[NeilBlanchard]

Hi,

I think that if the wheels and tires were not inflated, but rather were steel hoops, and solid rubber tread -- the suspension could be tuned to provide the dampening AND the hydraulic pressure from the shocks could drive the alternator. This would:

1) Extremely low rolling resistance
2) regenerative energy from the suspension motion
3) greatly lowered parasitic drains on the engine because the alternator is driven by the suspension -- and the other things like A/C, oil pump, fuel pump, etc can be electrically driven

Also, I think a serial hybrid that had a cam-driven engine (which are about 40% efficient!), which has counter-rotating output shafts, could be used to directly spin the armature and the stator in opposite directions. This allows the engine to run at one constant RPM, and the torque required to do this is virtually constant, so the engine's combustion chambers and valve train can be optimized for this.