Hybrid Station Wagons

Depends entirely on the manufacturer; ;the design inside & out; the performance; and the price.

The idea of a hybrid isn't bad, but why do they have to be some damned goofy looking? I understand the outside is driven by aerodynamics, but why do Toyota and Honda have to make the insides look like some 13 year old's video game? The Ford Fusion looks better, but even it needs a grille re-do outside.

 

antone who buys a 'electric' car thinking they are saving the enviroment...
has apparently never researched the Earth CARNAGE caused by making BATTERYS !!!!!
...thats should scare anyone back into a gas guzzler!!

mind you...if someone invented a 'universal fitment' hybrid that i could dump into my "OLD" car... and doesnt require more battery's than a 64 Impala in LA !!... I would!

 

Fitting older wagons with some kind of hybrid system doesn't sound like too bad an idea.I'd even be willing to hollow out a Prius to put that drivetrain in a Pinto/Bobcat or Fairmont/Zephyr wagon...Escape/Mariners weigh as much as my Colony Park,so there ARE hybrid drivetrains allready in existence that can move our wagons.It just takes getting then put into the vehicles.30+ mpg in mid-80's Colony Park/Country Squire?..Yeah!..Even better in a late 60's/early 70's wagon around the same weight!..Over 800 miles per tankfull in one of those...

 

Electric cars have been on and off since the late 1800's. They couldn't cope with real cold weather or heavy loads, and usually limited to 2 passengers - 300 to 400 lb. payload of people. For an urban car, they make sense. For a work vehicle or a hauler, they don't cut it. And for sure, they'd never take the beating that rural vehicles get.

This takes a while to load, not many pics, just lots of Auto Industry History from 1769 and up :
http://www.kipnotes.com/Automotive.htm

I'd use an Alcohol-fired Steam engine like this Aussie car. It might cost $8,000 but you'd have a clean-burning machine with 100% power on the first Rev, and no tranny losses - just reverse the steam to go backward.
http://www.pritchardpower.com/Image of a Pritchard Unit in an Austomotive Application.html

 

Can't remember the name of it,but read about it in a history book about automobiles between 25 and 30 years ago...It was a car manufactured in New York City,from the late Teens to the late 20's.Electric,you plugged it in to a regular wall socket---no special 220 adaption---and you had about 35-40 miles on a full charge.The motors ran about 70-75 hp.The cars ran as good as or better than the vasy majority of gasoline powered cars...They went out of production in the late 20's,when longer roads became the norm.No trip down the Jersey Turnpike in a car that only goes 40 miles between overnight chargings...They did sell some in other big cities besides New York,but their customer base was limited to those cities.No sales in areas withou electricity,or with intermittent electricity.

 

From an overview, and despite that we'd get bored with the same old, it makes more sense to make good bodies that last out the engines. Or make an industrial standard like they do for tractor trailer rigs to swap engines or power plants. GM didn't stand for General Marketing. Now it's Government Motors. Well if Motors is their game, then make that the product and enable the cars to upgrade the power plants, with changing fuels.

The mere savings in tooling costs, emissions to crush and smelter them alone would cut national emissions by exponential rates!

So we like bling on our rides. You can't make a toad like a 1953 to 71 Checker cab into a mock Corvette, but most people don't like 'vettes anyway.

I'd make the frontend of a car like they do to swap bus motors, hinged open, rollers on pipes. You disconnect the wiring, remove the securing mounts, roll it out and roll the new one in. One massive plug, a couple grounds, 8 1/2" motor securing bolts and you're done!

Probably why they wouldn't hire me, huh?

 

Too simple...And it makes sense...They CAN'T do it!..

 

Do you get the feeling that they hired John Wayne to teach foot-shooting classes?

 

A few years back,I read something about an engine block GM was coming up with...It started out as an inline four,and could be used in both front and rear wheel drive applications.That they could be fitted with gasoline intake or diesel...Now,if one wanted,a fifth or fifth and sixth cylinders could be added,just by bolting them on...And,that the mpg's with this engine block(direct injection)was fairly high.Mid 30's city,mid 40's highway in an Aveo sized car,with the four.Mid 20's and mid 30's as a six...And,other than that,I've heard nothing else about this engine...Having great ideas is one thing,actually putting them on the road is the important part...

 

I've seen that article too. I'd guess that some farm and industrial engines are like that. Pumps, Generators, Aerators (used in animal watering holes). Probably have to do a search for 'reversible engines' to see when they were first invented, because the first Steam Engines in the old Stanley Steamers didn't have a tranny, either. hmmm. Thanks for the info.

