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Asking Slashdot: Converting an SUV Into an Hybrid Diesel-Electric?
joaommp writes "So, my team has started a project to convert an SUV into an hybrid diesel-electric vehicle — basically, an electric vehicle with a diesel engine working as a range extender. We've now setup a campaign on Indiegogo to help with the project costs (we are a non-profit team) and later we'd like to, if the project is successful, be able to provide conversion kits and additional kits for elements of the transformation, like the HUD, for example. Why an SUV conversion? Because a lot of people like SUVs (sense of safety, overcompensation, etc) but they're un-economic and environment unfriendly. I'd like to ask all slashdotters if they have any advice or tips for this project. We already have the project well defined but more input is greatly appreciated before we begin tearing apart the beast. So, if you could help providing additional advice and information, it would be awesome."
Back around 1900, there was a NY times editorial. The author did some quick calculations and found that at the current rate of growth of traffic that by the year 1920, the streets of NY would be 6' deep in horse manure. Their solution was that the city needed to hire more people to clean the streets.
Just duct tape a Prius to each wheel.
Doctor, I don't like to exercise and I know eating 5,000 calories a day is bad for me.
Can you give me a pill to so I can continue eating bad but will have a thin body of a super model?
(1) The 3-cylinder version gets around 85mpg on the highway. Of course with the greater air resistance of an SUV, so you might have to use a 4-cylinder version which burns more fuel, but that's still a huge improvement.
(2) Supplement the tiny engine with an electric motor to give extra bursts of power, such as when accelerating. Basically the Honda model.
(3) Dump the SUV, because it's a highly-inefficient form factor. Nobody needs an SUV unless they own a carpentry business and carry stuff with them all day long. A car is a better aerodynamic shape. My generation never had SUVs (not invented yet), and yet my parents were able to get us to the soccer games just fine with their 4-door sedan.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Making it a hybrid does nothing for fuel economy *unless it is driven frequently in stop/start traffic*. If you are planning to idle this thing across Manhattan, go for it.
It still requires the same fuel to accelerate the big fat mass and to push it through air at speed, making it a hybrid for road miles is useless.
The cost of a modern direct injected diesel already adds ~$5000 to the price of a vehicle over a "comparable" gas engine, at $4/gallon gas and $4.50/gallon diesel that works out to ~200k miles to break even. Now you add the cost of the hybrid components and you will never recoup the cost. GM's approach with eAssist is much better, add ~$1,500 to the cost of every vehicle sold but improve fleet economy by ~30%, you have a larger economic and environmental impact by taking the incremental approach.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
While there are many vanity reasons to buy an SUV, there is a large utility part on most of them - towing capacity like a truck. If you have to combine the family vehicle with towing (camping trailer, boat, ATVs etc), the SUV is your only option aside from even less economic crew-sized trucks. So when you size your electric drive units, make sure they can meet the towing requirements to be competitive outside the vanity market.
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
Don't make insulting assumptions about the mindset your target market. That's always a good start.
Well you could always contact these guys for tips. They seem to know what they were doing.
./R My blog
It provides ever so much space in the back for a really, really long extension cord.
When I was in university we participated in a competition sponsored by Ford called "FutureTruck" (http://www.transportation.anl.gov/competitions/futuretruck.html) Teams were given a Ford Explorer (truck?) and asked to "improve" it however they saw fit. Most of the teams put in home-made hybrid conversions. some did alt fuels (hydrogen etc). Our team installed a series diesel electric hybrid system using a VW Turbodiesel engine, a tailrotor generator from a 737, a series wound DC motor from a forklift and a big bank of lead-acid batteries. There are LOTs of sources for EV parts and drivetrain design. The biggest challenge for our team was the controls. Isolating the drivetrain loading from the generator loading proved to be extremely tricky. A couple of students with Masters degrees in control theory were just barely able to make the system stable, much less efficient. You're in for a fun project, but a lot of work!
Go away and make your advertisement somewhere else.
When dealing with electric vehicles, the problem isn't the "vehicle" part, it's weight, wind-resistance, and battery technology. So, if you're a gear-head, you're probably approaching this backwards.
I've driven 100% electric vehicles for eleven years, and the complexity (as the Tesla folks will tell you) is getting enough electrons into the battery faster enough a) without overheating the battery; and b) without stressing the battery chemistry. This is the problem that (continues to be) worked on by cell-phone, laptop, etc., hardware companies.
So your HUD may be fun, but make sure you've got smart guys working on the battery side.
On the plus side, you're absolutely correct: getting the gas-guzzlers to improve MPG is vastly better (more effective) than getting another 10% out of a Prius.
Good luck!
Well I say, fairplay to you if you can do it. I agree with some of the points though in the fact SUV`s are designed as hefty vehicles. They are for towing etc. I`m not sure you could pull of the power aspect of an SUV with a hybrid engine. If you do great, need more ideas like this in the word....
but a SUV will never become environment friendly.
Its a neat project, but honestly, I do not see many people purchasing such a kit. They will go buy a crossover instead.
Go get a car blog like Jalopnik to do a post on it. You'll get plenty of opinions. They'll know vehicles better than most people here.
It really bothers me when people use Ask Slashdot to get free advice that they'll later use to make money. Do you know what the R in R&D stands for??
Invariably, the greenie perspective will rise up in this thread. Here's the most common ones, and a summary of their replies. Think of this as a table of contents for this thread...
"SUVs are the work of the devil!"
The argument will be that you should drive a smaller car. Then someone else will chime in that you should drive a sub-compact. Then someone else will say that's stupid because what if you need the space. Then yet another person will say you should consider public transportation. Then That Bicyclist Guy will chime in and say his is the greenest solution. Anonymous Coward will then pop in and note that we should all move to communes and engage in purity chanting as our principle form of entertainment. He will be modded -1, funny.
"You should just go all-electric!"
Another classic greenie argument. And therein, discussions of carbon offsets, pollution caused by power plants, and the practical problem of limited range will be had, with much stomping of feet, and occasional use of caps lock. Everybody in the replies will be both right and wrong -- hopefully someone notes that it's the overlap between environmentally-friendly and economically-viable is frightfully small and that's the real problem.
"Diesel is even worse than gas!"
The engineers will tear the poor bastards that say this apart. Diesel is actually cleaner, and people far better than I at explaining the particulars of this will enjoy going into great detail and accumulating many +5, informative comments in the process. Europe will be mentioned; along with vaguely disparaging remarks as to the nationality of the original poster (damn americans -- Why u no diesel?)
Finally, there will be only a small handful of posts that actually talk about the conversion process itself. I'll just go ahead and throw my gas on the fire and suggest a microturbine with a (very) large capacitor, which is how freight trains work. *ducks* Enjoy!
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
On the surface this seems like a great idea.
But once you look at the numbers for energy conversions, it is actually more efficient to mechanically couple an ICE to the wheels than to use it as a generator and run an EV motor.
This is the reason the Chevy Volt has a mechanical coupling to the wheels, when driving on the highway in Range extender mode.
It gets even worse if you start putting power into the batteries from the generator.
All of the problems faced by guys doing conversions of GEO Metros are multiplied directly in relation to the weight of the vehicle.
Don't waste your time with a SUV.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Actually the better reason for converting an SUV is the total benefit.
A x% reduction in a large SUV is going to be a larger energy savings than in a small car.
I sure hope you have someone with a good knowledge of electric motors and drive circuits, this is NOT trivial.
Decent acceleration will require a LOT of power.
The problem with SUVs are the mass and aerodynamics, neither of which get fixed. Look at the piss-poor mileage of the very sophisticated Escalade hybrid design.
The Escalade hybrid gets 20 city/23 highway, while the normal gets 14/18. So throwing all the sophisticated technology possible at a big SUV still only gets you to ~20 MPG.
Let alone the cost of batteries, generator, and motors necessary to drive said big-A#@)( SUV, a hybrid conversion would be a total loser...
Test your net with Netalyzr
into an into an into an
That is not the end of the story. Engines have an operating point at which they are most efficient. If you couple the engine to a generator/battery system, you can use the engine ONLY in this mode, while a mechanical coupling to the wheels requires operation of the engine at lower efficiencies. Perhaps this does not outweigh the losses of the generator/battery/motor train, but I wonder if if might with an engine that was a completely new design aimed at single-mode operation.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I think the French made a compressed air engine, and put one in a small suv/mini van. Compressed air at most gas stations is 50cents. http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/vehicles/air-car1.htm
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
http://www.regtech.com/Radmax_Technology/
As I understand it, you want to use a diesel engine to recharge the batteries and extend the range of the electric vehicle. Have you considered using a turbine instead an internal combustion engine for the range extender? . A constant speed turbine running a power generator should be more efficient than an ICE and should be lighter also. Plus you will get a very cool sound for your vehicle . Good luck
A regular 4-door car is much safer than an SUV, because it is much less likely to roll over, and can make sharp emergency turns and keep on going (upside up).
It's easier and cheaper to just slap a 1$ "Experimental Hybrid Electric" sticker on your Yukon instead of replacing the motor. For the price of a donut every Prius driver will give you the thumbs up and let you cut in front of them, instead of giving you a different finger up. People are pretty gullible. (You can get the same effect with a free 'Obama 2012' sticker but the F350's might run you off the road; *everybody* loves experimental cars)
Check out: http://www.diyelectriccar.com/
Huge resource and forum for converting a gas vehicle to electric. I converted a Triumph Spitfire to full electric with their help.
Will it run on bio deisel "out of the box" or will it require a conversion kit or add on package? Bio deisel would make it "greener" and might be a selling point.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
1) Don't use hub motors.
2) DON'T USE HUB MOTORS. Really. They're elegant, they hide away in the wheels, they're an immensely cool idea. They're also hilariously inefficient compared to 'normal' motors, difficult as hell to gear, very damage prone, and massively increase the unsprung mass for each wheel. And have to pretty much be custom made for each wheel layout, so are very expensive.
3) Use a high charge/discharge rate battery, or large capacitor. Run the motors directly off this bank, so it needs to be able to get the vehicle going and keep it going for a few miles. The gennie is hooked to the battery/cap, and will cut in whenever it starts to discharge, and stops when the discharging stops and the batt/cap is full again (you could segment the batt/cap bank and cycle through them to make the charge/discharge circuity easier to handle). This allows the gennie to run at one speed only (and never need to idle), and thus can be made even more efficient than if it had to be throttled or geared and be only reasonably efficient over a range. This also opens up a lightweight (though more expensive) turbine gennie as well as the traditional piston-diesel. It also means your battery/capacitor bank doesn't need to be especially large, thus cutting down on cost significantly.
Back in the old days, there were these things called Station Wagons. People who had more than 2 kids used them to carry stuff and people back and forth.
As time goes on, Station wagons were un-cool as Drive-in makeout sessions gone the way of the dodo. But, people still want to carry their assorted off springs and general excess stuff.
In response, they bought these vehicles that looked like Station Wagons, albeit with a slightly shorter hood, with jacked up suspension, and larger tires. Rather than calling them station wagons, a new term was necessary. So the Sport Utility Vehicles were born. All was well in the kingdom of men.
