Converting Trucks to Hybrids - HEVT
Posted by Max Dunn Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:24:00 GMT
At Plug-in 2008, Andy Grove presented his vision of converting 10 million SUVs, trucks and vans to electric hybrid operation in the next 4 years. Many people in the audience doubted that this goal was achievable, and wondered if the technology to convert an existing vehicle over to hybrid electric operation was even feasible.
However, a company that was exhibiting at the show did exactly this. Hybrid Electric Vehicle Technologies based in Chicago had on the floor a Ford F-150 truck that they had converted to electric hybrid. They did this by leaving the gas engine alone and adding an electric motor to the back of the rear differential. Then the put a 12kWh battery pack behind the seat and used a controller that would regulate the power to the gas and electric engine to achieve hybrid operation.
The F-150 conversions are currently very expensive running $60,000. However, they hope to get the price down a lot as their volume of conversions increase.
Andy Grove should invest a lot of money in HEVT because their technology might be the key to achieving his vision.
But without regenerative braking and the benefit of a smaller,lighter engine, would an add-on hybrid even do much in theory?
I did hear on NPR the other day that getting one extra mpg from a 10 mpg car was equivalent savings to going from 30mpg to 50mpg – so maybe if the hybrid even does just a little. But still I don’t see why it would help.
The HEVT conversion does have regenerative breaking and they claim to increase fuel economy on the F-150 from 16 MPG up to 41 MPG for 30 miles a day of mixed driving.
Also Andy Grove says that converting SUVs and other heavy personal vehicles to hybrid electric operation can cut oil imports 50% to 60%.
Of course if truck owners would crush their trucks and replace them with a hybrids, a lot of fuel would be saved. But the second best option to save the most fuel is probably to convert these to hybrid electric.