I’ve been asking forever why we aren’t seeing gasoline electric vehicles. It’s literally been standard practice for diesel locomotives for basically as long as diesels have been dominant, you hook a gigantic diesel generator (prime mover)to a pair of gigantic electric motors (traction motors), and when you want to slow the consist without consuming your precious air for more intense braking, you can just turn the motors into generators and dump the energy into giant resistor banks on the roof (dynamic braking) or into an battery powered engine behind your diesel electric engine
You get the power of electric motors, the mechanical simplicity of electric transmission, and the range and rapid refueling of an internal combustion engine. The disconnect between the prime mover and the traction motors means each can be tuned to their respective efficiency curves (especially if a bank of batteries/capacitors is included as a buffer) so you get more efficient idling, more efficient acceleration adds the options of connecting slugs (units with no prime mover nor control cab) or b-units (units with no cab)
I’ve been asking forever why we aren’t seeing gasoline electric vehicles
They’re called hybrids. The reason they’re not in series is because it’s more efficient once the engine is at “cruise” speed to just let the engine spin the wheels directly instead of losing 15% going engine to electric then electric to electric motor.
So instead of a transmission, hybrids use a planetary differential. That way everything is always spinning at maximum efficiency.
I suppose I could see how that could math out, assuming the engine running at an appropriate RPM to transmit to the wheels isn’t less fuel efficient than an engine running at an appropriate RPM to generate electricity.
The thing that turns it on its head for gasoline electric though is the IC engine can be almost anything and do almost anything if all it’s doing is spinning an alternator with sufficient power buffer before the electric motors. The IC engine could run at a single constant RPM at all times if that’s most efficient, or it could be a more car-like thing that adjusts it’s RPMs based on load. Or maybe it runs at constant RPMs but the count of active cylinders changes depending on load. The types of engines that can be used suddenly becomes immense because of this too
I just find it hard to believe that the most efficient option for a hybrid is 2 drivetrains. That always struck me like it was more engineers specialized in ICE vehicles simply designing what they know rather than something more bold and imaginative
I’ve been asking forever why we aren’t seeing gasoline electric vehicles. It’s literally been standard practice for diesel locomotives for basically as long as diesels have been dominant, you hook a gigantic diesel generator (prime mover)to a pair of gigantic electric motors (traction motors), and when you want to slow the consist without consuming your precious air for more intense braking, you can just turn the motors into generators and dump the energy into giant resistor banks on the roof (dynamic braking) or into an battery powered engine behind your diesel electric engine
You get the power of electric motors, the mechanical simplicity of electric transmission, and the range and rapid refueling of an internal combustion engine. The disconnect between the prime mover and the traction motors means each can be tuned to their respective efficiency curves (especially if a bank of batteries/capacitors is included as a buffer) so you get more efficient idling, more efficient acceleration adds the options of connecting slugs (units with no prime mover nor control cab) or b-units (units with no cab)
They’re called hybrids. The reason they’re not in series is because it’s more efficient once the engine is at “cruise” speed to just let the engine spin the wheels directly instead of losing 15% going engine to electric then electric to electric motor.
So instead of a transmission, hybrids use a planetary differential. That way everything is always spinning at maximum efficiency.
I suppose I could see how that could math out, assuming the engine running at an appropriate RPM to transmit to the wheels isn’t less fuel efficient than an engine running at an appropriate RPM to generate electricity.
The thing that turns it on its head for gasoline electric though is the IC engine can be almost anything and do almost anything if all it’s doing is spinning an alternator with sufficient power buffer before the electric motors. The IC engine could run at a single constant RPM at all times if that’s most efficient, or it could be a more car-like thing that adjusts it’s RPMs based on load. Or maybe it runs at constant RPMs but the count of active cylinders changes depending on load. The types of engines that can be used suddenly becomes immense because of this too
I just find it hard to believe that the most efficient option for a hybrid is 2 drivetrains. That always struck me like it was more engineers specialized in ICE vehicles simply designing what they know rather than something more bold and imaginative