How to turn your car into a Hybrid-Electric car?

In news: snipped-for-privacy@uni-berlin.de, ivan decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows

Nah, there's nothing I can think of that will encourage me to drive something "powered" by Dr Diesels ghastly invention..

Now, if he'd only bring down the tax on super unleaded...

Well it's either that, or Prescott's dream of burying it all under concrete!

Thats very open minded. Especially with the quality diesels coming onto the market

"Scott Mills" wrote

Sort of but not really since it still leaves lots of gaps in an engine's response. An electric system can put its effort wherever you want.

Until you run the battery flat. Which would be very quickly if pressing on.

Do you know how long is a piece of string is?

On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 18:41:22 GMT, "Scott Mills" wrote (more or less):

The batteries weigh 55lbs. Or the same as a child.

No one suggests getting brake upgrades when you take a child as a passenger...

On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 13:57:57 GMT, "mrcheerful ." wrote (more or less):

Pretty much, it'd depend on how much of your driving was urban.

If a lot of it was, depending on how big and thirsty your car is (or small and frugal), their figures suggest that (with UK fuel prices) the payback would come in 7k to 15k miles.

Taling to a Toyota Service dept mechanic on Saturday, apparently the Prius people carrier has mainly electrically operated brakes that really drain the battery when used, but draw some of the charge by buy using the flywheel to charge it or something.

He said before they work on them, you need to go on a special course where the first thing they give you are a special pair of very thick rubber elbow length gauntlets with an earth connection, because the braking system draws so many amps from the electrical system, it is unsafe to work on them without.

And just why do you think there are few battery cars - or hybrids - around?

Because they are a flawed principle for most use, that's why.

Batteries can only store a tiny proportion of energy compared to a tank of petrol of the same weight.

They cost a great deal of money, and have a limited life.

Rubber gloves won't protect you from 'amps'. 'Amps' cause an arc - that's how an arc welder works. If you were working on something likely to arc over, leather would be a better bet since it doesn't melt.

Rubber gloves would insulate you from high voltage. But why work on it 'live' anyway?

If you go back over the threads you will find

//They have been busy trying to make hopelessly impractical electric cars with enough storage to do a long journey.

The short duration pulse is not something that they have been trying to offer.//

Ah Stand corrected. I guess with brakes and things, with it being electrically based, you need it live to test for the operation, and probably run some of it's own diagostics.

probably has a big capacitor in there somewhere too, for if the engine stalls, pretty much like a servo can manage one or two stomps on the pedal before it runs out of vacuum.

When taking 5 people in a typical car, the weight of a child can determine whether you can fill the boot without overloading the vehicle or not.

Christian.

You'll probably find it is the other way round. The brakes will generate large amounts of electricity that must be safely disipated (preferably into a battery or flywheel so that it can be reused).

Christian.

The Prius seems to have the combined starter, alternator, flywheel and motor design, so the regenerative braking will drive the flywheel directly, and charge the battery. However, I don't understand the use of 'mainly' and 'electrically operated'.

Because it's of no practical use. Extra performance you can only use sometimes - depending on whether the battery is charged? Be serious...

I was only going by what the service tech said (and he was one of two at that dealership trained to do it).

He said that rather than the usual continuos brake line, with fluid, linking all four corners, there was brake line and fluid, but working seperatley at each corner of the car, and electrically operated (I assume some kind of powerful electric servo rather than 4 seperate mechanical linakges) controlled finely by computer.

Firstly, this is purely a guess based on how I would engineer it myself. I have no idea how Toyota solved the problems.

Basically, you could use the electric motor as a brake. When operating in this mode, it generates electricity, which is stored either in a battery or flywheel.

However, the maximum amount of braking will depend on the motor design and the battery/flywheel capacity. When this runs out, the braking will cease. It will also have a maximum value, which may not be very high compared to the energy dissipated in an emergency stop.

Therefore, and for additional safety and low speed reasons, you also need a mechanical brake that applies when the electrical braking is insufficient.

Christian.