Original Hybrid Concept

I don't recall that, but it certainly sounds plausible for a first-concept hybrid. What you describe is usually called a 'series hybrid'. No car currently on the US market works this way. Practically speaking, a gasoline engine still seems to be the better idea for high-speed, low-torque applications, while the elecrtric motor has proven itself perfect for high-torque situations. The series hybrid, in short, just doesn't really play to the strengths of the two technologies!

The Honda Insight comes close to that description in other ways, although its gasoline engine (1.0L 3-cyl) does actually interact directly with the transmission. The Civic Hybrid uses the same design as the Insight, but a larger engine to power a larger car.

The fact is that very, very few people truly want to drive a car as small as the Insight, or as small as most EV and early hybrid concepts are usually designed. The sad boom of the SUV has demonstrated that beyond any real ability to dispute.

Toyota's system is very complex, it's true...but the results seem to be worth it, because it allows a mid-sized car to perform within only a few points of a much smaller one. Take a look at the MotorTrend article that jkash just linked in the news section. They took some time to run what they consider to be a more accurate-for-the-modern-world version of the EPA test on the '03 and '04 Priuses (very different cars), the Insight, and hte Civic Hybrid. The result was that the '04 Prius was right behind the Insight in mpg terms!

From an engineering standpoint, however, I'll agree that complexity is always an invitation to bugginess.

 

umm you wouldnt be talking about the "Supercar" project in the mid 90's would you?

for those of you that dont know, the Supercar fund was a project started by the clinton administration to investigate ways of reducing our growing dependance on foreign oil. as you might remember, the US had strict regulations regarding US auto fleet mileage averages that were to continue to grow until hitting 40 mpg by 2000. YES THATS RIGHT 40 MPG AVERAGE FOR ALL VEHICLES BY THE YEAR 2000. THAT WAS THE LAW

well the automakers were making slow progress and whining all the way. then the clinton administration came up with the supercar project. he challenged the Big 3 to come up with a family sized car that would get 75 mpg. well the automakers said it was impossible, so Gore (the f@#*ing idiot) told the Big 3 that he would do away with the mileage requirement if the Big 3 were successful.

well that was all they needed. to help out, the head of the EPA was a brilliant man named Charles Gray. it was him who was instrumental in the american automakers building the first hybrid vehicle that used regenerative power. (yes you heard right... american car manufacturer... first car with regen...)

and true to form the big three did design cars that got excellent fuel economy. Toyota got wind of this project and asked if they could participate. the big 3 said no. they werent interested in some meddling foreign company stealing any of their secrets. Toyota, hurting from the snub, decided to develop their own hybrid.

then in may of 2000 in a ceremony in Detroit, Ford introduced the Prodigy that got 72 mpg. GM introduced the Precept that got 80 mpg!! and Daimler Chrysler introduced the ESX3 that got 72 mpg.
so then CAFE went away. as soon as the 500 lb gorilla was off the Big 3's back, they went back to whinning again.

they complained that these cars were prototypes and YEARS away from going into production. plus they would cost too much and no one would be interested in buying them and there was NO WAY ANYONE could build a hybrid that would make money...

less than 6 months later, Toyota made them eat every single syllable of every single word. but the damage was done. CAFE was history and it would take an act of congress to get it back. the auto industry let CAFE happen once. this time they would make sure that that mistake never happened again. and it hasnt.

for a graphic of what could have been

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/special...story.htmlstory

free registration to the chicago tribune required. if you are unfamiliar with this story and feel like screaming at the total outright stupidity of our government or just feel like crying from the frustration born from a feeling that the people in position to do something about the problems we have, know exactly how to solve the problems, but simply havent received a good enough offer to do so.

its a long article but one of the most eye opening you will read about.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/special...special.special

another note... current average fuel economy for us cars is barely 20.3 mpg... when CAFE was done away with in the 90's the US automakers were up to nearly 30 mpg... that number has dropped every single year since then. in fact, it got so bad that they started instituting exemption to CAFE measurement by not counting the large SUV's since theylowered the average to much.

sorry for the long post, but you hit a nerve. reading this story 3 years ago is what got me interested in hybrid technology. Thank you Toyota for not taking no for an answer!!!

 

My earliest recollection of a hybrid auto was a talk and paper presented by Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute around 1990. It was called Hypercar and had a small ICR driving a generator which powered electric motor generators in all 4 wheels. The body was to be of carbon fiber for strength and low weight. The theroretical system would obtain 100 mpg with good performance. The big three all paid lip service but could never make the curtural changes necessary for implementation. Amory thought that it would have to be a non auto company like Sony or Matsushita that would make it happen. He is probably surprised that Toyota made it happen and with a system vastly superior to his relatively simple concept. If the lighter carbon fiber bodies are added in and refined (smaller engine, smaller gas tank, lighter components), the Prius mileage would probably be close to 100mpg. Amory is alive and well and on to many new projects. They never made any real money from their design work but Toyota will.

 

scientists missing out on the glory because they couldnt convince the business people to do anything with their inventions is par for the course.

Look at the computer industry.

Xerox invented nearly everything and made money from none of them.

they invented the GUI, mouse, internet, etc... but Xerox was run by MBA's not brilliant scientific visionaries.

 

Using ICE directly may be more efficient

I would bet that using the ICE engine directly, rather than as an electrical generator to drive the wheels with electric motors, is actually more efficient for those situations where the power needed is in a favorable region of the engine's power curve. It is true that some heavy equipment uses a diesel engine coupled to a generator and electrical motors to drive the wheels, but I think that's because of the efficiency of electric motors for low-speed torque which is the main need in heavy equipment.