The efficiency of diesel engines is quite close to the theoretical optimium these days, and this is over a wide range of operating conditions. You cannot really improve the efficiency by replacing simple mechanical components connecting the engine with the wheels by something that burns energy unnecessarily (charging/discharging/generator-vs-electrical motor) and adds lots of mass.
As range extender a gasoline engine (including one buring natural gas, H2, or similar fuel) is sufficient. Optimize for a single operation point, and done. More light-weight, much cheaper, and especially easier to get the emissions down (not CO2, but especially those other evil parts of the emissions, which to decrease usually additional fuel is required).
If you want to go electric, you have to change paradigm, a car is far too heavy to get any efficient milage out of an electrically powered engine. Sell the SUV and buy a light vehicle like a bike.
If cost and time is of essense, use the diesel engine mated to a high gear and run it at 10% higher than peak torque starts.
Use this as a generator, to charge your batteries. Let the driving be handles with electric only. So think of it as an electric car with a diesel genset for charge in the boot.
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People get to hung up on increasing the fuel economy of their small car by another 2mpg. That isn't where the savings are needed. The savings are needed in larger vehicles that real people who don't drive econo boxes like to drive. Vehicles like suv's, trucks and mini-vans that too often struggle to even get 20 mpg.
A 2mpg increase for an SUV is much more relevant than a 2mpg increase for a prius or a cruze. If you really want to be effective go after vehicles like garbage trucks, they only get 2mpg to begin with.
And one really big hint, if you want people who drive large vehicles to improve the fuel economy of the vehicles that they drive. Quit antagonizing them and try meeting their perceived needs without judging them for how they perceive their needs. For some reason people seem to think that antagonizing people is a great way to get them to change their view on things like their choice in vehicles. /drives a low emission car and was driving very high mpg cars for years before they politically correct.
There are two types of range extension:
1) Continue to drive normally for a couple hundred miles
2) Limp along at reduced speed until you get to a charge station
#1 is the ideal solution, but much harder to do.
#2 would let you use more of your weight and space budget for batteries and motor. Not a great solution when you might only get 10HP. But you can at least alleviate "range anxiety" and off-the-shelf AC systems can be found for $1-2k (wire it straight to your charging system?).
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
In doing this conversion, you will probably add significant weight to the vehicle. In order to make your powertrain conversion have a greater success, do everything you can to lighten the weight of the vehicle. I'm not talking about stupid things like removing the airbag to save a few pounds, but SUVs in particular are so overburdened with needless crap that you should be able to cut the curb weight by 100-200 pounds (before changing the powertrain) - at least several percent, or the equivalent of an extra passenger. If you can add a panel that covers the undercarraige, it will drastically improve the air resistance at highway speeds. Yes, it will reduce the ground clearance a bit, but most SUV owners don't actually need any more ground clearance than typical compact car. To that end, you might also consider lowering the suspension.
- Batteries are rubbish at storing energy compared to fossils, so replacing loadsa batteries with a fossil-powered generator is actually not a bad idea for giving range & quick "recharge" (refuel).
- The power needed to accelerate a vehicle is many times that needed to keep moving, if the battery can pick up the slack during these brief peaks then you can use a much smaller engine/generator than the original motor to run the thing.
- Making "flexible" engines is a compromise. Car engines have to work across a broad operating range, which is not so easy as making an engine that is good at one constant speed, hence why static/generator engines have a very different power curve (everything arrives at or around their operating point, say 1500rpm, and nothing much outside of that). The suggestion of using a 3cyl Lupo engine is good, but you may get even better economy from a dedicated generator lump.
Someone said that direct mechanical coupling (engine-gearbox-wheels) is much more efficient than engine->generator->elec.motor->wheels, however if you take the average yank SUV into account (big auto box & 4WD transfer case in the way) you may not be that far away. If you can go to wheel motors and cut out the propshafts & axle diffs then all the better.
That's about the extent of what I know on the subject, but don't let the naysayers in comments tell you it's dumb. Also check out SimonR's electric freelander (small SUV) on LR4x4.com as an example of a DIY electric car build.
There is no music - home taping killed it.
SUVs will be more useful in 10 years then they are now because most High-Tech centers in the USA have transit channels operating at 100% or over. Presently most SUV use is divided 70/30 between single person use and multiperson usage. And this is so despite all the protestations that SUVs are used primarily to drive kids to school,soccer, whatever. In the next ten years, SUV use will shift from primarily 'single driver in a status vehicle' to a car-pooling tool that takes workers on pre-planned home-to-work-to-home trips. Pre-organized commutes are the only under-utilized transportation channel available in most American high-tech areas. Public transit is packed and highways are jammed to near-standstill with single-occupant autos. If high-tech cities are going to continue to grow, especially with the idiotic American pattern of having affordable housing outside of the personal-transit (walk.bicycle.local bus) range, then pre-arranged car-pooling using SUVs is the only option.
But it's total green-wash to rebuild a standard SUV engine into a Hybrid. It's just stupid. Better to get serious and just buy your next SUV with a factory-designed and engineered Hybrid engine. When resource management becomes serious, and it will when gasoline reaches $8-$10 a gallon within ten years due to the disruptions of peak-oil, then you don't get any green 'brownie-points' for expensive projects that basically just symbolic in their nature. Like converting a 2010-era old stupid SUV into an semi-electric vehicle.
Upon completion of the conversion, the SUV would promptly run into the nearest building or off the nearest cliff at high speed. I know this is true from all the media stories with headlines like, "SUV Runs Off Road, Crashes Into Building." Because, as all reporters know, SUVs are sentient and evil.
First, classical body-on-frame, or a unibody crossover? Next, do you want it to be 4WD when you're done?
The easy way is to replace the internal combustion motor with an electric one, preserving the existing driveshaft, transfer case, transmission, etc.
If you're up to the harder method though: rip out ALL of the existing drivetrain. If it's an independent suspension crossover you can even lose the axles and go with one motor per wheel. If it's a truck-style one you will probably need to keep at least the rear axle, but you could mount the motor right up to the differential, likely with a reduction gear. Do the same thing on the front if you want 4WD.
On a body-on-frame SUV, this might clear enough room between the frame rails to fill in battery packs. Unibody models might not be so lucky.
If you want it to be good 4WD, actively proportion the torque between axles or wheels (depending on 2 or 4 motors). If one axle / wheel goes significantly faster, reduce power and redirect it to the others. It won't be quite as capable as real diff lockers, but it won't get stuck nearly as easily as AWD (three open diffs) which can't keep going when one wheel loses grip.
Consider where you want your weight - more batteries or more engine. I would love to see this done with a "more batteries" approach - full electric running for 40-60 miles then running a small engine fairly hard for extended range, but which is never required for in-town use (IE, like a Volt), instead of a large engine and small batteries where the electric assist just improves the fuel efficiency (Prius). The batteries cost more, but it would make this conversion much more interesting to me.
Yes, you need something to extend range, but it should be a small, efficient diesel generator, not a double-clutch, computer-controlled monstrosity like the Prius. The concept has been working since the early 20th century on locomotives. The Diesel in the locomotive is a generator, nothing more. WHY NOT DO IT WITH YOUR SUV?
Your choice of platform will affect engine, and your choice of engine will affect platform. Also, you choice of battery will affect platform, and the weight will affect engine.
In other words, you need to figure out, first and foremost, what you're going to move. People, cargo/weight in the vehicle, and towing. Then you need to figure out what existing platforms support this capacity, bearing in mind the added weight of a diesel engine (as 50% over conventional) and batteries.
If I were doing this I'd look for a small SUV with a ladder frame, like an older 4Runner or Pathfinder, I'd body-lift it from the frame like the 4wd enthusiasts do, and then I'd build battery boxes to go around the frame. I'd beef up the front suspension to handle the weight of the engine and batteries, and I'd beef up the rear suspension to handle the batteries. As the Pathfinder is based on the Hardbody, and the 4Runner is based on the Hilux, I'd look for a "one ton" or "heavy duty" version of these trucks to source suspension and axles from. I'd switch to LT tires from P tires, and I'd add bigger antisway bars.\
I'll leave it your job to figure out how to make the hybrid stuff work electrically and mechanically, and how to get the engine to pass an emissions test.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Big solar panels on the roof for recharge while in a parking lot. I'd wager 90% of the use of SUVs is to go to work and back (average 15 miles), with a 9 hour downtime, typically in a sunlit parking lot. They should be a type that has a high function with variable angles, as they are likely to lay flat all the time (look into fresnel lens design)
Consider computer control on 2-4 electric motors in an AWD type system. This eliminates the need for differentials.
Consider small turbine engine for nondirect drive. they are inefficient at direct drive but can be more efficient at a constant velocity than a piston engine, and are much lighter. This can provide a constant charge, as well as possibly intake and exhaust thrust.
So I assume you've already contact the DoE for whatever materials they have from their Future Truck competition?
(as some of the teams were awarded grants, I assume there'd be some sort of documentation about how they achieved the improvements, so you could see if they're changes that the automobile manufacturers have already put into production models, or if there's some additional enhancements to be done.)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
It was CAFE, not style.
So, if you could help providing additional advice and information, it would be awesome.
How did this make the front page of /.? It's not news or even a vaguely new idea.
Converting an SUV, or just about any fossil fuel vehicle to an EV is well understood. There are kits available for a good number of cars.
There's a lot of information here: http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/ read it all. It will explain how to choose a good donor vehicle. An SUV might work, but choose a light one, preferably aerodynamic. Small (S10,ranger,etc.) pickup trucks are popular because you have carrying capacity for batteries (often under the bed).
Adding a range extender is extremely difficult, depending on how you do it. A generator charging the batteries is easy, but hopeless ineffiicient (and you need a big generator). Driving the wheels with either the existing engine, or the electric motor is do-able, but non-trivial and either solution has the weight of the electric drive-chain plus batteries and the fossil fuel drive chain.
If you really want some advice, convert a small car, or SUV to all-electric and develop a "pusher" trailer with a diesel or gas engine that you can hook up for longer journeys. There are already DIY and commercial plans for such trailers.
