RE: PH Origins: Diesel-electric hybrids

[Mr2Mike]

Porkymerc said:

When you drive your car how often is your right foot buried in the carpet? Not very often at all really is it?

Depends entirely on the car. I drove my mum's 1.2 Jazz up to Bristol and back at the end of last year and my foot spent an awful lot of time pressed hard to the floor. In a 400bhp car I would have been barely tickling the throttle to get equivalent performance.

[RicksAlfas]

jason61c said:

has everyone forgot that volvo make the v60 d5 and d5 oil burning hybrid?

Probably!

Merc are bringing out a C-Class plug-in diesel hybrid later this year.

[AER]

The real issue is that, by the time you've added all the available fruit to a gasoline engine, the SFC delta between gasoline and diesel is very small indeed - especially at the power levels involved which dictate small engines with bad combustion chamber surface/volume ratios.

A really good automotive diesel will breach 200g/kWh (only just). A nominally good one will be 210-220g/kWh The Rover K-series was 245-250g/kWh at its best point and it's nothing fancy. Add in extreme bore-stroke ratios, early inlet valve closing for improved expansion ratios and low-friction ancillaries, it's possible to nearly equal diesel fuel consumption at the speed-load point where everything happens in a series hybrid for a very low comparable cost.

Since you're already spending large funds on hybrid power electronics, generators and motors, spending more on diesel technology that gives you no measurable advantage is pointless.