 

mshappe is correct that a hybrid system where the ICE can directly drive the wheels is better for high-speed low-torque (highway driving). This type of system is referred to as "parallel hybrid" and is the closest description of the Honda hybrids. The ICE is connected to the wheels through a standard transmission. The electric motor (Honda's IMA) is connected to the wheels through the crankshaft of the ICE. The ICE is always running (except when the car is stopped at a light) and the IMA provides the added boost when needed.

The other hybrid concept (series) has an ICE running at optimum conditions, which runs a generator, which in turn drives the wheels through an electric motor. Batteries are used for peak power demands and to recover power through regenerative braking. This type of hybrid system is ideal for slower stop and go type driving that you'd find in the city. Unfortunately, because of losses in converting mechanical energy to electric and then back to mechanical, series hybrids are not as efficient as a conventional car with a standard transmission and an equivalent sized engine.

Toyota has come up with a design which is referred to as "series-parallel hybrid" because it can operate in both modes. In the city it can drive the wheels with the electric motor only and use the ICE to run the generator. On the highway it can use the ICE to drive the wheels and use the electric motor for peak power demands like merging and passing.

I fully agree, but not if you're talking about the Prius. The main reason that I've ordered a Prius is because of the simplicity of the power train. It is true that it's difficult to describe the complexities of the operation, but the actual mechanics are elegantly simple. There is no comparison between the Prius' Power Split Device and a modern automatic transmission. The automatic is so much more complex with many more moving parts, but it's also true that automatics have become much more reliable than in the past. While the Prius system relies on computer control, so do most of the conventional cars on the market today.

 

You have a very good point. The HSD certainly sounds complex when you describe how all its pieces can interact; and if you tried to do it using anything like a 'normal' transmission, it would probably be a mess. The PSD is, in many ways, the key stroke of genius behind making the whole thing work, and it turns something that could be painfully complex into something much simpler and, hence, less prone to bugginess.

Of course, as we're seeing on these boards, there are some bugs in the system, but they appear to be implementation problems (e.g. coding bugs in the ECUs) rather than a serious design problem.

 

And the irony is that they all whined and threw fits then, and now here they are all jumping on the hybrid band-wagon. There are a lot of hybrids on the way, and some companies have mentioned that they want to have a hybrid version of every vehicle in their lineup (I don't remember who actually said it). I really hope that they succeed in doing that. I'd love to see hybrids all over the place!

 

Toyota are committed to offering hybrid options on their entire line-up. The target year keeps slipping a little -- at the moment, I think it's 2006. That's also the year they're trimming their lineup a bit -- a couple of models are being dropped out. This may be coincidence.

Nissan, I believe, are similarly committed to gradually hybridising their entire line, as are Honda. Nissan is using tech similar to Toyota's. Honda appears to be sticking with their IMA.

Ford is the only one of the US Big Three who are seriously getting into the hybrid game, but at the moment, only with the Escape. This, too, uses technology similar to Toyota's (but, as has been pointed out elsewhere, not actual Toyota design or components; just similar enough to require a license to avoid patent litigation).

GM's so-called hybrid Sierra is really nothing of the sort. It has an enhanced electric motor and battery pack, true, but these are never used to propel the car. They *do* allow the ICE to be shut down when the vehicle is stationary, but that's it. GM are simply cashing in on the word 'hybrid' without actually doing anything meaningful about it.

Which is sad, because if GM actually tried, I'll bet they could take the basic idea behind the HSD and make it work for a Big Big Truck...

 

Those couple of models they're dropping (the Celica and the Spyder, I believe) are being dropped because they were designed to appeal to the youth market, but didn't do their job, and so Toyota came out with the Scion line. With the new Scions doint well, those two models are out.

 

Not to be cynical or anything, but no airbag in the world is going to save you if an SUV rolls over on top of you!

 

A hundred years too late:

The early electric vehicles, such as the 1902 Wood's Phaeton (top image), were little more than electrified horseless carriages and surreys. The Phaeton had a range of 18 miles, a top speed of 14 mph and cost $2,000. Later in 1916, Woods invented a hybrid car that had both an internal combustion engine and an electric motor. Full article

And another article

Everything old is new again

 

Even Porsche built an early hybrid: http://www.technologyreview.com/purchase/p...519&hy6f0=16612

Googling "porsche hybrid" turns up many other hits.

 

Oooooooooooooooooooo!

Thank you for that reference. Honestly, I had no idea!

I'll tell you something... researching and obsessing about the Prius has given me a greatly increased appreciation for the automobile in general. I honestly had no idea how my conventional car worked until I started researching how the Prius works and needed to read up to understand the difference...

 

That's facinating that they even thought of and had the technology to do that back then. I didn't think it was even really possible until "recently". Yay for Porche! He was way ahead of his time.

 

See, I personally don't find it that amazing that these hybrids were happening. Back then new concepts were being tested left and right, very revolutionary stuff. The car world hadn't fallen into the total uniformity of years of the engines we're all used to, and electricity was a pretty nifty technology back then, right? :mrgreen:

I'm more impressed with the hybrids now because they truely break the mold and defy convention.

 

Yeah, that's true. I hadn't thought of that. People now are more afraid of change, it seems (judging by the way they are reacting to hybrids in the media). Yay for breaking the mold! :mrgreen:

 

the hybrid technology has always been thought of at least briefly. the problem was the massive weight and cost of batteries.

only since the emergence of better battery technology has hybrids become practical... well that and some ingenious Toyota engineering.

although hybrid technology is old, the CVT, etc is cutting edge and undoubtedly has helped to make the Prius a watershed event in automotive design.