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Hybrid Vehicle Conversion Services?
OverkillTASF asks: "My '94 I6 Jeep Grand Cherokee has once again eaten through a transmission... at 105k miles. For one reason or another, this has led me to the following question: Are there any companies/individuals out there who do hybrid vehicle conversions? I'd like to retrofit my Barbie Jeep with the necessary equipment to eek out 5 more MPG, be a little more environmentally friendly, but still allow me to get where I need to go out here in the sticks? Do such after-market conversion services exist?"
...you'll need to do a lot of the DIY, perhaps just in the configuring. You can always sub out the actual work. You'll be retrofitting the entire drive train, plus adding space for batteries as well if you want any sort of at least minimum range before you are forced to use the fueled engine. What you are contemplating is a self propelled generator basically, with you along for the ride. That is in essence what a hybrid is.
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Here is a generic link to get you going
http://www.evworld.com/
As another poster pointed out, this is a fabulous new industry idea, some places are doing it, but it's still in the mom and pop shop stage most places, sort of like the original mom and pop whitebox shops back in the haydays of making decent money at it.
pure electric conversion kits and links
http://www.electroauto.com/
Now what I think might be a useful idea, one already built at ACPropulsion, is to make the vehicle pure electric, and have the generator part that makes it a hybrid be in a tow behind trailer. Short range, run pure electric, extended range, tow the trailer.
read about that and more info here, these guys know their stuff
http://www.acpropulsion.com/ACP_FAQs/FAQ_products
good luck and do a blog on it, would like to see the project as it unfolds
Why not try biodiesel? If you're thinking about doing a serious conversion project anyway, I suspect that it might be easier to swap in a diesel engine and convert that to biodiesel than to go hybrid.
"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." - H.L. Mencken
First, many diesel cars get considerably better than 35mpg. If most of your driving is on the highway you'll get similar milage out of a hybrid as a diesel but in stop & go traffic the hybrid will win.
Second, diesels tend to be cleaner than gasoline engines in terms of greenhouse gasses but dirtier in terms of particulates.
Cheaper is *the* major factor. Hybrids are way expensive right now.
Cleaner isn't really in there though. Diesels are bad for particulates, and currently there isn't anything forcing people to sort it (although future standards will do).
The ultimate clean engine though would be a diesel-electric hybrid, because the diesel emissions happen at low-efficiency load sites. Run the engine at max efficiency, and you're sorted - this is why trains have been diesel-electric for years, because even with the conversion inefficiencies, the efficiency of diesel at its best point is mindblowing. But the American market won't buy diesel, sadly, due to the disastrous diesels rushed out in the 70s and 80s. Ho hum.
Grab.