$50,000 is also excessive. Conversion kits run about $10K, add $10K of Lithiums, $20K if you choose something heavy and want a realistic range. Even if you start with a $10K donor your still not at $50K.
ok: i've been working on designs for hybrid electric vehicles for some time; i have a 1st prototype project underway at about 30% completion, and am planning the 2nd and 3rd vehicles already. the 2nd and 3rd vehicles will be a saloon and an SUV, respectively, but critically they will be *from the ground up custom built*. there will *NOT* be a *SINGLE* piece of the original chassis used.
why is that? well, it's very simple: they're far too heavy. you're starting from a 2,000kg vehicle where all the parts are designed to transport a 2,000kg vehicle. google "mass decompounding", and you'll find out more about the concept. look up how much fuel is needed *just* to overcome rolling resistance because of the heavier vehicle. it's absolutely insane.
unfortunately, as i've just found out from the 1st prototype, even if you use a 750kg vehicle (a suzuki swift aka "geo metro" in the US), the weight of the four wheels, their brakes and the steering assembly are all a significant fraction of the target weight of 350kg.
so i have instead been looking around for "quad bike cars" - aka "microcars" as donor vehicles. the parts on those are *much* more suited for use in a hybrid electric vehicle. apart from anything, you will *automatically* get better fuel economy simply because of the lower weight.
so what i recommend that you do is to get one of those "microcars", chuck away all the plastic (or fibreglass) bodywork, and then make your own (large) geodesic bodywork *from scratch*, and cover the entire thing with either canvas or dacron (sail cloth). there's a web site online about a guy who makes single-person canoes weighing *less* than a carbon fibre one, out of dacron and a wooden geodesic frame strengthened diagonally with kevlar strips. pure genius.
and because you're making the bodywork from scratch, it'll be possible for you to literally make the vehicle as large as you like. and, because it's made of 1mm or 1.2mm tubular steel in a geodesic frame, it's easy to make (and repair), it's strong, and it's light-weight.
regarding the powertrain: i too originally was going to go for a series hybrid powertrain. but then it occurred to me that that is ridiculous. you have a 240v AC generator comprising a diesel motor and a generator. then you have some quite expensive electronics to convert 240v AC mains down to the DC voltage for charging the batteries. then you have a motor controller, which is also expensive, and then you have *another* electric motor! oh, and then a gearbox.
so the drivetrain i finally settled on (for the 2nd and 3rd prototypes) is a parallel hybrid, out of nothing more than a diesel engine, a clutch, a CVT gearbox (from the donor microcar) and an electric motor. the diesel motor will be connected to a double-ended output shaft from the electric motor, via a clutch. there will be *no* starter-motor (again, saving weight) because you simply disengage the clutch, effectively using what most people call a "push start", and the diesel will kick in. it'll need a bit of computer-control to compensate for the back-lash from the clutch, but that's just software.
this rather crude lash-up is all that distinguishes a series hybrid from a parallel one, but it saves enormously on both the overall cost (measured in thousands of dollars) as well as the weight, which again translates into a cost saving due to not having to lug vast lumps of metal around.
the message should therefore be coming through loud and clear. don't for fuck's sake start from a pre-existing SUV. if you've bought one already, do the planet a favour and scrap it, because there's nothing on the vehicle that is of any use to you in achieving anything *remotely* resembling a fuel-efficiency saving or carbon emissions reductions. if you don't follow my advice, you will find out *why* you should have listened, which is probably a much better lesson for you. i won't say that you will have wasted everyone's money on indiegogo, because you won't have: they too will have learned an incredi
Sell the SUV and buy a modern subcompact. You'll get better results than your eSUV idea.
This "conversion kit" you want to build is missing the core problem, which you describe in your initial paragraphs: people needlessly buy an SUV when they don't need it.
Electric-based transportation needs more than a little motor and a battery. You need an entire charging infrastructure, commonly-available parts, service expertise, etc. All this is much harder than simply asking people to drive less or drive a smaller vehicle. Your "kit" will mostly just confuse people initially or eventually as they manage this large pile of new technology that will be obsolete before the vehicle is end-of-life'd.
Then again, you may let the market decide, and once insurance companies & governments are tired of paying for environmental impact of massive carbon dumping, they may push for lower-carbon outlets, which eventually makes its way to market bias towards your idea. By then, however, we'll be driving super-light electric vehicles on more-efficient surfaces with a standardized battery form-factor and repair/replace bays all over the landscape.
Not only am I declining to contribute, I'm asking you to abandon this silly project. You are just making landfill.
I'd care about this if it was Solar powered.
Your Prious cancels out my 96 F350.
You're building a death tent.
CAFE standards had a lot to do with the death of the station wagon and ascent of the the SUV.
It's more than just that. In the hybrid model with direct coupling, you've got losses between the ICE and the wheels for: driveshaft, universal gears, differential gears, transmission, the coupling to the electric drive, etc.
The most-efficient mode of operation is this: You put a direct drive electric motor in each of the 4 wheel hubs. These need no gearing, they can go from 0 - reasonable mph just with their natural RPM range. They can also regeneratively brake the car harder than conventional brakes, and do a better job than traditional ABS in skid situations with smart software (although you still need hardware emergency brakes). Then you run, as the parent noted, a *fixed* RPM very small ICE off in the trunk whose sole purpose is to extend battery range as a generator. By operating at a fixed RPM at peak efficiency, and not dealing with all of the drivetrain loss issues, it really is more efficient.
This model has been done many times as one-off concept cars, but the costs (mostly, of the 4x in-wheel motors) are prohibitive at this time for mass production consumer markets, and the software still needs some work I imagine. I think a successful commercial model would probably have the (very small, we're talking almost lawnmower-engine size) ICE in the trunk be an unpluggable and removeable generator unit, to save weight when you don't need it.
Then you've got a hyper-efficient all electric for short range on wall-recharged batteries, and you plop the ICE generator in the back for extended trips where you can refuel the tiny gas tank every several hundred miles to keep trekking across country. It really works, it's just not quite yet cheap enough to mass produce.
If you're going to use a gas engine as a RE, then just use a wave disc engine full-time.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Why support such a project when the person in charge seems to think so low of SUVs or their owners?
A friend's project, with pics.
mark
But that significantly increases mechanical complexity, cost and weight. If extended range is not required very often the benefits of simplicity may well outweigh the loss in efficiency during a small portion of the operation of the machine.
You're doing your hybrid wrong. Using batteries as your primary source of power will drastically reduce efficiency.
A better whole-system efficiency method would be to have a diesel turbine which primarily drives electric per-wheel motors, with batteries serving as your 'boost'. The diesel turbine would ideally be provisioned to provide enough power for highway cruising speeds while generating additional 'top-off' power, and would run at all times at a constant, efficient RPM, with over current being fed to the batteries. The braking would be reactive, and take-off power would pull from your batteries for additional torque.
By doing it this way, you could optionally use the turbine to 'top off' your batteries as you describe, but your whole system design would be more efficient, running from mechanically generated AC from the alternators first, and the batteries second.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
That is not the end of the story. Engines have an operating point at which they are most efficient. If you couple the engine to a generator/battery system, you can use the engine ONLY in this mode, while a mechanical coupling to the wheels requires operation of the engine at lower efficiencies. Perhaps this does not outweigh the losses of the generator/battery/motor train, but I wonder if if might with an engine that was a completely new design aimed at single-mode operation.
Again, that is another idea that has more surface appeal than any real depth.
Engines don't have some super efficient peak where you can make up this difference, what they do have is a small trough, of low efficiency, usually at very low load. At highway speeds they are in the efficient range, so you gain no advantage there at all. It is more for low speed stop n go, where standard hybrids already do an excellent job of keeping cars out of the low efficiency trough, that you might get some small advantage.
The Volt and the Fisker Karma are two cars that offer a bit of a case study. Two companies with much larger resources (Money, PHDs etc) than some enthusiasts tackled this problem.
GM engineered in a mechanical coupling despite the additional cost/complexity because of the efficiency payoff. They get 37 MPG in RE mode.
Fisker with less resources took the pure series shortcut. They get only 20 MPG out of a GM Turbo 4 Cyl. That is worse than massive V8 in a Corvette.
The resources of this project are minuscule compared even to Fisker, and the results can reasonably be expected to be even worse (if actually ever gets finished).
Once you dig into it, pure series hybrid cars are really not a good idea.
Go in style
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Jeep Wagons (and Wagoneers and Cherokees), the Suburban, Toyota's Land Cruiser, multiple Land Rover models, International Harvester's Scout, the Dodge Powerwagon, and others date back to before most folks on /. were born. Usually these vehicles were categorized by the label "4x4" or "Station Wagon" but they match pretty much every aspect of what people today in the US look for when they hear the term "SUV."
What was invented in the 80s was the term "Sport Utility Vehicle" and nothing more. It wasn't invented as a class of a new type of vehicle but a new label under which it was convenient to group existing vehicles.
Such as a turbine?
In all seriousness, the Prius and the Volt circumvent this issue by coupling the ICE to the road via a planetary gear-set, which allows variable gearing thus allowing the ICE to run at more efficient load/rpm points than a direct fixed coupling.
The original comment is correct in general though, 0.3*0.95*0.95 > 0.3*0,95*0.95*0.95*0.95.
Given most SUV drivers are women are you saying they drive these super-sized urban assault vehicles to compensate for their:
a) smallish breasts?
b) low sex drive?
c) hatred of men, or at least the latest man in their life?
d) all of the above?
And you probably thought when the previous poster child said "overcompensate" he/she/it was referring to a man. Typical stereotype that must be eliminated in a society allegedly based on equality.
The Escalade hybrid gets 20 city/23 highway, while the normal gets 14/18. So throwing all the sophisticated technology possible at a big SUV still only gets you to ~20 MPG.
Which works out to about a 26% fuel savings, assuming same number of miles driven (not necessarily a safe assumption). Going from 30 MPH to 40 MPH only gives you a 25% fuel savings. The math is not particularly intuitive when fuel economy is expressed in MPG, but small changes in economy of less fuel efficient cars can have greater effect than bigger changes in economy of more fuel efficient cars - even when, as in my example, the change made to the more fuel efficient car is a greater relative, as well as absolute, change.
'Single-mode operation' was what the Volt was originally supposed to be, until they realized that it just doesn't work in reality.
The 4-wheel electric motor design, iirc, has issues with suspension/unsprung weight.
Overall, it's not a bad idea. But there are a LOT of things that you have to be concerned with.
First off, forget the fact that you're going to have to pass NCAP/IIHS/FMVSS (especially FMVSS 214).
What SUV are you starting off with?
Are you going to be using AVL Advisor/MATLAB/Simulink for the drive/hybrid controls development?
Who's going to be in charge of your vehicle body and chassis group? Who's going to be in charge of your suspension group.
There's actually a LOT of that goes into hybrid vehicle design and engineering. Conversion processes are probably the worst because you have the added the challenge of limiting what you can and can't change. And the fact that you also can't spend millions in tooling costs the way that OEMs and Tier 1s can. (The company that I work for now makes the frames for the GMT900/K2XX SUV frames.)
Make ABSOLUTELY sure that you're going to update your roll and instant centers in your new vehicle dynamics model. If you're going to use a RBD or a MBD program like MSC.Adams, be VERY careful what you put in. (I've ran into a lot of issues where the data that comes out of that is totally garage).
Make sure you run your vehicle level CFD to ensure that the batteries and EV components have sufficient cooling.
Make sure that you run your FEA to make sure that your chassis frame can still support the extra weight.
Get yourself four wheel-mounted torque sensors and accelerometers, a few really BIG hard drives, and a ton of data acquisition equipment to make sure that the new added masses isn't going to crack the welds on your frame. (Some of your bodymounts might be close.)
Re-run all of your permanent set analyses to make sure that you're not going to bend something so out of whack (progressively) that you won't be able to get it out when it breaks.
Are you doing a parallel hybrid? Series hybrid? Parallel-series hybrid?
I've converted an entire city bus before...and like I said, conversions are the hardest.
It will never sell worth a damn in the US. Hopefully, that isn't your target, but it's worth noting just in case. The average US consumer still thinks of the terrible Diesel sedans made by the big three in the 70s and 80s when they think of Diesel, and everything that was terrible about them. The notion of Diesel as clean, reliable, and efficient has never entered the thoughts of most US consumers.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
It's easier, more effective and environmentally friendly than "converting".
