Just an interesting Article, from July, last year. A Hybrid SD would be weird... wouldn't it?


What New MPG Standards Will Mean for HD Pickups and Vans ? News ? Car and Driver | Car and Driver Blog

 

I hope there is a new breed of mechanics in the works. It's one thing to say the technology exists to achieve a goal or that it can exist, it's a whole other issue to have someone qualified to work on it.

 

We all totally want electric Super Dutys.....the masculine purr of the electric motor should be enough to coax those cattle trailers up the hills all while sending the uber liberal knee high sock wearing, anti-hygiene, let-your-kid-pick-its-gender women into a tizzy over who gets the next ride.

 

It won't be long before someone says you need a weed eater motor with a turbo on it to have all the hp you'd ever need and get 1000 mpg at the same time.

 

Union Pacific and BNSF sure seem to do alright with them...

 

So does this mean if I take a Prius and slap a few F250+ badges I will be ok? Perhaps a blue oval on the nose? May need to remove the lift gate but should work I suppose!

As for UP and BNSF they have primary motive that is diesel powered but the Diesel engines are hooked to electric generation which hooks to the electric traction motors, hence the name of "gensets" CSX has a few also

 

Hybrids would still have engines...

...and just think. Electric motors offer full torque from a dead stop. Which is something a diesel does not.

 

I sat infront of an idling UP train a few weeks ago and I'm certain I heard a diesel. I was unaware they had anything electric on them. I reckon I oughtta study up on that

I watched a show a couple years ago with a 1,000+ hp electric car. It was pretty impressive

 

I worked in a steel mill. All the trains were diesel powered electric. Plain diesel trains would spin the wheels while the diesel electrics did not. We needed all that torque to move those coal cars. We had an extra 1/2 height car that was just electric motors the we would hook to the engine for extra power to push the coal cars around. It was very interesting.

 

Down here in the new orleans area there is miss river bridge call the huey p long built in the 30's that is a few miles long and is super high, they use a diesel electric locomotive to pull the long trains over it because of the torque. Some of those trains are a mile or better long. I would be interested to see how they would power an electric super duty, they would need a hell of a battery system, I don't see that happening. BTW I get a whopping 11.2 mpg with my 2015 350 dually diesel without pulling a trailer. Any suggestions for help with that?

 

diesel electric in the mines has been around along time as well. The tech is sound.

Putting it in a SD is not so easy. Everything will have to go larger to accommodate the new parts.

Then there is the weight class and towing ability as well.

Everyone will have to get a class A to drive the darn thing.

 

Electric motors absolutely outperform internal combustion (gas and diesel) for daily driving, towing, reliability, etc. Has nothing to do with political views.

Problem is in the battery technology and the recharge times. Once something better comes along, all electric is the way to go.

 

People confuse advancement with politics. End of the day if my SD can tow the same and or more but net me 30-40 MPG, I don't care whats in it. Of course I want something that is affordable and not a maint nightmare, but if the tech is sound sure.


Problem like you said is batteries right now. Nobody is going to be interested on a grand scale, until they can go a few days without charging and wont get stuck without juice on the side of the road.


The only issue is now, is gas prices being down companies are not going to be motivated to R&D this stuff because they can compete with cheap gas. And the whole idea of oil running out in 50 years has gone out the window.


But there is finite oil, we just don't know how much. 100 years or 1000? Electricity is cheap and nuclear power can do it safely and cheap for a long time. As with any natural resource, oil starts wars and such. Somebody and I don't see it in the next 50 years, but maybe 100-200 years gas engines as we see them will probably not exist except in museum and personal collections.

 

I'd like to see more of a diesel-electric or gasoline-electric hybrid that was simply on-demand. Trade the transmission out for a large generator and the driveshaft, transfer case, and differentials out for electric motors. A capacitor bank could be used to reclaim some energy which would increase mileage a lot on longer trips. If used for short trips or grocery getting the fuel economy would be about the same as it is now.

Obviously this would be marketed more toward hot-shots and longer hauls, but could easily be used for soccer practice.

I guess the step after that is to do away with the engine altogether and make a "3rd rail" system of roads where the vehicle pulls power from a "hot leg" buried in the road. Just like the cable cars in San Francisco and electric trains now, the pantograph would have to retract to move between hot legs... for instance when switching lanes or taking a highway exit. This would definitely make the vehicles lighter.

 

That's all good except the earth minerals to make good batteries come from places like the congo or argentina (there may be more). In a way we are just trading one scarce resource for another.