Ok guys don't hammer me, I'm no environut!!
Anyway I was reading some stuff about some folks building their own hybrid electric systems.
There is a guy who claims to have taken an Opal GT. Planted a 5 hp engine attached to a generator and with the assistance of batteries driving a small electric motor to push this vehicle. link to his project here.
His gen outputs 100 amps.
So my thought (yep scary) is to take maybe a 6K generator portable or Onan RV type, mount it under the hood of a small car along with the electric motor and have a real hybrid electric car. I'm not an electrical guru by any sorts but I can handle simple stuff.
Any thoughts as to what kind of motor could be efficiently driven by such a setup? Maybe a 240 volt motor?? the only problem is the cluster of batteries for stored power.
What about some type of converter to use all of the generators abilities to run a high amperage 24 volt motor?
I'd like something that could really rock for an electric. Of course that wouldn't take much considering what the car manufacturers are making now.
An ideas?

 

First thing I thought of was a chrome stack through the hood. I know, not much help.
When I read about what the auto manufacturers are selling, especially stuff like the volt and its price tag...I think you have an idea that just might work...better then their stuff.
How would you connect to the drive wheels?

Awhile back Dodge had an Intrepid that had 4 DC servo motors...one on each wheel that would charge the batteries and had a small 4 cyl...I wonder what happened to that? It seemed like a good approach. Never went mainstream.

 

when you get a chance check out

www (dot) e-volks (dot) com

it will help with idea & possibly parts for the project.

 

Well one thought is to use a standard transmission with a direct coupling to the tranny. No need for a clutch since it's electric.
Another thought would be to get a motor that shafts out each end and couple that to the front wheels via the CV joints. Not sure if the torque and RPMs will be an issue there??

Yep I read about that. From what I read it was a very productive build but Dodge decided that it wouldn't sell and canned the idea.
What a bunch of MoMos!!!!
I'd have given that some consideration. We have a 98 Trep now and I love that car!!!!

 

why am I not surprised from a guy using the alias Tesla...

 

Years ago, Mother Earth magazine built two or three of these. I used to have a set of the plans but they got lost in a flood. They used a 10hp gas engine, run on alcohol, to power an aircraft generator to power an aircraft engine start motor through a home built variable controller. Don't know if you can still get any plans for it. If I remember right, they used an Opel and built another in a VW van. This was about 25 years ago. Hybrids are NOT new...

 

Sounds like the same project that I linked to in my first post.

 

Only thing I will say is I doubt a 5 HP Engine will swing that 100 Amp Alt, at least to full output.

I could see one of those cute little Lombardi 13 Hp diesels.......

 

Yea I have my doubts about the 5 hp but you gotta consider that this was posted on an environut site.
Now a 6K genset might do something.

 

Like most Mother Earth News stuff, it's a grand concept, but lost traction when many folks tried to put it to use. Some of the things that killed this one.
That's my generation......

1. There was a very limited number of the DC motors on the surplus market for around $100. Most were used and you couldn't get parts for them. Anything like that new would be much more money if you could get them. Starter-generators were being phased out in everything for low duty cycle starter motors (smaller-stronger) and alternators (much simpler, smaller, and less expensive than a wound rotor generator.)

2. A Brigs & Scrap Iron engine would run 100 hours or so when the throttle was held mostly closed by the governor. Going wide open pulling a generator, they didn't last long. We used them for car starter systems with reasonable success, probably because the alternator would quickly top off the batteries and throttle back the engine.

3. Like all simple concepts that work without much new (patentable) technology, it gets bogged down in the bureaucracy.

I've always wanted to set one up using a switchable motor, ie series or parallel wound, like railroad locomotives uses, only much smaller of course. A small diesel engine driving a modern alternator should achieve 100 mpg or more with ease, and yet give you tire smoking acceleration at the stop sign, and a quiet smooth highway run with no mechanical gears except the fixed final drive.

A bit of electric motor theory to help you digest that diatribe.

Series wound characteristics -> High stall torque, high stall current, speed limited by back EMF.

Parallel wound characteristics -> Low stall torque, low stall current, speed limited by mechanical constraints only.

When you hear a locomotive pulling out, then throttle back and pull back into the load, it's switching the fielding in the motors.

 

Is 6KW of electricity going to be enough to make a car that drives decently? It seems to me that the 10 HP or so engine on the generator is way smaller than a typical gasoline engine in a car.

If you could really power a car with only a 10 HP gasoline engine wouldn't a car manufacturer be doing it already?

 

Here's your answer:

Gov can't make enough money on folks driving that cheap, so blocks are set in place to prevent it from happening.

Modern hybrids do just that: They give the rich a taste of driving cheap - look at the price of those things. You drive cheap but pay through the nose up front (for what you get). They say it's because it costs so much to develop the technology, but Tesla had an electric car a hundred years ago. It ain't new technology. I hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but that's just how it is.

I dabbled with building an electric car of this exact same concept with my father-in-law. We had a working model using a fork-lift motor, but this is the first either of us have heard of an efficient enough DC motor to make it worth anything.

 

Actually, steady state driving requires very little power. Been a while, but in either the 80's or the 90's I saw an engineering study that showed something like 12 Hp to drive a full size car at 55 MPH. Of course, that is no acceleration, no recharging battery, no AC, no Power Steering, etc. If you used the battery to provide the surge power requirements, and had a smaller, aero efficient vehicle, you might just pull it off if you didn't require thumpin Bass.........

 

hmmm.... as I recall, aircraft gennys run at 400 Hz. Higher frequency is supposed produce a more powerful engine in a smaller lighter package.

Are current hybrid drive vehicles running AC VFD or DC motors?

Ive tossed around the idea of a hybrid drive crawler.
small light diesel generator with the drives located in place of the differentials. mostly to quietly creep thru the rocks or woods.

 

Fronty Owner, you are right. Aircraft gens and motors are 400hertz for the reason you stated. More power out of a smaller lighter unit. Also makes them very pricey to buy.