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
1st You understand that Hybrids with regen braking makes more sense in SUV's look at the Chevy hybrid trucks awesome gains for in town milage.
Why reinvent that wheel, if your going to do this look at Natural gas instead of Diesel.... Look at turbines on constant velocity driving a generator... These all make more sense then what you are proposing...
---In a time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey.
Where are my mod points when I need them damnit!?
Many of the problems associated with a heat engine operating a vehicle are not prolbems with electric. You don't require elastic busings at every corner to deal with expansion, and vibration. It's such a different platfrom that an electric vehicle really doesn't have much use as a ICE or vice versa. That is the problem with Detroit's approach to alternative energy methods. They just want an easy excuse to slap something straight into a former ICE platform. That way they can continue to use their existing technology. New alterntaive energy vehicles don't resemble ICE vehicles underneath the hood.
SUVs existed well before the term was invented in the 80s. The Chevy Suburban is a great example. It was basically designed as a station wagon built on a commercial truck frame, precisely the attribute that you're saying it lacks.
8th generation Suburbans (offered from the early seventies through the eighties and into the nineties) came in half ton, three quarter ton, and one ton models depending on the type of truck chassis that they were built on. With a two ton curb weight and two axles, the half ton and three quarter ton models fit the federal definition of a light truck.
Gas turbine tech has been in the news for some time. Some big name mfrs (eg India's TATA) have bought into companies building this tech.
The problem with gas turbine is that its most efficient at peak RPM, and this makes them expensive to construct. However, efficiency is excellent.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
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Steve Wozniak and Buzz Aldrin has a similar project on the go...
They've converted an H1 Hummer to a diesel electric hybrid system. It uses a 3.2L GEP Optimizer 3200 engine powering a generator, with a large battery pack and 100% duty cycle motors for the front and rear differentials. The thing sits on matt tracks and will be going on an expedition to Antarctica.
That being said, and looking at the component costs, the $50,000 fund raiser isn't enough money to do it.
When daughter was born, wanted to find a '69 Impala Wagon, with the pop up top and narrow windows all the way around. They frequently came with big block engines and it's real easy to get 450-500 HP out of those.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Just buy an engine for the new Volvo V60 Diesel-Hybrid and swap the engine on your SUV.
Hi, this is something (that as an Excursion owner and physicist:-) I've often thought about. The solution, however, is not to build a hybrid electric-diesel engine. It is to build a gasoline-gasoline OR diesel-diesel hybrid. The technology for doing this has been around forever, but sadly, nobody has implemented it. Here's how it works.
If you actually own one of these vehicles, you know that there are three dominant sources of energy waste. I've owned both the 10 cylinder gas Excursion and the 8 cylinder gas Excursion, so I can directly compare my observations of fuel consumption using the built in trip computer. One of the largest ones (if not the largest one) is idle time. In the 10 cylinder version this was extreme -- sitting at a stop sign involved all ten cylinders pounding along, dropping average mileage visibly from any reset. Idle time alone seemed to be one of the largest "costs" of city driving -- it wasn't so much stopping and starting up again (although that was an important part too) as it was stop signs, which hit you BOTH by wasting your KE AND by burning gas keeping all those cylinders going.
The second controllable source of waste is engine size. One way electric-gas hybrids save is by allowing the electric engine to provide high torque during acceleration so that one can use a much smaller motor when cruising. Big cars with fixed numbers of cylinders, however, have little choice. They either have good fuel economy while cruising (and lousy torque at low speeds) or they have enough cylinders and power to get good torque at low speeds or for towing and lousy fuel economy. The 10 cylinder Excursion had great torque (for a four ton vehicle) but mediocre fuel economy at around 11 mpg, where the 8 cylinder has lousy torque -- it struggles just getting up a hill, especially towing my boat -- but can turn in 13-15 mpg on the highway.
Both of these problems are so very easily fixable by simply redesigning the gasoline engine so that it is a set of modular ganged pairs of cylinders (pairs to minimize operational vibration by symmetrizing their motion) that can be turned on and off at will in real time as the needs for torque vs idle vary. Take my Excursion. With 5 pairs of cylinders that are geared so that they smoothly go on and add their torque to the total as the accelerator is pressed (trivial for any sort of computerized electronic ignition system these days) one can idle at a stoplight on two, burning less gasoline than a non-hybrid four cylinder car! Indeed, one could probably dedicate one pair of cylinders JUST to idle and overdrive and make them deliberately smaller to burn about as much gas as a lawnmower during idle.
Then, when one accelerates away from the stop, one successively kicks on and in the pairs of cylinders. For a period of maybe 10 to 20 seconds, the car is a 10 cylinder car and you pull smoothly away to merge, get up to speed (including your boat or whatever) and sure, you burn gas during this stretch. But then one merges at speed, or reaches the normal speed of traffic. You no longer need 10 cylinders to provide the torque that overcomes just level-ground wind resistance and friction. My old Excursion burned on all 10 anyway, and got an easy 20% worse highway mileage than the 8 cylinder I have now, but I'd get great highway mileage on level ground if it ran on only 4 to 6, which is all it really needs to overcome wind, and kicked in the other 4 to 6 only when I hit a hill, a wind, or need to pass.
This idea is perfectly capable, as one can see, of stretching out the mileage of a heavy SUV without compromising torque by anywhere from 20% to 50%, without requiring a half-ton of batteries, a huge electrical motor, an electrical recovery system like that of the Prius, and so on. One could implement it "tomorrow" upon doing the absolutely straightforward engineering of the cylinder pairs, and if one made them modular one could fix another great evil of automobile manufacture, the fact th
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
I often think about an SUV conversion project, my 2004 TrailBlazer was a very popular model as was the blazer before it with many still on the roads today. These body on frame Trucks are a dangerous safety hazard.
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/are-suvs-more-dangerous-than-minivans/
I can't find it now, but there was a pretty famous article about SUVs how users wanted to be up high, and have plenty of metal around them, as well as lots of cupholders. The height invites rollovers, the metal makes them terrible at avoiding crashes, and the owners died or were maimed hundreds of times more often than minivan owners. The models compared were the Ford Explorer and Aerostar minivan.
For a long time body on frame SUVs were not tested for safety, unlike the minivans.
So you're better off from a safety perspective with a Crossover SUV or a minivan.
Meanwhile we'd all be safer and more efficient if all the body on frame SUVs dissappeared tomorrow, so making them more efficient keeps us all worried about getting crashed into by an SUVs so people don't opt for the smaller cars in any great numbers.
I had my crossover Equinox in the shop for 2 weeks and the delaership loaned me an HHR, a boxy little minivan-car sorta thing. It felt remarkably like my Equinox in so far as size, seating, cargo and modest comfort, but it was lower to the ground, had way less materials the doors sounded hollow when you shut them. It also seemed peppier, it got around town great and accellerated much faster than my Equinox or Trailblazer both of which have larger 6 cylinder engines. I drove the thing for 2 weeks normal commuting and errands on 7 gallons of gas as opposed to 14 gallons in my Equinox, couldn't guess on my Trailblazer we try not to use it outside of commuting to public transportation and big truck jobs.
So from a safety perspective you should be looking to refit a crossover or unibody style SUV, but from an efficiency perspective you should rethink the idea of an SUV that's towing an extra ton of vehicle it doesn't really need.
Engines don't have some super efficient peak where you can make up this difference, what they do have is a small trough, of low efficiency, usually at very low load.
Throttling losses. Otto engines get increasingly poor efficiency at decreasing throttle, and there's nothing anyone can do about it -- this in addition to near-idle trough you do mention.
Of course, since they're likely looking at an off-the-shelf automotive diesel engine, your prognosis is correct this time, but even with diesels' broad efficiency range,, there's still turbocharger design to consider -- if you have the luxury of designing for a single operating point 90% of the time, as in aircraft engines, you can get substantial efficiency gains over a design for good performance over a wide range as in automotive engines.
Once you dig into it, pure series hybrid cars are really not a good idea.
If they're "not a good idea", WTF is up with the railroad industry's near-universal use of series diesel-electrics? I'll agree they're not as good as armchair mechanics like to think, but they're certainly a good idea.
This sounds similar to what is done with those large stationary, marine, or locomotive diesels. They are capable of some impressive Carnot cycle efficiencies some of which slightly exceed 50%. Granted it is still possible to get better efficiencies out of a turbine but the best of those are just over 60% (combined cycle gas turbine in a power plant).
Time to offend someone
GM and Department of Energy have been sponsoing a competition, providing the same model vehicle that universities then convert.
Mississippi State University appeared on the Smithsonian Mall (Washington, DC) in the Folk Festival, June-July 2012.
While the vehicle wasn't an SUV, GM provided the same vehicle model merely to avoid variable results arising from model used.
http://www.festival.si.edu/2012/plug-in-to-the-future-first-place-for-mississippi-state-university-in-ecocar2-competition/
Build a wood gasifier. Might come in hand in a holocaust.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
First of all there isn't any reason why an SUV can't be a suitable target for an electric conversion. it IS possible to do a wind tunnel analysis on an SUV and come up with suitable aerodynamic styling that will reduce wind drag. An SUV gives you high ground clearance, good cargo options, and room. But you shouldn't be using a full size SUV when it's going to be driven empty, that is a waste. Use the right vechile for the right job.
As for the electric conversion, I'd want to have four motors, one per wheel with direct drive (or a simple gear reduction if necessary). This will give you a computer controlable differential, and by driving some of the motors in reverse a very tight turn circle when needed. The motors should be able to be connected in reverse as generators when braking, which might put a damper on using AC motors with an electronic inverter for speed control (maybe not, I'm not sure here).
The engine would only run when required, to recharge the batteries or to supply additional power when the batteries are not enough (running AC or other electrical things, or pulling a heavy load such as a boat trailer). The throttle should be controled by the computer to supply the required generator output on demand, this might NOT be determined by the throttle alone. Finally I've always wondered about an engine with valve timing that could control the effective compression ratio. Combine this with timed fuel injection and ignition and you might end up with an engine that could burn ANYTHING from diesel to gas, IE: combine the Diesel and Otto cycles in one engine.
Expeditions are plentiful in good cosmetic condition with blown engines or transmissions. They are common in salvage so you (ask a used car dealer if you can attend an auction with him, buy lunch, lurk and learn!) have a good shot at getting one at auction for cheap. We slaughter them for pickup truck parts since there is much overlap.
Use a 2WD version for simplicity.
Make sure you have a TITLE, transferred to you and recorded at DMV, before you start. No title? No drive on street. Short version: Do not fuck around with titles.
Expys are roomy so you have scope for interior redesign. Neatly remove the interior and dash (LOTS of info on the internet with pics, pickup truck info applies too) and on sites like fordtrucks.com. Post a thread in their forums.
(For the interior and dash, get a set of 1/4" drive SIX POINT metric Craftsman sockets and buy a 5.5mm if it doesn't contain one. This applies to any SUV. About twenty bucks.)
They are well understood. You don't need to fuck around with "SUV" problems when you are building a hybrid.
