What do you guys think? Should we start figuring out how to tweek hybrids?

I think purpose is key here. Most people buy hybrids for fuel economy and emissions, not performance. I'll go out on a limb and say most people here are into performance. Unless we see a true performance hybrid, I'd say not yet.

Nissan is deloping a really high performance VQ37 VHR Twin turbo with there new pancake electirc motor. Way over 500 hp. Look at the hybrid Z article. The guys at Technosqaure want to reprogram the inverter on a Prius so it can dump the electrical motor hard while the IC engine is going full tilt. This would go pretty fast in a sprint.

Hopefully it'll shift the trend of cars getting heavier and heavier and start bringing smaller overseas model cars state side. That's the most likely first step.

Nissan Cube, Scion xB and xA, Versa, Mitsubishi Colt, Ford Fiesta, Mini, Kia Soul, etc.............

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/CARS/rules/CAFE/overview.htm

Then it just opens up the fun of trying to swap a bigger motor into a little car, like a QR powered Versa. You've probably seen the EcoTech Swapped Chevy Aveo and the K20 Swapped Honda Fit.

The performance equation is going to stay pretty much the same: big motor + little car, little motor + big turbocharger, or some combination of the 2, then toss an electrical motor somewhere in the mix. Big electric motor + small electric car. I think the technical challenges and voodoo newness of electrical drivetrains will keep electric car tuning in the hands of the OEMs and super geeks for a good while. If all that comes out of it for the time being is a return to smaller lighter cars, I'm ok with it.

I think we might see some really small displacement, direct injection turbo cars with super variable cam timing. The CO2 issues might kill the small diesel.

I think a lot of the voodoo regarding hybrid vehicles is the added complexity of tuning two systems, an ICE and an electric motor to cover each other's weaknesses. OEMs go to great lengths to automate this coordinated effort and make it as seamless as possible. After driving my dad's new Insight and reading up on Hypermiler literature, I found that while convenient most of the time, for achieving maximum result (whether FE or HP), the built in systems can get in the way. Especially with extreme hypermiler driving style, having more manual control over the interaction can result in a dramatic difference.

So if you manage to find a way to either add manual override, or write customized protocols for different purposes, I think a lot of benefit can be had from them. The downside of course is complexity, as Big J said, probably reserved for the super geeks. Luckily, since this is more on the software side, its also cheap to share, so the benefits can quickly overcome the high effort from research.

I'd really like to take a first-gen Insight, bolt a tiny turbo to the head (they have no exhaust manifold, so you can bolt the turbo straight to the cylinder head), and do enrichment fueling with E85. The E85 cools enough to negate the need for an intercooler, and the high octane negates the need for timing adjustments.John Concialdi did this with his NSX with great results. Just need to find room for a 2-3 gallon tank in that little car...

The original insight is the only hybrid that ever interested me. The rest are just Camrys.

-Dave

E85 is 85% ethanol. Ethanol doesnt have as good latent heat of vaporization as methanol, its maybe only a little better than gasoline. Methanol has the good cooling effect and I belive thats what JC used as his secondary fuel.

There's going to be the reluctance and resistance to new things, electric/hybrid vehicles haven't caught on, and it'll be a while before they do. When and if they do there will most likely be demographical divide. *I'm just playing devil's advocate.*

My previous statement about the performance equation stands. "you snatch out the battery packs, swap in a bigger motor, your power to weight ratio is going to rock" Remember the K20A powered Honda Insight drag car?

I think the OEMs realize this resistance and though there are "dedicated" electric hybrid vehicles produced, the trend to "augmented" vehicles being sold, ie. camery, highlander, altima, civic, accord is swinging the balance more recently. I don't know if it's an attempt to more gradually bring the technology into the mainstream in a familure package, saves on development costs, or is a numbers game based on the CAFE fleet calculation vs. sales to help meet compliance, or some combination.





I think from a performance standpoint it's going to be a matter of having cake and being able to eat it to, I don't think it's going to be good cake anytime soon.

The Geo Metro from the early '90s is still one of the gas mileage kings.

I just want to turbo a hybrid. I mean... you don't have to smog the damn thing. Problem is that I think many of the hybrids come with CVTs, so you're limited on torque. I think a GT28RS has enough lag to not be spooled up while the electric motor and gas engine are kicking on the Civic Hybrid. Once the turbo comes in, I think you could add about 40whp without killing the CVT tranny.

