The Chevy Volt design....

Existential Angst · 2013-03-30T17:24:31+00:00

Awl -- Recently, with the asshole extreeordinaire KiddingHisself, there was much acrimonious debate over the Volt, whose design I initially thought was Da Bomb. Kidding, however, has pointed out that the design is, in fact, a kind of gratuitous silly complexity. Kidding dudn't understand this or any of the implications of his own research, but that's to be expected. So the Q is: If a diesel-electric locomotive uses a dert-simple diesel-to-generator-to-traction-motor design, with no intermediary bullshit, why doesn't the Volt do this as well? The only germane difference between the Volt and a diesel-electric locomotive (btw, virtually ALL locomotives are diesel-electric, so they just call the "diesels") is that the Volt has a parallel battery pack, for electric-only operation. No big biggie, in my mind. Well, big in the sense that this can avoid fossil fuel (Exxon/Mobil), but not big in the actual *design details*. After all, parallel is parallel, electrically speaking. Think about how simple the generator-motor design is. Electric motors apparently no need no stinkin transmission, one of their big advantages. So all's you gotta do is hit the gas pedal, rev up the generator, to get accelerating electic power. Release, have some relays switch the motors to braking batteries, bang, you slow down. Switch over to batteries-only when they are available/charged. So whazzup with all the rocket science (and rocket machining) in the Volt?? Dare I say it: RCMers could build/execute this basic design, and for a whole lot less than $45K. My 15,000 W genset (22 hp, and no bastion of technology) weighs a whole 220#. I'm sure that output could be at least tripled in 500# genset, what with Detroit know-how. Oh, Kidding, please stay out of THIS thread, adults are tryna talk here....