Comments on: Series Hybrids Are Here!

By: Harry Donnegan

Harry Donnegan — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 04:30:23 +0000

Back in the stone age I come from I drove Crosley cars 12HP 4 cylinders five main bearings 8000 rpm red line. When properly tuned got 40 mpg and could take many by surprise at stop lights with their getaway. I turned a 48 station wagon into a 24volt electric drive. Surplus air force DC motors, one tied directly to the drive shaft, another direct drive to the 12hp Crosley engine. Loaded the back deck with six volt batteries, (those were standard auto voltage back then) forming 3 banks of 24 volts. The engine was set to optimal speed and power driving the DC motor turned generator. Rheostat controlled, hard wire no computers back then. Two bladed knife switch was the on off switch. When I started the engine it ran at a constant speed and kept the batteries charged in city driving, at the stops it had full power going into the bank. No braking regeneration there. It was fun to play with. Then started fooling around with hydrogen, what a mistake! It takes more energy to produce than you get back. Again a lot of fun. What we would have given for today’s computers and access to all this knowledge. Now I have another game mycatalyst.myffi.biz still more fun.

By: Sam Matteo

Sam Matteo — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 05:22:35 +0000

The automotive industry does not readily embrace change. The cheap cost of gasoline as a fuel has kept them in the dark ages, for far too long. Now, we, the American public are paying the price for their lack of vision. New technolgy change over in the automotive industry isn’t likely to make serial hybrid technology obselete like 6 month computer technology, that’s laughable! Battery technology will get better and better. Making the electric car better and better. The electric car IS the movement away from fossil fuel. Nobody has built a serial hybrid yet! At the same time, photovoltaic technolgy will make solar energy a viable option for charging batteries for our electric cars. Until anti-gravity travel is invented (and I’m currently hard at work on it in my laboratory) we are destined to use some sort of fossil fuel or electrical energy source to power our vehicles.

By: Ray Villanueva

Ray Villanueva — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 00:31:04 +0000

I’ll take one for 8k!

I’m also thinking of a solar hood, cab, trunk design for my AZ climate.

By: Mikael "Knappen" Therell

Mikael "Knappen" Therell — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 20:29:49 +0000

Serial hybrids are the future. If or when a hydrogen fuel cell is perfected the genset is easily replaced with it. The biggest problem now for the hydrogen fuel cell is its low well-to-wheel efficiency of only 22% compared with the best diesels of 25%. It just takes too much energy to produce hydrogen for it to be environmentally sound. When it can be done with non-polluting energy such as hydro, wave or solar power it will be a better choice.

Knappen

By: EcoWorld - The Global Environmental Community - Nature and Technology in Harmony

EcoWorld - The Global Environmental Community - Nature and Technology in Harmony — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 06:08:20 +0000

[...] What we really were looking for when listening to the GM Chairman Wagoner deliver his keynote in Los Angeles was any indication that GM was going to deliver a serial hybrid car, as rumor has it - read “The Serial Hybrid Car is Here.” [...]

By: Movie review: “Who Killed the Electric Car” - Electric Car Links

Movie review: “Who Killed the Electric Car” - Electric Car Links — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 10:21:56 +0000

[...] Serial Hybrids Are Here!EcoWorld.com, CA - Nov 10, 2006As reported in the Los Angeles Times in a story entitled GM To Present A Modified Electric Car (courant.com) on November 10th, General Motors has … [...]

By: mick

mick — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 09:59:07 +0000

i want one!

By: Ed Ring

Ed Ring — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 21:27:30 +0000

Thomas Johnson: I wholeheartedly agree with your belief that we will see technology provide us with unanticipated solutions to many of our current energy and transportation challenges. A serial hybrid car however is a fairly advanced technology - it depends on new zero emission super-efficient diesel engines to turn the generator, and a battery pack with sufficient energy density to make the whole package have a viable range without requiring an oversized genset. At the same time, the serial hybrid has a far less complex transmission than a parallel hybrid - it will cost less to build and require less maintenance. So what is your vision? Are you saying we’ll have batteries that can get a kilowatt-hour or more per kilogram and charge in minutes, eliminating the need for a genset? Are you suggesting hydrogen fuel cells will actually be perfected? What is your alternative?

By: Roberto DePaschoal

Roberto DePaschoal — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 13:31:30 +0000

I have been mentioning this “new” series hybrid idea (Circa 1905) technology to my pals since I was a teenager with everybody laughing at me. I also have designed a concept for ideal electric traction EVs during the CARB’s “Shootout in the EV corral”, and constantly upgrading them… and nobody cares.

Keep on laughing…

I am pretty sure somebody someday will come up with similar ideas.
Please open http://www.ev-motion and click on Pac-Man EV.

By: Thomas Johnson

Thomas Johnson — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 04:09:03 +0000

With Moore’s law causing computing power to double every year and the exponential growth we now see in science and technology information, the serial hybrid will only be a brief flash in the pan of our movement away from fossil fuel. By the time it hits the streets it will be like our brand new computers-obsolete.