Offboard hybridization

no. and i didn't decide to demonstrate my low i.q. either.

you need to travel the world and see other designs up close my friend. and so do your engineering professors if what you say is actually true.

even if you don't care to travel, you could borrow a non-usa automotive design book from a library and glimpse how the rest of the world managed to figure this stuff out without the help of our esteemed education system,

the "bosch automotive handbook" is a simplistic, but good place to start.

"to the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail".

couldn't agree more. traditional electric brakes and their controllers make a mockery of this scenario. hydraulic brakes are fully load modulated by definition. other than something that's controlled by the towing vehicle's own braking circuits, it's by far the best solution.

And remove weight from the front axle? Perhaps? Regardless - a trailer weighing more than half theweight of the towing vehicle - without brakes, is NOT RECOMMENDED, and in many places is ILLEGAL.

In MOST cases, in an emergency braking situation, the unbraked trailer LIGHTENS the rear of the car, because as the rear end comes up, the trailer gets UNDER the hitch - regardless of the weight bias, and tries to push the hitch forward from below.

"without brakes" being the magic words.

Don't be hard on yourself. You seem to be smarter than you try to appear with the claim that a cheap ass passenger car that detroit bean counters worked tirelessly on could ever match the sophistication and all weather performance of a quarter million "nearly everything is heated" rig delivering a trailerful of diapers to the frigid parts of the canada.

I have no problem with an idea of a $40k+ diesel. But I hardly doubt FHI could build a sub $30k one with the corner cases (frigid weather) handled properly.

rather than baselessly speculate from in front of a tv that drip-drip-drip's you anti-diesel propaganda because it's in the interests of the controlling oligarchy to keep selling you inefficient vehicles that consume way more fuel than necessary, buy yourself a plane ticket and go to sweden, norway, finland, russia, or any other frigid country where they actually run diesels in the winter. there you will see all kinds of cheap diesel cars making mockery of our propaganda.

there are other reasons to go to these countries as well, but that's beyond the scope of this newsgroup.

Yes, some diesels here run fine most of the time. But they are not without a problems. They *do* get stuck when it;'s below -25C (around -10F I'd guess) and primarily because the cheapasses who don't want to pay for gas neglected the maintenance as well. Of course starting a gas engine at -25C takes a toll on a gas engine as well.

Another reason diesels are bought here is because some folk at the public transit, etc have a side "business" selling the diesel that belongs to their employer to the above mentioned cheapskates.

I'd have no problem buying a diesel as a second car in the family for long demiseason trips, having a gasoline fallback for a harsh winter month. If I had the money that is. That and needing to take long trips often.

And, then, there are folks who install gas equipment turning the car into a bomb on wheels: luckily, they have to repay their savings at the technical inspection time.

If you want to run the car on the same fuel that heats your home and forego spare tire and half of the trunk then by all means you can join them.

apart from working on diesels professionally, i've owned diesels, and one thing i definitely dislike about them is the fueling process. if you get it on your hands, the stink stays for ages.

and in the old days of mechanical pumps and glow plugs, they were clattery, noisy, and yes, sometimes hard to start. but modern electronically controlled common rail direct injection diesels are a whole different matter. fast, torquey, quiet, reliable, economical... they're just awesome. really, oiligopilies aside, it's hard to comprehend why we don't all use them.

I take it that you drive 500+ newton-meters monster of an engine in bmw 335d as opposed to doing a 105 hp euro diesel penance in vw

that engine would be awful in the most areas in the states in anything heavier than rabbit/golf given that 2.0 liter 4 pot is considered "low displacement"

to clarify the context: are you residing in a snow or a sunbelt state and what is the minimum temperature you are seeing in winter.