While the stock engine is annoying to remove, you won't be putting it back. Remove the intake manifold etc for clearance.
The engine bay is roomy because the stock engine is wide. You will be installing an inline diesel engine so you will have ample room to work and to locate accessories.
ADD outside outlets for 220 and 110 single phase! SUVs are often used for work trucks and that's a terrific feature anyone can use on jobsite or camping.
Use a much larger drive motor or motors than you need, because if you undersize those you are fucked. You can't add more juice if the drive motors won't take it.
Get someone onboard who can WELD and fabricate steel properly. Most of the work will be MIG, but it's not stuff for a little Harbor Freight welding machine. Visit weldingweb.com and lurk then post if any questions. Good folks are there, but lurk before posting so you can better articulate your questions.
Wear proper PPE such as gloves, earplugs, and FACE SHIELDS when cutting and grinding! It sounds dry and boring, but get everyone on the same page re: safety. Experienced people injure themselves often enough. Noobs can learn the right way the first time instead of bleeding!
A good cordless toolkit including Sawzall, impact wrench, drill and circular saw (you can put thin abrasive cutoff wheels in those, not the thick shit at the chain stores, I use 6" diameter cutoff wheels) will make your life MUCH easier. A 6" corded angle grinder (NOT 4.5") to run cutoff wheels is IMO a must. Metabo make good ones.
Properly CLAMP all lines and wiring and protect against chafing. Cushion clamps/"Adel clamps" are your friends and cheap on Ebay.
Have a master power disconnect safety switch to cut all battery power for safe maintenance.
Have fun, and USE the vast resources of the internet because most of your potential problems have probably been solved elsewhere. You can integrate solutions into a nice package instead of thrashing.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Well, you're right that an engine is most efficient when coupled with a continuously variable transmission. An electrical transmission with appropriate power electronics can operate as a CVT, but you're mistaken in assuming that electric is the only solution. There are a number of commercially successful mechanical CVT designs that are more efficient at delivering power to the wheels (and cheaper!) than electrical buses.
In rural areas SUVs are a necessity, not a luxury. Offroad/hunting/fishing/camping/work/boats/horse trailers, along with long distances on poor roads in deep snow make SUVs or pickups the most logical choice. I would suggest that your project can deliver high amounts of torque equal to what is produced by the stock engine.
What's desperately needed is a parallel or series hybrid or even just a Diesel minivan. For towing, though, FWD minivans aren't so good. Full size vans are better, but you're right that many people buy SUVs, for whatever irrational reasons (I have one, a Tahoe, for towing, and wish it was a full size van). So OK, you're not doing any sort of van. Here's what I suggest: make an SUV that's good for towing at least 5,000 lbs. Diesel-Electric can make a great tow vehicle. Make it 4WD, because if you have to have an SUV, it might as well have a little off-road capability (most have much less capability than their owners think). Since you already have a generator and presumably batteries onboard, give it 50A+ of 110/220 VAC output, which will make it far more useful than any other SUV on the planet. How many people can use their vehicles for power during a blackout? Make sure your Diesel engine is clean (meets or exceeds current EPA standards). Many of us who avoided Diesels in the past did so because of the carcinogenic exhaust. Make it as quiet as feasible. Many of us also hate clatter. I listened to a new EMD locomotive idling recently, and it was quieter than most of the Diesel pickups I've heard. And that was a 2-stroke. Make the fuel system capable of switching over to straight vegetable oil after warmup on diesel/biodiesel (maybe that's not compatible with a soot trap & catalyst emissions control).
If some on the team like electronic/software hacking, equip it with a flexible computer(s) with navigation, opportunistic WiFi, large onboard music and video storage, rear "backup camera", front video recorder, encrypted event recorder, SPOT satellite position updating (for when out of cell phone range), etc. Give it at least a small fridge. Launch a UAV with video feed from the roof so you can see how bad the wreck up ahead is. OK, now I'm just dreaming, but the sky is literally the limit, and that provides interesting tasks for team members who might not be so great with the heavy hardware.
In short, use the inherent strengths of Diesel Electric to make something that ordinary SUVs can't match. And let us know how it's going!
The highlander is a fantastic option with more than 200hp 4wd version of electric drive ready to go. The only problem with the highlander hybrid (which I own and love and plan to covert to smaller engine ias your project imtends at some point in the future), is the huge v6 gas engine. I recommend avoiding as much non innovation such as electric motor conversion, electric A/C and electric power steering and electric power brakes, and of course an expensive and probably very underpowered aftermarket drive train all of which you will never do.a better job at than Toyota already has, and focus on the innovation: mating a mid size lithium battery and 30hp gen set to an already fantastic suv.
The way I figure it, sizing of the engine will be the trickiest part. Here's what I would do:
1. Figure out how much power you need to get the vehicle to go down the highway at a typical highway speed. I'm thinking 80mph is a good number, you don't want to go too low. A coast down test is the simplest way, but a rolling road wind tunnel would be the best if you can afford it. Remember to have ballast in the vehicle to simulate a fully loaded vehicle.
2. Factor in losses from your transmission type, including generator and electric motors. Plus remember to include power for air conditioning, an alternator and other power accessories you may have.
3. Select an engine. Unless you are having an engine custom made, it's not going to have the exact requirements you need. To save money, you will have to make some sacrifices. Don't forget to factor in what we engineers call "packaging". You will be installing a lot of hardware on to this vehicle and the shape of each component will become critical to ensure it all fits.
Also, it's popular to separate an engine bay into two separate sections if possible. The "hot side" is where the exhaust is. Anything that will be hot enough to fry electronics, or ignite fuel should be located on this side of the engine. The "cold side" is where your air intake is located and any sensitive electronic controllers.
I'm thinking the engine you select should have a maximum power output that is equal to the power required to drive the vehicle at 80mph (see step 1) plus any accessories. Any accelerations, or hills climbing should be performed by relying on your batteries for reserve power. Regenerative braking can be used to make up this power, as well as running the engine at maximum load while the required load to drive the vehicle is low. (i.e. the Volt's mountain mode)
Beware, diesel engines that are approved for gensets must meet different EPA requirements than those in on-road vehicles. While a genset engine is fine for your one-off vehicle, it will not be allowed in a production vehicle.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
All good, except for all that additional unsprung mass at the wheels, which makes for some combination of poor handling and harsh ride. Put the motors AND the brakes on each wheel on the inside end of a U-jointed drive shaft. Jags and Alfas used to inboard the rear brakes, but changing the rotors was a major pain and some designs had heat buildup issues. But you can fix that.
this isn't the first time people try to convert their SUV's into electrical versions, I know a few people who converted their Jeep cherokee's.
So why not google it.. It seems to me you aren't trying to put a real effort into it, especially with trying to get funding..
Once you dig into it, pure series hybrid cars are really not a good idea.
Ward Leonard drives, used in locomotives, are very efficient: 1 ton, 500 miles, 1 gal of fuel.
That's century old technology.
Make sure your diesel engine uses veggie oil instead of disel fuel. I do not mean "biodiesel." Just straight veggie oil will work perfectly well without changing anything in the fuel system except a filter and adding a heater to keep the oil warm. Slashvertisement coming: check out www.goldenfuelsystems.com for an excellent source of help and products for an SVO system. I do not work for the company, but I have had many years of working with them.
This is a joke - we want a lower fuel cost - diesel cost $1 more than gasoline - why not do a conversion to natural gas?
Was the International the first modern SUV? No, Jeeps were in that form factor before that. Land Rovers similarly.
SUVs are not so much a modern invention as a modern success. Woodies were similarly useful, but not many out there. I drove wagons for work from 1978 on, such as Pintos (ugh) and Taurus wagons (useful). My Explorer now gets terrible gas mileage, but I can stuff a full-sized sofa in there, and my wife goes on monthly binges where we need more overstuffed furniture, or potting soil, or mass quantities. Often enough that it si useful
But my near-term plan is to replace the Saab (don't ask) that she won't drive with something reliable, and then get another something so we can park the Explorer and take it out to dinner or for schlepping. Or camping. Or bad weather.
I would be happy to convert it to a diesel-electric hybrid though. Makes sense, since cheaper batteries and a small, efficient diesel generator might work. I'll watch, and there are Explorer (or other SUV) bodies out there that would be great candidates. Might be worth it. I'll need the aux motor to run the A/C in Phoenix.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I don't see any on your site. Prove to us that what you are planning is even remotely possible and you may get some support.
As others have said here, you are probably better off just buying a diesel SUV if a SUV is actually required.
No amount of wizbang HUDs, information displays, etc are going to compensate for the energy required to move such a massive vehicle.
Come up with a viable flywheel solution and my interest will be piqued much more.
Awesome project! I posted it on our Diesel Power Facebook page.
After this project why not do a hydraulic hybrid?
No batteries needed.
Carbon fiber accumulators are cheaper and more robust compared to batteries.
More efficient on regen.
More torque and power per pound compared to electric motor.
Have the front wheels hydraulic drive and normal 2wd for rear. (more aggressive regen without spinning rear tires). Use hydraulics motor to get going and then cruise with diesel engine.
Use waste heat steam from Cyclone Power to trickle charge accumulator.
http://lightninghybrids.com/about
Jason.Thompson@sorc.com
Cruising at 70mph, you're looking at 3.5GPH in an SUV-sized diesel getting 20mpg. (Yes, it's true, a 7000+ pound vehicle gets that kind of mileage at speed because it's diesel). This translates into about 63 HP continuous based on an average 0.055 GPH/HP BSFC for diesels.
You seem to describe a series-hybrid so there are inefficiencies you'll have to add to this. I suggest at least a 100hp marine diesel like Yanmar, Perkins, etc like you'd find in a large sailboat. The frequency doesn't necessarily matter but you can run it hard pretty close to 1800 rpm, where 4-pole alternators are designed to run and generate 60hz.
100hp is 75kw, not giant but a sizable amount of electric power to generate continuously indeed.
As for the drive motor(s), from experience let me share that 300hp/500 ft-lb's of torque in a 7000lb SUV is just adequate. 500hp and 800 ft-lbs and you have a tire-smoking monster.
Kudos for going diesel. It's the only sensible choice.
Dacron is a lovely material for light weight. It's a much less effective material for stopping that 2000 lb vehicle from plowing through you.
Support more choices in goverment-Vote 3rd party.
Top Gear already did it. http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/top-gear-car-official-press-release
A CVT alone doesn't give you the luxury of operating at a constant operating point -- it gets you constant RPM, but unless it's a diesel, throttling losses hurt when the vehicle is demanding a small fraction of available power.
I always thought about converting cars to hybrids, and wondered why a transmission was needed. It seems like it's an unnecessarily complex piece of machinery and would be the most complicated and expensive (apart from batteries) part of a hybrid-kit.
My idea:
1. Use a smaller engine than necessary (this is a given for a hybrid).
2. Use a turbo diesel, since this lets you max your pressure ratio/efficiency.
3. Come up with a sort of bang-bang control system to only run the engine at idle, a small subset of its most efficient rpm range (which should be relatively close to peak output), or turn it off completely. This removes a large portion of the most inefficient operating regime of a diesel engine, revving up.
