but the technology might not get enough buyers to make sense.
Trains are diesel electric hybrids. Keven, I don’t have a reference, it was a car magazine that I read about the time the Dakota’s adopted “baby Kenworth” look in the 90’s. It was supposed to come out the next year but it didn’t.
Possibly the magazine was just speculating but they made it sound like a sure thing. Not much in the way of details on how it would work either, or at least I don’t remember them but as I recall, it sounded more like an electric assist more than a Hybrid.
Hybrids make no sense. They cost more to maintain/repair, they use more “carbon footprint haha”…let’s just stick with what there is plentiful of and proven, oil/diesel.
As Keith said, trains are diesel electric hybrids. At least I think that is what you call them. Not sure about the battery part, but for sure they use generators and electric motors on the wheels. This has been true for a long time.
Today’s diesel/electric locomotives are not “hybrids” in the same manner as a Prius. They do not use batteries to store power that is transmitted to the motors at the wheels. They can be construed as hybrid in that they use huge diesel engines to generate electricity to power the electric motors that turn the wheels. In that sense, they were the very first hybrids. There have been a couple of tries at developing a true battery hybrid locomotive, but I don’t think any of them have been successfully marketed.
“Hybrids make no sense.”
Neither does skiing, playing golf, or collecting stamps, yet there are entire industries built around these activities. What doesn’t make sense to you may make perfect sense to someone else.
@XAML,I will take exception to the plenty of oil nonsense,there is no magic underground oil factory.
The oil geologists tell us there are eight conditions necessary for oil to be in a locale-if one of those is lacking,you dont get 87% of oil,you get no oil.
Thats about the same as saying theres plenty of water,there is ,however only a tiny fraction is potable.I think a lot of people miss the point about Hybrid technology-Kevin
Locomotives aren’t really hybrids so much as they are vehicles that use a generator driving a motors as a continuously variable transmission between the diesel engine and the wheels. There is no battery to store energy. If the motors are used to brake the train, the energy is dissipated in a resistance grid and thrown away.
Some heavy mining equipment also is diesel-electric. A DC generator-DC motor link is also used in many high speed elevators, a constant speed 3 phase induction motor turns a DC generator that powers the DC hoist motor and acts as an continuously variable transmission between the 3 phase motor and the hoist. This allows high speed elevator operation without the jerk of suddenly turning on a 3 phase induction motor. The output of the DC generator is controlled by varying the current in the field coils.
Locomotives also vary the field strength of the generator to shift gears although this is done automatically by using a differentially wound compound field in the generator, where the series field current cancels the magnetism of the shunt field when the current draw is high, thus automatically lowering the output voltage of the generator when the current draw is high.
Let’s not forget that the existence of hybrid cars and suvs has forced the industry to make even the “regular” vehicles more fuel efficient.
And that’s a good thing.
There have been some luxury hybrid SUVs that have just electric motors driving the rear wheels, with a more conventional hybrid drivetrain at the front. The rear motors typically contribute nothing except at low speeds or when the computers determine awd would be beneficial. That sort of drivetrain could be used on a truck (possibly reversed, operating in rwd most of the time), but they are expensive and complicated. If Lexus builds a truck you might see it. Don’t hold your breath.
The Toyota Highlander Hybrid has used the system that MarkM describes, could be reversed and put on the Tacoma but I wonder if Toyota has thought about it and decided not to. The Lexus RX hybrid (same platform) uses the same system.
They cost more to maintain/repair, they use more "carbon footprint haha"
I suggest you actually some research before you make a statement like that. Hybrids like the Pirus have been PROVEN to be extremely reliable. Far more reliable then the average vehicle. And far less to maintain. Not saying hybrids are for everyone. If you have the right commute…then hybrids are far far far greener then any of their non-hybrid vehicles.
let's just stick with what there is plentiful of and proven, oil/diesel.
Again do your research. Oil isn’t being produced anymore. At least not at the rate we’re consuming it. There’s a finite number of barrels of oil in the earth. And only a fraction of that oil is easily accessible. We NEED alternative systems for the future of the world. We may not NEED it now…but you don’t start looking for something when you NEED it. Especially since it may take decades to come up with a viable solution.
A lot of great ideas have come and gone.
Most of which got bumped , not because they were bad ideas, but because of the market.
think ;
Patents
Mass production,
Mass marketing,
Market share corperate muscle,
Supply chain and control,
and the politics of the little guy getting his idea to the big boys.