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Hybrid Fleet Vehicles
howman writes "This article in the Toronto Star tells of a Canadian company called Azure Dynamics Corp. which has a novel approach to cutting fuel costs and harmful emissions in fleet vehicles. The novelty is not so much in their technology but in the fact that they are hitting the fleet vehicle users market. While Azure doesn't manufacture any of the components, it 'works with the companies that make all the parts for Canada Post's trucks or Purolator's vans - the engines, the chassis, and so on - to convert those vehicles into HEVs.' With an existing and potential client list that includes Purolator, Canada Post, the United States Postal Service and Renault and London Taxi International, it may not be long before you see one of their branded vehicles on a street near you."
only when partenan cells are available will any kind of EV be viable. http://www.europositron.com
There are so many better alternatives now than there were then. This is one of the best I have seen, so maybe it will actually catch on and have enough longevity as an idea to create a cultural change.
Is the emissions from fleet vehicles a significant part of the total? Good, of course, to reduce everything you can, but I doubt that, even if all fleet vehicles had zero emissions, the overall pollution levels would be much reduced.
Fleet vehicles.. if used in town for stop-start-stop then yes this would be a great idea.... but fleet vehicles that are used for open highway?
your greatest increase in economy is by adding a double overdrive gearbox to it. They sell them as aftermarket add-on's for Motorhomes and they can increase a 33 foot motorhome's gas mileage by 20%.
The biggest problem with emissions and fuel economy though is NOT the vehicles but the drivers. if the drivers were careful with their driving economy will go up, but it's more cost effective to push your employees harder and force them to drive inefficently and even break the law.
as for in-town deliveries... I dont understand why a pure-electric vehicle would not be the best choice. they spend more time off then running.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I buy my electricity from 'HydroOttawa'. A lot of people think that it is hydro-electricity they are buying, when really, it is more like 15% hydro. 85% or the power really comes from burning fuels.
Show me some evidence that 85% of the power we get in ontario is from fossel fuels. That sounds like some bullshit to me. Especially considering you say 15% hydro (very low for the ammt of hydro we produce) and do not include nuclear power anywhere in your numbers.
Do not make outrageous claims with inaccurate numbers.
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
I read an article in Discover or Scientifc American (can't remember which!) recently detailing the shift to alternative fuels. Not only is it a challenge to develop applicable technologies that are economical for end users, an even greater challenge will be to develop the infrastructure necessary to support these vehicles. We take for granted that one can stop at a gas station and fill up. If one we're driving a propane-powered vehicle, one would require an appropriate filling station. The answer to this appears to lie in getting large companies to 'buy in' (sorry for the manager speak, lots of meetings this week!) to using alternative fuels and retrofitting their stations for those fuels. When they have taken hold, and enough demand exists, consumer stations can begin to be retrofitted with the necessary equipment to ease consumers into using cars that run on newer fuels.
It's kinda like how you can still buy VHS!
The problem with propane (or natural gas, for that matter) is two-fold:
1) You are still burning nitrogen, which creates NOx emissions (bad).
2) Nonrenewable
Hydrogen and fuel cells are clearly the future. My vision is that some enterprising inventor will come up with a high-density method for storing hydrogen, at which point high-capacity hydrogen batteries will be possible. As I pointed out yesterday, NiMH batteries are just closed loop hydrogen fuel cells. With a high-density hydrogen storage solution, you could have a battery-powered car which could travel several thousand miles between charges, which would likely consist of swapping out the battery pack.
This would work well with out existing infrastructure. Power plants typically idle down to very inefficient ranges during the night time hours. These plants could simply use the excess electrical capacity at night in order to separate hydrogen from water. This hydrogen could be stored in said high-density storage solution and stored in battery packs. These battery packs could be used in all sorts of stuff from automobiles to houses (making note that the "grid" is where most of our energy is consumed today - it is very inefficient).
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Few years back I had a dual fule Oldsmobile and it was working very very well. The fill up were no problem since most of gas stations in Canada do indeed have propane available at all times. Also it was much much cheaper to run a vehicle on propane.
As for your idea of having your own "bulk" tank in the backyard I don't think it is possible. To fill up a car you need to have a certification at least here in Canada.
For the people that say propane is explosive and might be a danger to the public if you have big "bulk" tanks I had a guy show me how to extinguish
fire with liquid propane. It worked. Apparently propane has much higher ignition point then reg gas
it is a lot safer to use. Plus all the tanks in the vehicles have safety devices that will prevent leaks from the tank unless the tank itself is physically damaged.
I find this interesting, where I live (Canada) I actually have trouble thinking of a gas station that does NOT sell propane... the primary role of these filling stations seems to be for barbeque tanks and for motorhome accessories, however this is also where propane vehicles fill...
propane conversions were really popular here in the 80's, but demand has lessened signifigantly, propane conversions are expenzive, and your mileage is less, so even with the signifigantly cheaper cost of propane, you never recover from the initial cost of the conversion unless you put on a LOT of miles. There's also the disadvantage that you can't park in any covered parkade (they're worried about a possible leak as propane is heavier than air and will pool in lowlying areas instead of properly dissipating)...