4. Use the battery more like a capacitor (or perhaps use a combination of battery and capacitor). The control system would attempt to keep the battery inside a set charge window (i.e. 50-100%). This effectively makes the battery act as the transmission.
5. Don't use a transmission. Just have the motor be a generator.
5. Use oversized electric motors. That way, people still have the grunt they want for taking off from a stoplight, but you don't need a big engine to get it.
So ya, there are probably a lot of problems with this. I know that batteries charge relatively inefficiently, which is why I suggest possibly a capacitor hybrid. Also, the control system could run into severe problems, i.e. if you had to tow something up a really tall hill but you were at the bottom end of your charge target.
I love the idea of a hybrid kit and hope you guys are able to come up with something really innovative and creative. Good luck!.
Not everything marketed as an SUV is a true 4x4.
If you are thinking 4x4, I had a notion once to take an original humvee and outfit it with these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_hub_motor
Rip out the entire drive train, save a hug amount of weight, or replace it all with batteries for distance, and build in a computer drive system that could do a great job of detecting the torque of each wheel so that the power goes where it needs to. Should have better clearance, too.
I own a diesel Jeep Liberty and have been quite happy with its performance and fuel economy. I suspect that an appropriately sized and configured modern diesel will be close enough to a diesel hybrid that the hybrid won't be cost effective and/or worth the additional complexity.
However, I could be wrong and that is why I wish you well in your endeavor.
I wait to read the results of your project.
Railroads love the low speed torque produced by series diesel-electrics. Think about their problem vs. moving a SUV. Think about the drive train on old steam locomotives and the number of drive wheels. How would you even do that? What kind of clutch/torque converter would you need?
Turbines pushing air directly are the best solution for aircraft, you wouldn't suggest them for an SUV would you? (Lets just skip the turboprop vs. high bypass vs. Jet discussion)
I'm not prepared to say a series hybrid can't be the best solution for a car, just that it's isn't obviously the best because railroads settled on it.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The changes to the vehicle will cost so much that it will make no sense to do it.
God damn I am sick of geek wannabes who think they can do something just because
it seems like a cool idea.
Work.
I've tried to put a diesel engine in a gasoline car in the state of Georgia. Any car newer than 1983 has to have it emissions checked. If it fails emissions you won't be able to drive it on the road because you will never get a tag for the vehicle.
Trying to get a diesel engine to pass gasoline emissions is impossible. Including that the vehicle will fail emissions if it doesn't have a catalytic converter. You are not going to be able to attach a catalytic converter to a diesel engine. Well you can but the engine won't run for long before the converter becomes clogged.
I gave up on trying the conversion to diesel because the government just won't allow it.
Captcha: Aborted
Well the first thing is not to make the same mistake as GM with the Chevy volt. 35 miles on the electric motor. Talk about missing the mark.
Diesel motors are already do a pretty good job of not using a lot of fuel. VW Jaguar and other European cars already have diesel cars that can do 600 - 800 miles a tank and are not Hybrid. I don't think you'd be able to add much to that without doing some serious re-engineering to how the diesel engine works.
Take GE train engine; a diesel motor powers and electric generator that moves the train. The diesel engine get about 400 miles per gallon (not 100% on that number do know it is high). If you could convert this technology to the smaller scale of an automobile you would be on to something great.
.
that's why i said "geodesic steel structure". if you made the vehicle purely out of dacron then of course it would be ineffective... but i didn't say "just make it out of dacron", did i? honestly, read the bloody words that are written, rather than hearing what you want to hear! :)
geodesic structures are well-known to be an efficient and incredibly strong use of materials. look up "buckyballs" for one, and also look up the stadium that's also made out of hexagons: it's both amazing from an engineering perspective as well as amazing artistically and aesthetically.
also: do look up the statistics in france on Category L7E vehicles. france, where they have a higher percentage of Category L7E vehicles, finds that the number of insurance claims involving Category L7E "quad-bike" cars - i.e. overall the number of accidents - is *reduced*. the reasons are, i believe, psychological ones. anyone driving a 350kg vehicle made of fibreglass or plastic, sporting a noisy 2-cylinder 2-stroke engine, is going to have a different time of it both from their own perspective as well as the perception from other drivers.
Power is measured as an average constant on electric motors rather than a peak performance rating. You might want to halve the remaining power into 2 motors (one for each differential). You should have plenty of room in the front to mount 12 lead-acid batteries with plenty room left for a diesel generator, although you're building support brackets for both. Don't use a diesel generator that generates more power than the truck needs while driving 65mph on empty cells. Bonus internet points if you get a B100-ready generator (no rubber; all synthetic) & run it off of WVO.
Rather than trying to insert electric drive components into the existing drivetrain: Start with a crossover SUV available in either front wheel or all wheel drive models. Purchase the front wheel drive vehicle. Install an electric motor-generator and differential in the rear.
When the vehicle is running electric only, put the front drive into neutral and run rear wheel drive electric. When the vehicle is running on the IC engine, its a front wheel drive. In hybrid mode (both power sources) its an all wheel drive. When the batteries need charging, the electric motor excitation is varied so that it runs in generator mode. The IC engine (front wheels) pull the rear wheels and turn the generator.
Have gnu, will travel.
Follow this approach: http://www.treehugger.com/cars/electric-mini-0-60-in-4-seconds-it-has-motors-in-its-wheels.html
The Mini QED has 4 in-wheel electric motors (no tranny, drive shafts, diffs, etc). The engine is single-speed directly coupled to a generator.
I'm kinda surprised no car companies have gone this route.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jun/12/diesel-fumes-cause-cancer-who "Reclassifying diesel exhaust as carcinogenic puts it into the same category as other known hazards such as asbestos, alcohol and ultraviolet radiation." The electric hybrid bit helps but yeah... diesel is bad. Stinks too.
I am not just going to agree with the popular view. In other words I have bad Karma.
14,000 miles at 14 mpg uses 1000 gals,
14,000 miles at 20 mpg use 700 gals, (about 30% less by my math) or about $1000 dollars in gas.
14,000 miles at 30 mpg uses about 467 gals,
14,000 miles at 40 mpg uses about 350 gals (about 25% less by math) or about $400 dollars in gas.
Developing a more-efficient SUV saves 300 gals in 14,000 miles, same distance for a more-efficient compact saves 127 gals. For those who need an SUV, it makes sense to improve the efficiency.
Aren't you precious?! You attended Rhetoric 101!
You must be new here, to not realize the GP is both correct and relevant. He's trying to move the conversation past the usual horse manure to answer the submitter's interesting question.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Seriously, the smart move is to not do diesel. We have plenty of NG in the states, so it makes far more sense. The ONLY advantage that you have with diesel right now, is that the same tank for gas can work for diesel. However, you would still need to change the tank opening.
OTOH, there are plenty of small engines that work with NG. So, what you do is put in a SMALL engine/generator. One that can drive the car at a cruising speed of say 70 mph. Then put on a small set of batteries.
As to both the generator and motor, please see UQM If you go after a LARGE POPULAR SUV, like say the suburban, with this, then you could actually create a company whose sole purpose is to switch SUVs over to NG serial hybrids. UQM would stand to profit from that, if you work with them on this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I think - and this is just speculation - that many years of diesel-electric research and refinement might be available in the public domain by looking at railroad engines. Because of the massive economies available by getting the equations right, I would suspect firms that made the locomotives might have a fair amount of knowledge available in their archives. Being pre-Internet, however, I wouldn't think this old stuff was all scanned in yet. You might need to talk to a librarian. Just bring a large spool of string and pack a lunch when you enter L-space, you'll be all right. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_locomotive_builders
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
"an Hybrid"
Seriously?
First step - learn fucking English! "an Hybrid" infuckingdeed. Only if the "H" is silent, which in "hybrid" it is NOT.
I believe you mean "a Hybrid".
Why yes, I AM a grammar nazi!
I'm not in the market for an SUV myself, but I can certainly see why an efficient one appeals if you have the need for that extra capacity. So I looked it up and it would appear that there are currently 11 different SUV models available as hybrids.
Is there some reason why one of these does not meet your needs?
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
This person is focused not on hypermiling, but on addressing the core vehicle that many ppl around the world regard as THE vehicle to own. Anywhere in the world, SUVs are regarded as high-end vehicles that many want. The problem is, that they get less than 20 mpg. That is insane. Here in America, the biggest drivers of the suburbans are not men, but women. Women that want to transport kids (not just their own, but others) around. Yet, about 20-30% of the time it is just 2 ppl in there (the mom and 2 kids). How far do they drive at a time? Typically, less than 10 miles. A serial hybrid that can also plug-in would change all of that. In particular, this person could actually turn this into a business.
I think where he is making a BIG mistake is in using Diesel. The big user of diesel is EU. They have clean diesel, so for them, it somewhat makes sense. However, around the world, NG is the up and coming thing. By moving to an NG seriel hybrid, this non-profit could make the argument and SALES PITCH in AMerica, that this a converted suburban has great mileage (above 40 if done right), but can also be charged at home. In addition, if the pitch is good enough, they could even argue that the NG could be fueled at home (that really works on farms where suburbans are owned by many men).
Regardless, hypermiling cars are being done in Academia. This person could address a whole other issue.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Why? Well, first off, diesel in America is dirty. The truth is, that we do not clean it up like Europe. .1/gal more). However, that will change. Right now, Saudi Arabia is punishing Iran and Russia for their actions and hoping to stop America from producing more oil/NG. Iran and Russia need about 90/bl to balance their budgets. When it dips below that, they run deficits. SA is upset with Russia about their support for Al-Assad. Likewise, SA knows that Iran is building nuke bombs and wants to starve them both (there is a plus for the west; venezuela has so much overhead, that 90/bl is required for them as well; in 6 months time, venezuela will be in trouble). Once Syria and Iran are dealt with, brent oil prices will go over 100/bl to pay for this. At that time, diesel and gas will go up in price to over 4/gal.
But second, and even more important, in America, is that diesel is actually more EXPENSIVE than gasoline. I have seen it be more than $1/gal more expensive than gas. Worse, it will go back up. Just 4 months, we were paying 3.80/gal for gas and 4.20/gal for diesel. (right now the difference is diesel is only
Now, NG in America is at 2.20 gal of gas equivalence (GGE). It will remain well below gas/diesel prices for the next decade. If you get this built and can create a conversion kit approach, then not only does the user save by having a hybrid, but, they are using low costs electric (all over the lower 48, electricity is below 1/GGE), and low cost NG. THis helps to pay for the conversion kit.
Finally, by doing NG serial hybrid, you make it possible to yank out the NG engine/gen and replace it with say Wave Disc, or even fuel cells.
I would go one step further and suggest that you do not put in one large engine/gen set, but instead, use paralleism. Put in 2 small engine/gens. Ideally, make these as say 20-30 KWH DROP-INS. These can be made into small easy to manage integrated systems. By doing 2 like this, then you make it easy to assemble, but the small system can then be used in small cars. Also, by having 2 in a large car, then if you lose one, you can still get to say a repair station. And rather than look over the engine and do all this work, they simply pull out the broken system (which could be as light as say 150 lbs), and put another one in. Finally, if somebody wants to go outback, then this system provides them with the ability to lose one of these, and still be able to make it out.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
THe way to start this is with a platform that is already built, like a chevy volt or an old electric ranger, and swap the gas engine for diesel. Once you have your diesel engine optimized, then scale it up to a truck. There are a LOT of unknowns when converting a car to electric, and your engine may be fine but your electric might make it look wonky.
