Toyota & Ford end hybrid truck effort

True, but it may have been necessary in order to diffuse the hybrid premium. I was trying bring in the price factor of two-made. IIRC, the price difference between the hybrid and comparable ICE crew cab was approaching $6000. Within the total price of such vehicles, it wasn't a huge difference. That changes once you get into the no frills truck pricing.

At getting started moving at least. Electric motors get all their torque right away, but the amount produced drops as their rpms climb. Locomotives and giant sized earth movers use multiple motors or ones sized to their scale.They aslo don't have transmissions, which is likely the weak point of two-mode and HSD when it comes to heavy loads and towing.

There is no technical reason why a serial hybrid shouldn't work on a road scale truck. The issues are cost, and getting a large enough efficiency improvement for the cost. Via Trucks is having a go at it, but $79k isn't going to sell many.
VIA Motors

 

BMW is the one that said the two mode was too expensive. I think Mercedes may have said it also. They were part of the GM partnership to develop it. GM has now dropped it from future pick up trucks, because I imagine it is too expensive.

If you read my post, I said the system in the Lexus rear wheel drive, or rear wheel based awd cars is also too expensive. I say that based on what toyota charges, but you may have more insight. You will not see many LSh cars on the road, because they haven't sold many, and yes the car mags have said the hybrid system is heavy and expensive.

I did not comment on the front wheel drive based system in the rxh, because that is an inadequate system for pick up trucks. If toyota thought it was fine for pick up trucks they wouldn't have thought it was a good idea to try and partner with ford. Payload and towing capacity just isn't there for a tundra or takoma. Toyota could try to put it in an ABAT, but we haven't heard about that since 2008. If you tried to make the system work in a pick up, you need more torque, which means beefer hsd and motors, which drives up cost.

Something like the bmw activehybrid is quite scalable, and toyota or ford or gm could likely bring costs down in a truck. The trick is making the engine more efficient by a down sized atkinson or di turbo charged one, but with a big enough electric motor and beefy enough transmission to provide the towing and/or hauling torque when called on. There are likely other options toyota is exploring.

 

Agree its not a technical limitation, but the crew cabs have a higher profit margin. It is a place to hide the high cost of the hybrid system. High cost is a marketing problem, and yes I don't know what it really costs gm, but if it was low, then they should have offered it in other trims. Say it cost GM $10,000 per vehicle. If you put it in a $35,000 truck with a high profit margin, you can charge less than if you put it in a $25.000 truck with a much lower profit margin.

 

HSD already does. It uses the electric motor torque as "low gear". It gets away without needing to shift any gears. eCVT is the shift between electricity and gasoline (mechanical) power. Infinite combination of both is what creates it a continuous variable transmission.

Highlander HSD and RX400h already have 4WD option. The rear electric motor (MGR) is air cooled so it has limited use and not suitable for heavy towing. They need to find an elegant way to cool the MGR with liquid without driving up the cost and the weight. I believe those are the challenges Ford and Toyota were trying to address.

 

Yes, it is a good starting point. In order to shift more power to the rear you would likely want a bigger battery and more powerful mg1 and mgr, which adds costs. Its definitely doable, but would also make major changes to the truck.

 

Interesting. I realize it's a mule, but I like the looks of the 'CrossVolt' much better.
Chevrolet Volt MPV5 concept Photo Gallery - AutoblogGreen

Wonder what the heck is meant by 'GM not making a Voltec MPV in order to concentrate resources on producing ELR'
That makes no sense to me whatsoever........in order to bring down costs, they should be producing as many Voltecs as possible, and that means as wide a target audience as is between luxury ELR, crossover, and sedan.

It's not one or the other. Just sayin'

 

The resources could be the design team, and they didn't want to spread out the expertise. My guess is that they also wanted to wait for battery advancement to come further along before doing the MPV5. So there would be less compromise between EV range and space.

I saw at fueleconomy.gov that Chevy has a compact SUV called the Captiva. Right now it is only available in Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and to fleet customers. So another possible model for this hybrid. There was also a rumor a year or so ago of a Cruze hybrid.