Posted By smartbomb on 07-06-2009 04:51 PM
I think we might see some really small displacement, direct injection turbo cars with super variable cam timing. The CO2 issues might kill the small diesel.

I think you're getting confused with NOx Diesels tend to have very low CO2 emissions, relatively speaking.

CO2 is an issue as well especialy at WOT.

I think most of the tweaks discussed so far assume the parallel hybrid drivetrain, where classic power making formulas will still work, no matter how exotic. On the other hand, a series hybrid drivetrain changes the paradigm and offers many different paths for improving both efficiency and tweaking for different performance characteristics. So I present my pipe dream.

It is very easy to scale up the power handling of an electric drivetrain because this is effectively only limited by the controller and wiring as they determine the total amount of current that the system can handle. The motor only limits how long you can run peak power due to thermal limits and getting a big enough motor to handle the heat is relatively easy. By far the most expensive and weight bearing component is the batteries. The batteries, while power limited, are much more capacity (range) limited.

The problem with electric cars is they increase the weight tremendously in order to be marketable and support long distance travel, note the Tesla. Fast electric dragsters maximize specific power by stacking many high power handling but low AH lithium-ion batteries to save weight and meet the voltage requirement. Ideally, and assuming technology improves and actually makes this possible (more a matter of when, then if, though), supercapacitors make the ideal choice for dragsters as they are not power limited. As long as the supercapacitor has enough capacity to sustain a hard pull through the entire acceleration section, then you will not need anything bigger. This can potentially save a lot of weight once the specific energy of capacitors reach a high enough level. When this happens, the results will be ridiculous.

In other racing events where long acceleration pulls are not as prevalent, like autocross, rally, range does become an issue and this is where the ICE can resume its position but in a much different form. Here the game has changed a lot. Efficiency wise, we now have a lot of options. We can tune for a constant load system. For most ICEs, this means tune for one rpm. Things can go exotic though, and we can even see turbines, two-stroke turbo diesels, and other stuff I don't know about. Since the output of the engine only needs equal the average energy draw during one lap, and this output is much smaller, when combined with the constant load advantage, we can get by with a less powerful, compact and lightweight engine.

There should be additional gains in weight savings because of the lack of a need for a transmission, or at least a complex one. This should also impact efficiency.

Unfortunately, this is a pipe dream. Super-capacitor technology needs to increase the specific energy and most auto manufacturers have invested heavily in traditional ICE designs. A switch to a simple engine design seems less likely or will take much more time.

The energy recovery stuff coming in F1 should be interesting.

Those are flywheels I believe.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Formula+1+hybrid+technology:+high-speed+flywheel+energy+recovery...-a0172981734

To sum up, 40kW (53HP) of power and 400kJ (10 seconds) of energy. Apparently the stresses aren't that bad.

Posted By bmillare on 07-09-2009 10:13 AM
Those are flywheels I believe.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Formula+1+hybrid+technology:+high-speed+flywheel+energy+recovery...-a0172981734

To sum up, 40kW (53HP) of power and 400kJ (10 seconds) of energy. Apparently the stresses aren't that bad.

Only the Williams team uses a flywheel for energy storage. The rest are using batteries.

Posted By smartbomb on 07-08-2009 09:38 PM
CO2 is an issue as well especialy at WOT.

Hmm... well, they are approaching 100hp/L with diesels now! I think I read an updated BMW 3-series diesel is punching out 300hp.... So.... where does that leave the 300hp twin turbo gas engine? The diesel has way more torque, same power output and significantly better mileage.

Posted By smartbomb on 07-09-2009 09:15 AM
The energy recovery stuff coming in F1 should be interesting.

the KERS is banned from 2010. It has barely lasted the first 9 races this season, BMW (the major supporter prior to the start of the season)abandoned ship along with Renault. Red Bull, Toro Rosso, Brawn, Force India, Williams, and Toyota never even introduced it to the car.

Posted By spdracerut on 07-09-2009 12:47PM
Only the Williams team uses a flywheel for energy storage. The rest are using batteries.

Williams did develop the flywheel KERS but never used it on the car.

This article http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/08062009/58/teams-call-kers-scrapped.html?page=2&order=date seems to show Ferrari bragging about their progress with the device.

I suppose its unfair to the teams with much less money who can't develop it to a stage where it is usable.

I think Xtrac developed a system for the poorer teams, I didnt know the idea was abandoned. It would have helped pass car development.