Quote:
Originally Posted by dcb
The engine should not charge the battery, at least not very much, that is what the house plug is for. and would be a waste of gas to do so.
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I disagree. In the not-yet-a-series-hybrid project we have been working on for some time (a Porsche 914) we figure the opposite is true.
What we know is that the car requires approximately 10kW (about 75A @ 144V) to cruise on the highway as an EV. Far less than 53kW eh? The battery dissipates a little energy but gives you load levelling during passing and acceleration.
The general upshot of this is that we can use a naturally aspirated 125cc motorcycle engine (currently thinking Honda CBR125R - a 90MPG bike) instead of a 1.4L turbo four, since we basically only need to cover AVERAGE power (~10kW) instead of PEAK power (144kW).
Now, our battery is a lot smaller than the Volt's but taking the battery out of circuit in your "EV" doesn't make much sense.