Electric conversion: Project ForkenSwiift

[rh77]

Originally Posted by SVOboy

Nice aristotle joke there, bud.

Well smarty pants, that's actually what the industry calls it. So, did you get anything else out of the post???

RH77

[SVOboy]

So, did you get anything else out of the post???

I did sir, I was just to busy with my ****ed up car and my mountains of homework to say something intelligent about it.

[rh77]

Originally Posted by SVOboy

I did sir, I was just to busy with my ****ed up car and my mountains of homework to say something intelligent about it.

I'm just bustin' your chops. I'm actually trying to multitask with work reports and this darn addictive site as well :-) No need for Sir, I haven't been Knighted by the Queen of England yet. But thanks anyways. Just call me...

RH77

[SVOboy]

I think sir is a very gallant name, and I will use it for all eternity. I wonder when I'll get my homework done...

[rh77]

Originally Posted by SVOboy

I think sir is a very gallant name, and I will use it for all eternity. I wonder when I'll get my homework done...

Well then, Sir, I agree, and I thank you for your gallantry (if that's even a word. If it isn't, it is now). I'm getting nothing done either. ;-) I mean, you work all day, or you take classes all day, in the evening, sometimes you just want to indulge in a hobby like gassavers and the History channel. I'm stuck at a Hotel as usual, so my options are limited. Like I'm going to work out at the fitness center -- I won't have connectivity! I could take the Aveo LS for a spin in Little Rock, Arkansas (yay). Finally I got a bargain-basement rental complete with crank windows and manual locks. New cars are just getting too big. This "small car" seems big enough to me. But more on that when I get the time to write my review on it. I still have a few in the queue to enter...

RH77

[JanGeo]

I've thought many times how this would work to power a car.

FORGETABOUTIT - the losses in a car would cost you too much mpg - a loco needs it to do it that way because it can not make gears and a clutch big enough to move that kind of load with direct drive. They spend a lot of $$ on making the motors cheeper and more efficient and have the space to play with and the need for extra weight.

Best config is a parallel hybrid so that either ice or electric or both can move the car.

[rh77]

Originally Posted by JanGeo

FORGETABOUTIT - the losses in a car would cost you too much mpg - a loco needs it to do it that way because it can not make gears and a clutch big enough to move that kind of load with direct drive. They spend a lot of $$ on making the motors cheeper and more efficient and have the space to play with and the need for extra weight.

Best config is a parallel hybrid so that either ice or electric or both can move the car.

I considered that. I asked this question about 20 years ago, of course with the answer that we have plenty of oil, why change the current powertrain design.

I agree with you on a few points, but also have some rebuttal. It's true that a loco doesn't have a series of gears: some are geared for high-speed, some are for raw power, low-speed, and in-between, etc. But with the absence of a transmission in a vehicle, that's additional weight savings. A parallel engine/motor idea is pretty efficient, but my goal is weight reduction. With Metro's setup, many heavy batteries may be required to store a decent charge to get around. I'm not saying to stick a 0.7L Diesel hooked to a separate generator, but an all-in-one design like a larger household generator -- those little things can power a house. It's only a theory, and I'm sure the current draw would bog it down, but it's an idea. The forklift motor itself looks pretty darn heavy by itself.

RH77

P.S. Say Hi to my In-Laws -- they're staying in Newport and visiting family in Bristol.

[JanGeo]

Try to find a small high efficiency ICE - that is the problem - the 2.5HP honda motor I have (Yeah I own a honda!) is only rated at 25% efficiency. Been through this with some experts that know electric motor and fuel engines - even thought of converting to propane. The best setup is a small motor and battery to drive the vehicle when moving already and the small and efficient motor to power the car under other driving conditions. Any other combination requires too much weight for the electic parts. Another recent post about an AIR powered hybrid was very interesting - the engineer changed the valve to electric hydralic and could shut off fuel to the cylinders and have them compress and run on air but only because they had complete computer control of the valve timing.

[rh77]

Originally Posted by JanGeo

Another recent post about an AIR powered...

Hey, I made one of those in high school! Yes, I am and was a science nerd. For a competition we ran a small dune-buggy sized vehicle on compressed air. The "transmission" was an impact wrench hooked to a few compressed air tanks and welded to a low-resistance bicycle wheel. After it got going, it really started to take off, until we ran out of air :-( It had to be hydraulic as well, so we pumped our way around with pressurized transmission fluid. We're lucky that nothing blew up. Anyways, off-topic stuff.

Metro- any updates? Kind of excited to see this come together. The motor sounds like a ball-buster, though. Could you raise it up from under the car to it's mounts, using a jack or platform/jack?

RH77

[rh77]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

rh77 - good train post. the house is not far from a shunting yard, and i used to cross the tracks (illegally - but never got busted.. or busted up) when i worked at a nortel factory on the other side of the tracks.

the yard engines are icons of corporate wastefulness: they NEVER turn them off, from november through march. they idle continuously all winter. i suppose they're hard to start when cold, but thats' ridiculous.

as for why GM doesn't apply their train know-how to road vehicles? they actually are: Ten GM Diesel Hybrid Buses to Oahu

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2004/10/ten_gm_diesel_h.html

gm's hybrid strategy is interesting to say the least: focusing on the most "wasteful" vehicles first. there is some logic in it (more fuel is saved by improving a bus' mpg from 4 to 5 mpg, than a subcompacts' mpg from 40 to 50.) but it's not helping their green image.

You know, I do recall seeing that on "MotorWeek" TV. They're also working on vehicles like FedEx delivery trucks. On the GM-Allison test track they had the vehicle stopped, got up to about 10 mph on the electric motor, then the Diesel engine would start, ramp-up, and take-over automatically. We all know that from a standing stop, a huge amount of particulates are belched out of a Diesel truck. That was the focus. The question still remains (maybe I should research this first) but is a CNG bus less pollutive (another word that I probably made up -- I'm sticking with it). At any rate, I'm probably hard on GM because I was forced to buy one as my first car and after 4 senseless failures, I went down the Honda road and never looked back. In Northeastern Ohio, you get bad-mouthed for buying a "foreign" car, with all of the GM and Ford assembly plants around there. And of course we all knew someone who worked for them, so you had to buy one. I was fed up during college when my second Beretta started mixing the oil and coolant due to a blown head gasket. In a heated rage I dumped the Chevy and bought a Barebones Civic DX. The whole family gasped in horror! "Yeah, but it's made in Marysville, Ohio". That was the saving grace. Then when I bought my Evo, my Dad was like, "you know Mitsubishi made planes for the Japanese during World War II" -- mostly razzing me. Some generations just don't give up on International grudges. But for me, GM has rubbed me the wrong way in my generation four times, so I'm bitter. The 4 Honda/Acuras that we've had -- best investment. They've earned my trust.

Anyways, on my Dad's railroad, they shut down the locos at night -- in the Winter they plugged them into a 220V outlet to maintain heat for a slick start. I'm guessing the yard near your house has small "switch" engines, which are hard to start unless plugged-in. Another thing to consider is that they may operate them 24/7 by continuously putting trains together for the open "road", and idle between shifts or during lunchtime. The railroad is a strange employer. Time of day doesn't matter much when you work, and your shift could really vary. If they didn't have a 3rd shift and let them idle all night, that's just, well, not a good idea.

Thanks for the thumbs-up on the post...it's been a while ;-) Honestly I had it coming on some of those as I look back on them.

Anyways, do you know if it's possible to export a vehicle to the 'States? I really wan't an Acura 1.7EL or CSX.

RH77