Driving just outside of Detroit yesterday, Blue F250 Superduty sitting beside me at stop light. As I approached, I noted the "manufacturer plate".

Observation:
1. Heavy load in bed - approx. 800 - 1000 lbs based on how much it squatted.
2. Heavily decked with gages (A-Pillar and on-dash laptop)
3. Sounded like a Toyota Prius (eerie no sound acceleration) No mistake, this thing was not under fossel fuel power.

I had to turn and wasn't able to observe further whether engine kicked in (Diesel or Gas).

 

That would be fantastic! Particularly if they (unlikely) went with a motor-per-wheel scheme, with traction control.

Fingers crossed...

 

I see the experimentals all the time here in Detroit/Dearborn. I haven't seen this one, nor any others driving on the test track on Oakwood.

 

VERY interesting.

Wonder if it's a battery/electric hybrid, or one of those hydraulic hybrids.

 

i assume this was a NEW truck u were observing ???

 

bet it was just a test mule...hybrids are not strong enough yet to even consider in a SD for practical purposes.

 

Hmmm... Not sure about that. Battery technology in particular has recently made huge strides. And hybrid locomotives have been around since the 50's.

I would submit that a truck would be a better platform than a car for hybrid technology, as weight and handling are less of a concern. Heavy batteries would be better tolerated in a truck than in a car. Frankly I am surprised that it didn't start with trucks.

 

I think that depends... trains dont use batteries I dont beleive, they are just diesel-electric. Main 2 things there is that the diesel motor can run at a lower rpm for better wear and longevity and that it doesnt need a transmission. Its not done for efficiency thats more of a side-effect. You could do the same with a truck but the transmission isnt as much of an 'issue' with a truck than it is in a locomotive... so I dont see such a big advantage with hybrid electric. Myabe there is more loss in the tranny than I realize though, not sure. If going the battery route... to get enough battery power to run a SD... your probably going to at least double the cost of the truck I think!

What are the huge advances in battery tech recently? I havent really heard any. And I've always said its the battery tech that is the key... gas/diesel engines are just about perfected, electric motors havent changed all that much in 100 years and are pretty efficient... its the battery that costs alot, cant store a big enough charge, and weighs a lot too.

Not sure if a plug-in version would be hard to pull off also from the charging perspective. With a truck as big as a 1 ton SD running on batteries... well it might take more than a regular overnight time frame to charge it on a regular 15A circuit. You might need like an electric clothes drier 240V 30A plug or something like that.

You know... I work with the power company and things are pretty tight as it is power wise especially in summer. If there was a somewhat sudden shift to plug in hybrids... man I cant amagine... electric bills through the roof in some areas, possibly rolling blackouts...

 

Yes, absolutely a test mule. Test mules are common in the Metro Detroit area for all of the manufacturers.

 

A diesel-electric SD would be awesome! Think of the torque, from a dead stop! And, no transmission to worry about. Sounds cool to me.

 

If you don't see the improvements in batteries, just look at the cordless tools that are out now. The new lithium ion ones have something like 4X run time and hold the charge 10X longer than the older ones, at least I think that's what the Ryobi display said. NiCad has been replaced by lithium ion and NiMH, and there's nothing that says you can't combine a hydraulic energy capture system with electric hybrid technology. Capacitors would also be able to store electrical energy but they have a long way to go.

One thing about having a motor on each wheel is that you can have a smaller engine to drive the generator and let the energy storage systems handle the high load situations like acceleration. You also eliminate the mechanical power losses associated with current powertrains. If you raise voltage up your current losses also drop improving efficiency.

 

Anybody that thinks a truck wouldn't be a good application is dead wrong. The limiting factor has been the battery technology available and the extra cost to the consumer. A hybrid-electric topology would be much more efficient under acceleration, where the diesel engine is optimized to get the best mileage cruising. They could also do regenerative braking, which would produce a lot of energy on these heavy trucks. No, they probably couldn't produce an effective plug-in-electric truck, but a series/parallel hybrid would be promising. And for those that think hybrid technology is just for small passenger cars (where it actually helps less), my M.S. research project was working on the drive system for a very heavy hybrid military platform, that's all I can say

 

I agree... a diesel electric would probably be great for a truck (or even gas-electric?), just not the plug in hybrid or just electric (yet). As for small cars my personal opinion is a straight electric no hybrid if your daily commute falls within battery range. Ditch the wieght and complexity of an IC engine all together. Just think, all you have to do is plug it in at home. No more worrying about antifreeze, oil, tranny fluid, etc. You just have a battery bank, control circuit, and electric motor. Much simpler IMO and I am sure a lot less mantainence. And if it is 2 motor drive or 4 motor drive I bet you could even keep cruisin if you lost 1 motor.

Li-ion isnt new technology... it was new in the 90's. Why its taken so long for cordless tools to use them I have no clue. I do have a 19.2V craftsmen set with Li-ion... also my first cell phone from the late 90's had one. Yeah it was a big jump from NiCd and even NiMH, but hybrids have already been using Li-ion. I'm not sure if Li-ion polymer has really been utilized yet I know it is a somewhat recent improvement but I guess I know little about it. I guess cost is one of the biggest factors there...

 

You make some great points! I think the main advantage in ANY vehicle would be for stop-and-go driving, where you could get by with less engine power, relying on the batteries for quick bursts, and spreading the charging over time. But, towing a boat on the freeway, you are going to need that big engine 100% of the time.

I think the advaces are in the engineering surrounding the motor. Computer assisted design for optimization of everything from the windings to the mechanicals, the cooling system for the motor, rare-earth magnets (that's huge, if they use a PM motor, which they probably wouldn't), and also very importantly, the control electronics are worlds ahead of where they were 20 years ago.


More great points! I am not a big fan of the plug-in hybrid approach, you're just displacing the pollution into someone else's back yard, and possibly at a sacrificed efficiency. They always seem to forget to mention that in the news stories...

As far as the grid load thing, that is another aspect that gets glossed over all of the time. Try building a new nuke plant, or ANY kind of plant these days (particularly in Kali!). Fortunately, the charging would occur during off-peak times, with exceptions for those days when people are running their A/C all night.

Hopefully they'll figure this all out before we're all driving clown cars (oops, sorry, politics! Please forgive me!)

Yes, and don't forget, ZERO WHEELSPIN in a 4wd, if they do it right!


And lithium polymer is taking it even farther, although they are still pretty finicky. All of the R/C models are running on those now, that's a pretty good indication of where the energy density leaders are.

Fewer moving parts would probably translate to less maintenance, too. Although now we're all going to have to go back to school and get an electrical engineering degree to do all of these mods we like so much around here.

Good point. Imagine descending grades pulling a trailer. You'd need a second trailer full of batteries to hold all of that energy!


I remember not too long ago, some company converted a military Humvee to a hybrid, and it kicked butt all over the stock one, climbing and acceleration and efficieincy wise. I'm sure they had pretty close to a blank check, but it was at least ten years ago, before there were really any practical hybrids.