You have 13 yrs 11 mths left to buy a GM gas or dsl vehicle

It really doesn’t matter if there is no infrastructure for charging all the EV’s that are made and sold. In this case “Batteries Are Included” but after the oil industry is shutdown due the Green New Deal, cars won’t come with tires. You can’t make tires without oil and a lot of it. 7 gallons per average car tire, 22 gallons for truck tires, and a whole lot more for really big ones. There may be a rebirth of wheelwrights.

Certainly interesting for sure. Lots of things to consider though...
Where is the power coming from? Clean renewable energy is great to hope for, but unrealistic to power the entire world. Maybe PV tech will make leaps and bounds.
How are we storing excess power? Manufacturing of batteries is a high cost, financially and in resources and waste. Tesla has greatly improved batteries, but my yearly 200 mile round trip to Florida would require a LOT of battery charging or swapping.
COST? New technology is expensive. You need significant buy-in to bring the price down per vehicle. This being GM, and with Biden's federal fleet program, I'm sure that our tax dollars will be spent subsidizing this program, but at what cost?

Again, interesting idea and I'm hopeful for new innovations. I always wonder why we don't have more technology like our trains are doing with diesel electric engines.

free radical wrote:
I dont think one needs huge powerful generator to charge batteries in hybrid ev,,just somethin with about 50 hp maybe less.
At least thats what Ive heard somewhere,dont recall where now.

For a small car, 50hp is viable. The old air cooled VW bugs were down in that HP range.

For a 1 ton towing, you are going to need at least 200hp for marginal towing capability. Marginal in the sense that you will still have very limited range as the battery fills in the extra power demand and once dead, you will be in some form of limp mode.

time2roll wrote:
People are going to love them. Could break the marginal dealers as the service revenue will taper off to about nothing.

More likely, the price of cars goes up as a result.

No dealers can make a go of it purely on new car sales. This isn't limited to "marginal" dealers.

Plus if you look at vehicle maintenance, actual major engine repair is pretty rare. Tire, Brakes, Suspension, Oil Changes are the bulk of the work. Other than possibly a brakes, those all will be present in EVs. Plus with EVs having a very heavy battery bank, suspensions will need to be beefed up and more expensive.

free radical wrote:

1320Fastback wrote:
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Build a 1 ton, crew cab, 8' bed hybrid electric with with small turbine engine and I will buy one right now. I know I know battery technology is going to improve, I've heard it before.

Been done few years back,
100 mpg hybrid electric GM truck,whats holdin them back ? Big oil control maybe

https://youtu.be/4XHbQLfgI6g

That 100mpg figure is kind of misleading -- it counts the ~40 miles of electric range as "free" miles:

That 100 mpg, by the way, assumes daily use of no more than, say, 60 or 70 miles: 40 on electric, the other 20 or 30 miles covered using 1 gallon of gas. More gas-fueled miles lowers the effective mileage.

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1071881_what-would-you-pay-for-a-100-mpg-via-full-size-pickup-truck

100mpg cars are possible, but they tend to be ultra-light and start looking more like a motorcycle with full fairing than a family car. The best I've gotten in my Accord Hybrid is 57mpg, and that was on mostly flat roads with a 35mph speed limit. In normal commute traffic I get around 43mpg. At 70mph highway speeds, it's around 37mpg.

Reisender wrote:


That’s essentially what a Chevy Volt was. Nice little car. Just didn’t catch on. BMW still makes the i3 that has a small motorcycle engine as a range extender. Just like the volt the little gas motor works as a generator.

I think manufacturers are reluctant to put to much R and D into hybrids right now.

JMHO

Honda came out with an interesting hybrid system -- there's just a fixed ratio gear box, no transmission (at least not in the traditional sense). It has a gasoline engine, a generator, and an electric motor, the gearbox just has a couple clutches. It can run the electric motor off battery alone, electric motor powered by the engine running the gnerator, or the engine can be coupled to the drive wheels at higher speeds. I think the direct engine drive can't engage until > 45mph due to the fixed gearing, at speeds below that it's powered only by the electric motor, the engine just drives the generator.

Here's a teardown and explanation: https://youtu.be/QLUIExAnNcE

It's not exactly new technology though, it's been around since at least 2017.

free radical wrote:

I dont think one needs huge powerful generator to charge batteries in hybrid ev,,just somethin with about 50 hp maybe less.
At least thats what Ive heard somewhere,dont recall where now.

Depends how much money you want to put into batteries, if you need to spend 100hp going up a long grade in the wind, you're going to need big batteries if you're going to make it with your 50hp motor. And if you're going to start devoting all that money and space to batteries, why not take out the engine and gas tank to make more room (and have more money) to spend on batteries and end up with a much simpler powertrain?

My Accord Hybrid has a 143HP gasoline engine, and a 181 HP electric motor. But it's only got a 1.3KWh battery pack.

larry barnhart wrote:
china has the code to our power grid so best to not worry what might be.

chevman

Better China then Russia,
China has no reason to destroy US,their intent is to sell us whatever they produce.

Watch Chinese imperialism /S

https://youtu.be/03l3Ra4bL_A

I think by the time this technology really takes a firm hold and becomes the daily norm, a good lot of us will be phased out too!
:B

free radical wrote:

rlw999 wrote:

1320Fastback wrote:
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Build a 1 ton, crew cab, 8' bed hybrid electric with with small turbine engine and I will buy one right now. I know I know battery technology is going to improve, I've heard it before.

I doubt you would -- turbines are expensive to purchase and maintain so that turbine driven truck would be priced out of reach.

In theory turbines can be more fuel efficient than a diesel engine, but it's hard to get that in practice in a mobile platform. With battery electric (and even hydrogen fuel cell) vehicles becoming more popular, it's very unlikely that anyone is going to spend the time/money perfecting a small turbine for vehicles.

It's been tried before without much success - even the Army is moving away from the turbine engine of the M1A1 and M1A2 in the upcoming M1A3, which will have a standard diesel engine.


I wanted to keep myself honest, so I looked up some specs. Aircraft engines are both too big and built to too high a standard for mobile use, I found a used small jet engine for $200K online, 5000 hour overhaul costs for a small jet engine run around $150K - $300K.

There are smaller hobby grade engines like the Jetcat P550-PRO-GL available for around $20K. These aren't rated to provide mechanical power, but this one is rated at 162KW power output, which is around 200HP. At full output it will burn around 20 gallons/hour, at idle, 5 gallons/hour.

In comparison, a new 250HP Cummins ISB 6.7L diesel engine would cost under $15K and you can buy an off the shelf and proven transmission to go with it. And you can get it serviced at pretty much any truck dealer, coast to coast.

I dont think one needs huge powerful generator to charge batteries in hybrid ev,,just somethin with about 50 hp maybe less.
At least thats what Ive heard somewhere,dont recall where now.

That’s essentially what a Chevy Volt was. Nice little car. Just didn’t catch on. BMW still makes the i3 that has a small motorcycle engine as a range extender. Just like the volt the little gas motor works as a generator.

I think manufacturers are reluctant to put to much R and D into hybrids right now.

JMHO