Mercedes ditching diesels in North America

ctilsie242 wrote:
My idea of a "future" vehicle would be a gas/electric hybrid. Perhaps one that the gasoline engine is used as a generator and runs at a specific RPM, which will help with its efficiency, while maybe moving to a Crower six-stroke design, assuming engine makers can deal with water's corrosive effects.

Until batteries store something like 1/10 the energy of gasoline, we may see electric cars as city runabouts or maybe able to run longer if going from charging station to charging station, but it will need to be supplemented by a conventional IC system for now.

It would be nice to see a gas/electric hybrid motorhome chassis. One nice advantage is because of the large batteries, having power for running appliances, the A/C, etc. is already present.

remember, efficiency of a gasoline IC engine used for transportation is at best 25 percent efficient, even less when considering in town drive cycle. And electric vehicles are in the high 90 percent with regenerative braking and motor efficiency.

so stored energy needs are about 4:1. Now I agree, the volume energy density of gas wins out right now by a long shot over batteries. And it's volume that counts now.

Now I do agree, for now a hybrid makes the most sense for a single vehicle.

But given that today 200 mile range on an electric vehicle means that for many uses it makes a perfect second vehicle. When we replace our sedan, assuming we still have our truck which is the long distance vehicle anyway, we are likely to go for an electric vehicle, or at least a hybrid.

Now when they get to the point you can get 250-300 miles of range out of an electric on the highway and a 30 minute recharge, which will happen, then the game IMHO changes.

In our travels we generally stop every 150-200 miles either for a snack or rest stop. So if during a rest stop you could charge for 15 minutes and get another 100 miles, or during a lunch dinner stop do a full recharge, it's a winner.

I always figure a gas stop takes 20-30 minutes on the road anyway, by the time you get on/off etc. Now if that could be don at a rest stop location with faster on/off it becomes a winner.

For towing, a hybrid 3/4 or 1 ton with regenerative braking, start stop technology would be a big improvement IMHO. Even if all it did was have a big enough battery to store energy from a 50mph stop. And maybe an option to store energy from a 1 mile 6 percent grade decent.