(DOOH!!!! You scooped me by 3 minutes!!!)

A hybrid kit of all things has SUPER CAPS . . . why not the Prii?

:lol: I had to smile when I saw your message pop up right after mine. Good thing I decided not to make any comments!

Good job ggrimaud.

Geesh, and to think I can’t save face by blaming my internet access, it’s fiberoptic for peat sake!

I surrender one point to you.

Bandwith Limit Exceeded error pops up whenever I try that link. Can someone post full text?

Here, Here. Can't get in either. I could have the first hybrid lawn mower.

Nope. They are being "Slash Dotted" because Slashdot ran the DIY Hybrid story and now the Sigmaauto site is down because millions of Slashdot readers have used up Sigma’s bandwidth.

Maybe it was Prius Chat that actually brought the site down! Were they then "Chatted to Death"???

WEB SITE BACK UP

It looks like the affects of the Slashdotting is over and the Sigma Automotive site is back up.
Give it a try, but try not to "Chat it to Death." :wink:

Apparently there has been a November 2008 update to this as follows,

[SIZE=-1][SIZE=-1]The inventor has made substantial progress on the Electrocharger for the fleet market. They expect to have the first production kits ready for sale by early 2009. The Electrocharger is now a Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) conversion kit with a 72 volt, 20 kW SR motor drive and a 6.25 kWh battery pack on-board. Naturally, most of the info below & in subsequent pages is now outdated. Stay tuned for more in-depth updates soon.

Are any PC members familiar with this approach?
[/SIZE][/SIZE]

Hi All,

I got through on the link. This looks like a system intended for RWD and AWD vehicles. Probably not applicable to FWD cars. Still, kinda neat. It looks to me that they will sell allot of these for the Subura AWD cars. Another big market would be the Gruman US Postal Service vehicles!

Any idea if it is possible to let the crankshaft turn on the motor side without letting the crankshaft turn on the wheel side?

If so, you could charge while idling, then letting off the brake have it engage the wheel side.

Hi All,

Had another idea. 6.25 kwh is not too shabby. Say you can run them between 40 and 95 % SOC (LiIon right? they do not really say, but the pack is pretty small for 6.25 kwh). That is 3.4 kwh usable. Now, get 4 of them, and an old 4 wheel drive independant suspesion car - like an Audi or Subura. And you can build yourself a 10 KWH electric car with the modern electrics costing about $12000! Whould do about 30 or 40 miles range, and have a good kick in the pants when it accellerates.

One could also have 4 gas pedals, and do vectored torque. Two pedals on the right would be for the two front wheels. Just roll your foot to get more push on one side or the other. And two pedals on the left would be for rear wheel drive. It would be kinda like playing an organ. Ha !

No, too complicated, too hard to use, easy to hit the wrong pedal. Instead keep the single gas pedal but have a joystick somewhere that you could use to choose where the power goes. Push the joystick straight forward, tap the button, now you have FWD until you tell it something else. Leave the stick in its center position (that it returns to when you release it) tap the button, AWD. Same for left, right, and rear drive. Now you have no accidental changes in drive.

The last part of the article made reference to a motor/alternator attached to the engine with a purpose built bracket and that was connected to the engine crankshaft with a toothed belt. If I am not mistaken, the Malibu Hybrid at Hybridfest had an oversize alternator with a toothed belt. Is that their hybrid component?

Funny turbo

good stuff

Hi Okie...,

Yep, that is it. They call it BAS (Belt driven Alternator/Starter). They hook that to a battery, and it can autostart/stop the engine when the vehicle is stopped, provide acceleration asssitence and recover some braking energy.