Your first port of call should be here: EV Power Calculator which will work out the baseline power you need from your motor for the weight and desired performance you want. What's immediately clear is that the biggest factor that affects your power requirements is air drag. If you persist with using a large brick as your body shape (SUV) you will constantly be battling the fact that you need a huge motor, with huge batteries and a huge generator. Then your overall weight is very high and that's a killer too.
:)
That said, I think the a series hybrid based on a diesel-electric powertrain has a lot of merit. If the diesel part were a gas turbine highly optimised to run at a fixed speed you could get overall efficiencies up to 50% or so which would be very good. Gas turbines were tried for trucks in the 60s and failed, because they transmitted power mechanically, but using traction motors instead and modern power controls it should be revisited. A small APU from a business jet might provide a suitable turbine - your SUV/truck would sound pretty cool too
Traction motors can feasibly be mounted in the wheel these days, with 100kW motors down to ~20kg, which is not going to make your unsprung weight significantly poorer. A UK company was manufacturing these a while ago but they went into receivership so I'm not sure if you can still get them, but they looked very promising. Others seem to feel this is the way forward too, so there is some choice for motors available. In-wheel motors give you huge overall weight savings by getting rid of all the heavy drive-train components, and actually converting a vehicle to in-wheel motors might be less of a problem than mounting an in-board motor.
And others, including a Lincoln one and a Cadilac Escalade Highbrid. All are SUV hybrids. They get plus or minus 40 mpg (US) when driven for mileage. They have been out for a few years, so the easy way to begin working toward making your own competitive product would be to buy one of those existing and copy the drive-train and controls, or use them for your prototype.
Yes but that won't work either. Doe to geothermal use in the US, NG prices have dropped significantly. So much so, that mobile systems development HAS become interested in it. Soo.... What will happen when millions make the switch? Up goes the price.
Some people just think they have all the easy answers don't they? They don't realize that all this stuff has been experimented with before. FWIW a lawn mower engine is typically 3-6hp. 6hp is not enough power to generate electricity to sustain a 2000lb vehicle @ 60mph. Sometimes I wonder where all the smart people went to on slashdot anymore. People just post stuff without really thinking it through.
zosxavius photography
Why don't you use a proper linear scale like l/100km?
16.8/13.1 l/100km conventional.
11.8/10.2 l/100km hybrid
Isn't that better?
Look up Great Point Energy. They are able to convert coal into Methane (core of NG). Likewise, here in Colorado, we have multiple companies that are designed to convert coal into methane in-situ. The amount of coal being converted into methane would last slightly over 200 years IF we used nothing but that for 100% of our energy. That is how much coal we have in the US.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
In addition, our geothermal use has absolutely no impact on our NG prices. They are drilled in different areas, and in different layers of rocks. So, no issue there. The fact is, that we have drilled so many wells that we have an oversupply of NG. That is why Texas wants to export it to Europe. Interestingly, it makes far more sense to put in a pipeline to say portland, NH, or even New Jersey and load there, then it does down in Texas.
Regardless, even if we switch 100% of our coal plants to NG (which is happening quickly), it will make little impact on NG demand. We have that much.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Step 1: Sell your SUV
Step 2: Buy Prius
The best idea I've seen is an electrolysis unit under the hood, feeding hydrogen directly into the carburetor. It costs about $nothing, uses the excess electricity from the engine and increases the power output of the car whilst decreasing fuel consumption from between 25-75% (depending on vehicle age). From memory, the biggest problem was the need to adjust engine timing due to the additional power output of the cylinders. Slightly off-topic, but perhaps helpful.
Circuit Cellar Magazine issue 217 (August 2008) had an article titled Electric Vehicle Inverter Design (Build A System For Powering AC Induction Motors) by Dan Hall, Tristan Kasmer, Doug Krahn, Adam McIntyre, and Dena Ponech.
It should still be available from their website, though I think they charge a couple bucks for it now (it used to be freely downloadable as Kasmer-Krahn-McIntyre-Ponech-217.pdf).
This is a fantastic article discussing many different speed control methods used for A/C motors, and why the authors chose the one they did (very little motor noise and very natural feeling torque control, among other things). The article states "Obtaining a typical three-phase high-power inverter for driving an ACIM can cost between $8,000 and $25,000" then goes on to say "Any technically minded person should be able to complete this project for around $2,500".
While A/C seems odd at first due to losses within the inverter, apparently the increase in efficiency more than makes up for it... not to mention motor availability. ;^)
Before anyone replies that DC motors make more power, tell that to Tesla (and AC Propulsion, from whom Tesla licenses the powerplant design and creators of the tzero).
Good luck with your project, and please post pics and info to evalbum.com! (fantastic source of inspiration and information if you haven't been there)
- Preferences: Solaris 10 (servers), Ubuntu (desktops), Solaris 11 (personal servers) -
You should check out Kokam Li-Ion batteries. They've got some pretty impressive tech to improve their charge and discharge rates (you need the latter for high torque impulses required for standing-starts, especially if there are any hills in the area) and "ten-plus years of operational life". Just going to the first vendor that showed up in google, I see they now have a huge range of batteries all the way up to 240AH (@3.7V), so you could give your SUV an incredible range before needing the ICE range-extender.
The nicest thing about these, compared to the typical cylindrical Li-Ion cells that are popular with many of the DIY electric-car crowd, is these are large and rectangular with large tabs for electrodes, which makes them much easier to make carriers and contacts for, not to mention the battery control circuit savings (you'll need less of them if you have fewer/larger batteries).
- Preferences: Solaris 10 (servers), Ubuntu (desktops), Solaris 11 (personal servers) -
Don't discount industrial engines. While automotive diesels are designed to operate at a wide range of RPMs, industrial engines are typically designed for a fixed speed purpose, such as powering a water pump to lift water from one canal to another for irrigation, or powering a generator, etc. An engine like this with a well tuned intake and exhaust can be extremely efficient and extremely quiet.
Google "Helmholtz Resonator Principle" for designing the intake and exhaust properly.
One that pops immediately to mind is a lightweight, but very torquey 3-cylinder Kubota Diesel engine, such as that used in the Urba-Centurion (128mpg DIY Diesel sports-car designed by Mechanix Illustrated back in the early '80s).
If that one isn't powerful enough, the company makes a wide range of similar engines.
Alternatively, try and find a wrecked VW TDI with a good powerplant, like the one the West Philadelphia high school students used to make a hybrid sports-car (K1 Attack, 0-60 in 4 seconds while burning 50mpg!)
As I suggested in a previous post (not sure if you read them all), please post in evalbum.com, as I'd love to watch your progress! :^)
- Preferences: Solaris 10 (servers), Ubuntu (desktops), Solaris 11 (personal servers) -
If they're "not a good idea", WTF is up with the railroad industry's near-universal use of series diesel-electrics?
Three reasons:
1) Electric motors have torque at 0 rpm.
2) Diesel engines are cheaper to operate and maintain than steam.
3) Steam locomotives were only good at a certain type of use, which was set at design time. A locomotive was built for a certain speed and pulling power, and that couldn't be changed - freight locomotives couldn't acheive the speeds of passenger locomotives, but could pull much heavier loads, for instance. Diesel-electrics have a much higher range of utility, meaning you don't need to match the locomotive to its load (although you still wouldn't use a yard switcher as an Amtrack engine).
Fuel efficiency was only a consideration compared with coal, and wasn't a major concern. Direct drive diesel was tried, and doesn't work well - no torque at 0 rpm means you need a huge clutching mechanism.
(I won't comment on the rest of your post, since you'd really need numbers to argue further. I will, however, point out that there are plenty of diesel engines designed for fixed-rpm use - refrigerated trailer units are a good example.)
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
The Japanese make offroad vehicles that don't weigh insane amounts and don't fall apart so easily as what you call an SUV. The British and continental Europeans do as well - Land Rovers, Mercs, lots of things. Surely you guys have something descended from a Jeep that isn't just a fragile overweight piece of shit that burns fuel as if the stuff is free?
I saw a hybrid minivan before it went off to a mine site in 1987. It turned out to be viable even though batteries sucked then (and still do to an extent).
An SUV would be harder due to less flexibility in placing the batteries, but they are a lot lighter now.
Something like this is probably at the undergraduate engineering team design project stage by now given a big enough budget, just like electic motorbikes were ten years ago.
SInce there is already a hybrid SUV on the market, I'd suggest starting with that.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Most insightful response ever.
I would be more interested if this effort if it were focused on a full size half ton pickup truck. To conquer economy and durability in one project would be a major victory. No work seems to be going on in this market segment. Plus, there are already SUV hybrids on the market, although they are the electric assist variety.
Someone was working on taking a TDI and mating it to the Honda Insight hybrid system in a first gen car. You can probably achieve something based off their work. A V10 TDI (first Gen Touareg) or a V6 Cummins (any Dodge) would probably be the best candidates for this project. You're likely going to NEED a very large vehicle (Excursion?) unless you come with a creative battery/energy retention solution.
Good luck.
has retired locomotive engines for sale. should fit easily into most suv's i see
That whole post is a fine argument not to do a hybrid...at all.
"Looking like" an SUV but not being able to DO what SUVs do due to the sacrifices made for economy is pointless.
If you are going to slash weight by using a microcar or a qaud, then get rid of the two extra wheels, and do a motorcycle instead, or do it as a three-wheeler so as to licence is as a cycle.
That won't need to be hybrid, just lightweight. You can get rid of the "hybrid" complexity, gear it tall, and use an internal combustion engine tuned for economy.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Part of that will depend on the intended use. If it will ACTUALLY be a utility vehicle, it might not spend much time in highway conditions. There's also a lot of weight and complexity difference between a basic front wheel drive and a heavy duty traction control independent 4WD.
One other (currently untapped) benefit of a series hybrid is that you can use a more efficient engine design that isn't able to change power levels quickly - for example the Stirling or Kalina cycle external combustion engines. No, I would not expect a poorly-funded group to be able to pull this off.
BTW the Fisker Karma is 5300lb. A Corvette is 3200-3600lb, and a Volt is 3800lb. Certainly doesn't explain all of it, but that's one lead sled.
If a motorbike even gets 100% more NOx or other nasty emissions per gallon of burnt fuel then that's still a LOT less per mile of travel than a vehicle that burns 10 times as much per mile.
It should be obvious.
Sorry, but I really don't get this concept of pretending to be stupid and shifting definitions to try to give a lie validity. Winning some sort of petty internet argument shouldn't matter if to do so you have to appear to be too stupid to be able to survive to adulthood.
While this does not help the OP, everyone above seems to be stuck on fossil fuels. Compressed air powered vehicles would eliminate all of this rivalry over what is best for our planet. Imagine every gas station with an array of solar panels, or wind turbine, helping power a compressor for a large underground air tank. While the air car may require more frequent fillups (until technology catches up), a fillup could be free or just a few pennies. Zero emissions, no chemicals, no fuel delivery trucks, peanut oil to lubricate the air motor. The negatives are frequent fillups, and its so simple that only a few companies are doing it, maybe there is zero profit in zero fuel.