 

I'm curious how this will all play out.

I'm younger; a new car is beyond me and the first generation prius is only just now coming into reach as a used car. So I might be getting a 3rd-generation used hybrid, in a few years.



I was reading up on wikipedia just now-- energy loss is (only?) 7.2% recorded as of 1995. That's a national average from 15 years ago-- obviously it scales directly with distance to your nearest power plant, not to mention the type of line used to deliver. But gives a ball park.
This was harder to find in a quick google search, but looks like the AC-DC conversion is on the order of another almost 10% loss (off of 94.8% power, now). Gasoline is right there in your fuel tank, no delivery loss. Heh, reminds me of stirling (external combustion) engines-- 100% efficient, but only after you lose 70% just getting the energy into the engine! Hahaha.

Lithium is still very expensive, and will remain so for the foreseeable future-- these batteries are eminently recyclable. Hech, cheap lead-acid batteries are all recycled. It's just the AA alkalines that aren't worth processing, and are so bad for the environment...

One of the biggest (environmental) changes will come with switching our electric grid from coal! I'm all in favor of a pebble-bed nuclear reactor in my neighborhood, or unsightly wind mills, whatever works out to be most efficient. It'll be a combination of many things. The benefits of electricity are lost if the electricity itself isn't any cleaner... Though at least the coal is from the good 'ol USofA, from virginia and not saudi arabia.

My father just bought a new prius, upgrading from another older prius, and my stepmother is getting a fusion in the summer. The numbers tell the story-- these cars are very very good in stop-and-go city traffic, and my father really is getting 50mpg even around DC. For highway mileage, just being small and well designed is what matters (and not the hybrid). A prius and a tiny hyundai, or even a tiny car from the 1970s, can all get 50mpg just by virtue of lightweight engineering. The battery packs and electric motor are for the traffic jams.
Hech; diesel trains use electric too I understand... it has solid advantages that a specialist engineer could explain better.


Gas is expensive. I haul things around, and I was considering a pickup, but the fuel economy is so appalling that I couldn't live with driving it all the time for the number of times that I really need a pickup.

I'd absolutely be interested in a hybrid wagon, and will be in the market for one likely in 5-8 years once I'm well into a career with the money to spend; or by then, maybe some used ones will already be floating around! It will depend on where I live and my style of commuting too however-- if highway driving, probably just go with a smaller lightweight wagon like the focus and not pay for the hybrid, and if more urban driving, the hybrid will be more fully taken advantage of.

I'm also concerned about the lifetime of the battery packs; but at 90k my father still did not have to replace those in his prius, and others have certainly reached 200k miles and were just on the cusp of what can be a $2000 replacement if priced aggressively ($4000 at the dealer).

 

Ooo, you were right, Norman; I was curious after reading your post and found some studies:

http://37signals.com/svn/posts/115-look-beyond-gas-mileage-when-making-an-environmental-choice

http://www.cnwmr.com/nss-folder/automotiveenergy/

I've attached their car-by-car listing.
I haven't read the 450-page report! I might play devil's advocate in saying that I have an energy footprint just living, so the more people go into marketing and design, the higher the footprint. The first year of a model is going to carry a hefty footprint, and once the engineering kinks are worked out and the brand doesn't need to be marketed as aggressively, the footprint should drop substantially? Environmental development costs?

 

Learn and understand the difference between serial hybrid and parallel hybrid drive systems.

Parallel hybrids are nothing more than a gimick to make people feel warm, fuzzy and environmental about continuing to burn considerable quantities of petroleum.

A serial hybrid is driven by electric power only. The small gas engine (like a Briggs&Stratton portable generator) is only there as a suppliment to provide additional battery charging to extend the range of the vehicle when needed. It can be driven for shorter commutes on the batteries only and does not require the gas motor to be running at all. It is an electric vehicle that has the ability to recharge on the fly when necessary.

I do like the idea of electric vehicles. If there was a FULL sized wagon (not a Prius compact thingy) that was a true serial drive hybrid, I would be very interrested.
The thought of a vintage wagon converted to serial hybrid drive is even more appealing.

 

now, the fusion and the prius and the insight are all serial hybrids, correct?

 

No, the internal combustion engines actually drive the wheels not just charge the batteries. Neil Young's Lincoln http://www.lincvolt.com/ is 100% electric driven and has a rotary engine that runs on CNG to recharge the batteries for long distance driving. http://www.youtube.com/user/Lincvolt#p/u/6/5WrkGSZt3tE