A large number of taxis still use propane, and some police cars (though they seem to be giving up on it too these days)
Our transit system experimented with natural gas powered busses for a few years, but they gave up on that one too, apparently it took hours to fill the tanks, and the busses were constantly in for service, those that are still on the road are running off of their gasoline tanks only (they were all dual fuel). about the only vehicles I see on the streets on a regular basis that run on natural gas are those owned by our local natural gas supplier, and even they haven't converted their entire fleet.
things aren't looking entirely gloomy for alternative fuels though, just today our transit system released a press release saying they're trialing a diesel-electric hybrid bus... we'll see how that goes...
I think Azure Dynamics ought to seriously look at working with the Toyota Motor Company to develop hybrid-drivetrain technologies for the future.
:-)
It's a good mix, too--Azure has the technology Toyota may not have, and Toyota has probably more experience with hybrid drivetrain vehicles than anyone else in the world, thanks to the successful sales of the Toyota Prius.
I for one would love to see the United States Postal Service eventually phase out its current fleet of small mail-carrying vehicles with ones that use a hybrid drivetrain--we're talking sales that could run into the tens of thousands!
You have to remember that a diesel-electric locomotive is a very large piece of machinery. Even a small yard switcher locomotive is physically larger than any unstretched automobile you find on the streets today.
But with today's technology, a parallel diesel-electric hybrid vehicle could be made quite small indeed. And it will be very clean, especially with the use of sulfur-free diesel fuels and the latest in fuel-delivery and exhaust emission control technology.
I would think that using turbo diesels would be a better solution for most fleets. I can see how inner city buses and taxis might be a good fit for hybrids, and some delivery vehicles that make frequent stops, but other than that I frankly doubt that they provide a better return than a nice efficient turbo diesel.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Trains are in a situation where weight matters much much less than in a car. They can afford the weight difference of having an extra generator in there driven by the diesels. Also, their diesels are much larger, and larger diesels are more efficient. The most efficient internal combusion engine in the world is the size of a small house and runs on diesel fuel. I forget what the application was, though I believe it was on some sort of ship, which makes sense.
Some hybrid vehicles now use a CVT (continuously variable transmission) so they can use the gasoline engine more often, and keep it in its powerband more reliably.
Converting a two wheel drive vehicle to a hybrid is typically relatively trivial; You hook up power to the non-driven wheels. This usually represents only a small engineering challenge. The rest of the problems are fairly well-known today. As I am fond of pointing out, even radio controlled cars do regenerative braking these days, and it does make a significant difference in runtime. It's probably a bigger challenge to try to find someplace to put the batteries :)
Incidentally, they do have semi-trucks with automatic transmissions and they usually don't have many gears. However, they are lossy during acceleration as are all automatic transmissions. They probably do have a lockup torque converter, however, so once they get going they should be approximately as efficient as a manual gearbox.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yeah - that's the other problem. These bastard automakers don't make enough to go around. I've had my eye on either a Prius or a Honda Insight for quite some time. None of the Toyota or Honda dealerships around here has one nor do they have plans to get one. So I can't test drive the car. They'll order one if I buy, but I won't buy a car without a good test drive. And it's the same line: "It could take 6 months to a year to get it in."
How do you expect people to actually use these vehicles if you can't test drive them and have to jump through hoops and wait a year to buy one? Most car purchases are impulse. If you want people to use these vehicles you need to get them sitting on dealer's lots so we can come by and go, "Ohh, shiny."
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
In America, but tomorrow it might be nuclear, solar power, wind turbine, geothermal etc. Denmark for instance gets 10% of it's power from wind energy.
With a battery powered vehicle you can switch the supply to another generation platform by sticking a solar panel on the roof of your house and flicking a switch. Can't do that with Petrol, ethanol, methanol, hydrogen.
Deleted
I was watching Motorweek the other day on PBS, and they were running a segment on hybrids. Several companies were designing heavy trucks (think diesel platforms for garbage trucks and buses) that used high and low pressure hydraulic tanks to store and then release energy generated by the engine during operation. This enables the truck to avoid idling the engine at stops (similar to an electric hybrid) and allows the truck to get up to speed (hydraulic launch assist) based on the hydraulic pump (which is coupled to the driveshaft, similar to a motor) before kicking in the diesel engine. When operating or braking, fluid stored in the low pressure tank is pumped back into the high pressure tank (each tank is filled with nitrogen gas - that's what is being compressed to store energy.) When starting up from a stop or accelerating, the gas is used to shunt hydraulic fluid through the pump to spin the driveshaft.
Hydraulic hybrids.