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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."
So it's like your post?
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"
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.
Well you could always contact these guys for tips. They seem to know what they were doing.
./R My blog
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!
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!
If the technology didn't change and people were still reliant on the horse 1920 it would have been exactly correct.
So I don't know what your point is here. Is he right in making a bid to change the status quo or is he wrong? Changing the status quo could change the upcoming calamity just like the introduction of the horseless carriage did.
The big difference is there are a lot more people currently fighting to keep the oil status quo now than there was for horses in 1900.
I don't see that the Diesel Jetta is $5000 more than the equivalent gasoline Jetta. Where did you get your number?
It's about $1000 extra and I think it's worth the extra cost since diesel gives more torque (acceleration). $1000/4 per gallon == 250 gallon-equivalents in extra cost. The diesel saves that much fuel in less than 20,000 miles, and after that point you're saving money.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
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
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
What about you, do you know what "non-profit" means? Since you didn't bother to pay attention, I'll explain it carefully: if we make any money from this, it won't be to help us buy a house in the Hamptons or an SLR. It will be to invest in the next research projects. The kits, if we manage to create them, will be for a cost, with the entire profit being invested in further research. But the plans and results will be fully available online, as well as a full bill of materials. Troll less, live longer.
Onda Technology Institute
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!
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
Common misconception. The biggest advantage of hybrids is not actually stop-start, but that it lets you use an undersized engine which is run most of its times in a high torque (aka, more efficient) power band. If you used such an engine in a non-hybrid, it'd be underpowered for acceleration and hill climbing, but the electric assist lets you do that.
"/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit is a gimp plugin and must be run by the gimp in order to be used."
Pfft. All they needed to do was put taxes on Hay, Stabling and Ferrier Services and they'd whittle that down .. uh .. exactly in the way it doesn't do anyting to deter traffic today.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
... at least NY solved the rat problem, right?
FCKGW 09F9 42
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.
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
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.
What? $2000/$400 per year= 5 years (but years are stupid, it's cost per mile and expected vehicle or ownership life that matter). Beyond that I don't WANT to be forced into a higher tier package just to purchase a diesel (yes, please charge me $1200 for a GPS with worse capabilities than my $150 smartphone and worse audio than a $200 aftermarket head unit).
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
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 suppose... But was diverting them into politics really the best long-term solution?
When someone says, "Any fool can see
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.
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