A New Kind of Hybrid Car Is About to Hit America's Streets

dtagames

https://archive.ph/fpq1v

dnemmers

This feels very similar to what Edison Motors is doing for the trucking industry. Electric powertrain with on-board generator. https://edisonmotors.ca/

amarraja

Is this new? A freind's BMW i3 had one of these many years ago. (Defnitely pre covid) edit: the frist generation was 2013

Twirrim

So.. the Chevrolet Volt approach?

nippoo

This is called a "series hybrid" rather than the more common "parallel hybrid" (eg Toyota Prius) and has been around for a while, including the BMW i3 with range extender (and London buses, and various other vehicles!). It's more expensive largely because the battery pack needs to be sized much larger to be able to provide enough current for all propulsion / regen. On the other hand, the combustion engine can be undersized and run at its most efficient RPM continuously - the BMW range extender is a 600cc little scooter engine that can provide enough power for continuous highway driving.

mynameisash

> Car and Driver estimates that the vehicle will run at least $60,000. Ram’s gas-powered truck, meanwhile, starts at $42,000. I don't know how much of this is attributable to truck culture, how much is newfangled tech, and how much is the changing landscape of capitalism, but this drives me nuts. Until two years ago. The most expensive car my family had bought was US$20k, a then four year old CR-V. Last year, we bought a then two year old ID.4 at a little over $30k. That was a bit of a tough pill for me to swallow, but I wanted a vehicle with less maintenance than an ICE car and less fuel cost. Admittedly, than $30k will take a long time to recover (but electricity is certainly much cheaper than gas, especially today). But a $60k vehicle? There is no way I'm going to rationalize that kind of purchase. I already said 'no' to that when Ford hiked the price of the Lightning and my only option was an upper-tier model around that price point.

1970-01-01

The hybrid architecture doesn't really matter anymore. EV buyers already have their BEVs. They won't be switching to EREV. What EREV does is allow someone that hates EVs to feel like they're not another EV driver with low range problems when in fact they're very likely going to be filling-up their EREV tank once or twice in 12 months.

euroderf

There's nothing new under the sun. Back in the 1970s (IIRC) the Mother Earth News sold me plans for just this: a car propelled by an electric motor, connected to a generator connected to a small gasoline engine that ran (when needed) at optimum speed and torque. Rather than normal automobile batteries, they recommended using deep-cycle marine batteries.