Stirling heat engines are not really suited for automotive applications (low power density) and while the theoretical efficiency is higher than an ICE, I don't think I have actually seen a case of practical application exceeding ICE efficiency, especially not a in practical size for automotive use. I am less familiar with Kalina Cycle, but a quick look shows it is likely even less suited.
Once you decouple the wheels it is nice to open your mind it ICE alternatives, but the reality is that even just running a generator most esoteric solutions have even more practical limitations than an ICE for automotive use. One that has come up several times in this thread in this topic, is using a turbine. But practical designs small enough to be used in car return under 30% efficiency and likely will cost 6 figures just for the turbine.
Yes a Fisker is much Heavier than a Corvette, but that is the cost of including a pile of batteries, but it will have minimal effect on highway MPG, where air resistance is the primary energy loss. The Fisker should be a cautionary tale against the pure series hybrid.
Anyone who looks at this in any depth will discover that pure series hybrids are essentially an efficiency dead end.
You can achieve near 90% energy transfer mechanically, that is closer to 80% going through a Generator/Motor, and closer to 70% if you try Generator/Motor/Battery.
All the major efforts for PHEV/EREV applications will use some kind of mechanical connection to drive the wheels.
Plug In Prius does it.
Chevy Volt does it.
Ford CMAX energi does it.
Fisker is the lone production car that is pure series and that would likely do to the lack of resources to pull it off and it is definitely a big part of the reason for the abysmal fuel economy in range extender mode.
This project is doomed from the start. Slashdot really shouldn't be taking advertisement for funding this project. I even wonder if it is a scam.
helpful comment [1] why not air-electric hybrids like NYC [2] look at underground mining equipment manufacturers like Chieftain Industries [3] look at train engine manufacturers from alll over the world including Russia and China [4] do not forget about ultra capacitors [5] do not forget real time electrical generation and consumption
Consider entire emissions instead of CO from incomplete combustion and you'll see where you have been misled.
The total emissions per gallon of fuel add up to around the same no matter which internal combustion engine is used. A catalytic converter makes some difference but not an order of magnitude, and if you include CO2 among emissions (which most do now) the difference in the total is very small. The main purpose of the catalytic converter is to get rid of the NOx, which isn't produced in large amounts if you are not burning much fuel anyway.
Thus if a vehicle uses an order of magnitude less fuel to travel a mile the total emissions are around an order of magnitude less.
Now do you see it? It is obvious
I'm sorry that I was condescending, but the assertion you had been mislead into making was wildly incorrect and made you look either very stupid or a lair that thinks we are all idiots or too lazy to think about it. It was so contrary to observation and experience I could not but help call utter bullshit what it is.
I'm sorry, but the catalytic converter is not a magic box from Dr Who and doesn't actually get much. If you burn a lot of fuel you still get a lot of stuff in the exhaust.
My math was fine. I used half highway and half city miles in my calculation. As for "Developing a more-efficient SUV saves 300 gals in 14,000 miles, same distance for a more-efficient compact saves 127 gals. For those who need an SUV, it makes sense to improve the efficiency." Well, yeah, that was my point.
You seem to be asserting that recent large SUVs have pollution controls that are more than ten times better than those on recent scooters.
I am attempting to point out that the pollution controls on SUV are not even ten times greater than an open fire, let alone a scooter.
You've been misled by idiot journalists misunderstanding the issue and writing shit designed to let them feel smug about driving large SUVs around in cities all year without getting mud on them. Numbers can be manufactured to fit by comparing a 1960s Harley to a Prius running mostly on battery, but the comment I replied to above was about bikes and SUVs.
As a final point, CO2 is classed as a pollutant now, and the sum of CO + CO2 in both examples is going to be equal per gallon burnt. That's why I wrote "every chemistry textbook on the planet" above.
NASA pursued this in the 70s and 80s for the DOE: http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19880002196_1988002196.pdf. The numbers they list for both ICE and Stirling are pretty laughable today but they serve as a reminder of just how much we've improved on engine tech in the past 30 years.
Power density in a Stirling is largely a function of working fluid density - a good chunk of NASA's research work regards how to change that on the fly (as you floored the gas pedal), something that isn't necessary in a series arrangement.
Thanks for the link, did more searching and found a newer one:
Hhere they mention getting 38% efficiency. Not too Shabby.
http://hdl.handle.net/2060/19970012689
Strange no one is pursuing this given some of the other strange engine designes with opposed pistons, free pistons, etc.
But I will argue again, that series hybrid is a mistake and single load even more.
That 38% in a pure series hybrid gets multiplied by about 90% efficiency of the generator and 90% efficiency of the EV motor. .38*.9*.9 = ~30% driving the wheels.
A Prius has 37% efficiency for it's gas engine (Tested at Argonne labs) and and 90% efficiency for mechanical coupling. .37% *.9 = ~33%.
That doesn't look too bad, but we are still talking about a 10% difference in fuel economy in favor of Prius.
But if you go through battery charge/discharge into the mix you 90% conversion. So .38*.9*.9*.9 = 27%. Now you are at a 20% deficit in fuel economy.
I think you find most designs with a lot resources behnind them, are going to shoot for 10-20% fuel economy boost of including a mechanical coupling driving their wheels (Just like Ford/Toyota/GM are doing on their EREVs/PHEVS).
Only people lacking resources are going to go pure series hybrid, like conversion hacks and the Fisker.
90% is too conservative. Brushless DC motors (the sort you'd pair with a VFD in any electric car) are pushing 96%: http://www.ti.com/ww/en/motor_drive_and_control_solutions/motor_control_type_brushless_dc_BLDC.htm. Lithium Ion battery efficiency is, depending on your source, 95% or 97-99%. So your 27% figure could be 34%. More importantly, since you have a drivetrain capable of driving the car at highway speeds in pure electric mode (something current parallel hybrids lack), a series hybrid could potentially be cheaper to operate if charged at night, and you can recoup more energy through regenerative braking.
I was just going ballpark and you are pulling out theoretical best case numbers to nitpick with.
Real world charge/discharge of an actual battery pack is going to include running through a BMS and power conversions, losses in cabling etc.
Tesla Motors claims 86% Charge/Discharge efficiency of the battery. Actual users of real EVs of all types report numbers dipping into the 70% range.
Also who is using these super efficient DC motors in EVs? Tesla is using AC induction. LEAF/Volt use AC synchronous.
Tesla Also claims 88% efficiency of their Motor/Inverter drive. I doubt you will find any real world EV motor producing an Average better than 90%.
My using 90% for the conversions was ballpark but compared to the real world numbers, it was likely erring on the side of generosity.
Significant losses are incurred at every conversion step, they will continue to drive efficiency targeted designs away from the pure series hybrid approach.
It's not theoretical best case when it's already been done, and I was not cherry picking numbers. Here's some that are closer to the state of the art, for comparison: A 99% efficient BLDC controller - most of the controller inefficiencies are from band-gap voltage drop, which gets smaller as you use higher voltages (as does resistive losses in the wiring). Here's a 98% efficient motor, used on the CSIRO-UTS solar racer..
Are you really claiming that (for example) a modern 50kW motor would shed 5kW heat? Mid-90s efficiency is typical today for larger motors - it is not a cherry-picked exception!
Again. Who is using these to power a real car sized EV? No one.
Do you know why? Tesla, GM, AC Propulsion all staffed by idiots? Not likely.
Because as you size up BLDC motor, it's part load efficiency keeps dropping. You actually spend most of your time running at low/part loads with even lower efficiency than you get in a similarly powerful AC induction motor.
So what you see is smaller motors are BLDC and larger (EV sized) ones tend to be AC induction. Real world efficiency of EV motor/Inverter running at 90% is an extremely reasonable, if not optimistic number.
As far as heat dissipation. Remember that those are peak loads that are only seen intermittently. EV motors overheat and many cars go into reduced power mode when that happens (at EV races).
Google for 'brushless dc ev' and you'll find lots and lots of product hits.
"Back in the 1990s all of the electric vehicles except one were powered by DC brushless drives. Today, all the hybrids are powered by DC brushless drives, with no exceptions. The only notable uses of induction drives have been the General Motors EV-1; the AC Propulsion vehicles, including the tzero; and the Tesla Roadster." (Granted this is from 2007 but still a good article on the differences between the two types.)
Which backs what I said. Hybrids have smaller less powerful motors.
Full EVs like Tesla, EV-1, with bigger more powerful motors use AC induction motors.
Also, here is efficiency Map of an actual BLDC motor suitable for a full blown EV:
http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/2418/evmotor.png
Now this is a 95% peak efficiency so you have that minor point.
But look at the efficiency map and tell me what a reasonable number for overall efficiency when used in a car would be?
If you think about it, you will realize it is under 90%. As you can't cruise at any legal speed and be using enough HP to push even to the 90% region. Brief spurts of acceleration may go a bit above 90%, but you don't spend enough time accelerating for that to matter. And if you are in stop and go traffic your RPMs will be too low to get anywhere near 90%.
I really think you are dragging out minutia here. 90% for a real full EV Motor(as a pure series hybrid would have to be) is an extremely reasonable, if not optimistic number.
Real world, street legal, full EVs are not getting better than 90% efficiency from their motors.
Now, to properly compare apples to apples, look at this graph (on page 10) regarding the Prius motor's efficiency at various power outputs (you've probably already seen this since you mentioned it earlier). Below 5kW, it's at 25%. At 10kW, it's at 33%, and that's a realistic highway speed power output. If we can assume 33%*90% (drivetrain) we get 29.7% - with a 38% Stirling engine, if we get 90% from the rest of the system (generator, battery, controller, wiring) - and I've already posted links showing that's do-able - then if your motor exceeds 87% efficiency you come out ahead. At 5kW output you just need 67% motor efficiency to come out ahead. It's nearly a wash, plus there's lots of tricks you can pull with electric motors when you have a handful of them (vs just one engine).
If we can assume 33%*90% (drivetrain) we get 29.7% - with a 38% Stirling engine, if we get 90% from the rest of the system (generator, battery, controller, wiring) -
Something seems amiss with your math:
33%(prius at 10KW) * 90% (Mechanical) = 29.7%
But 38%(Stirling) * 90% (Generator) * 90% (Motor) * 90% (Battery Charge discharge) = 27.7%
Even operating well away from peak efficiency, the Prius wins.
As I have already rebutted, your links are laboratory single cell ideal conditions battery, and small scale motor numbers. Real world numbers for full EV sized motors/generators/packs are more consistent with a 90% (at best) each number, not 90% total. Total system Gen-Battery-Battery-Motor is .9*.9.*9 = 72.9% efficient. Too low and the reason everyone is going for series-parallel configurations with mechanical couplings.
90% for both generator and battery charge/discharge combined is reasonable, since you *will* be operating at the motor's peak efficiency there.
Ok, sure you win, we will all be driving pure series hybrids in the near future as the industry catches up with your genius.