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Sounds like most of the replies are for the truck or the family car, both of which I would be leaning towards.
I guess I would like to try to keep my wife's car running as long as we can. We'll have to take it in to the shop soon and see what it takes to keep it running for a while longer.
Since I started the diesel pickup project a while back, at least in terms of having the second truck frame and diesel engine.
That's been my "back-burner" project for too long.
I still don't know exactly what to do for the wife's car. I think I'll just try to buy time until I can get that figured out.
If the "Green Machine Experiment" film ever happens, that would most likely be NEXT summer. By then, I might actually know what I am doing with electric cars....
I like the idea of working on the truck partly because the truck is the vehicle I have been using the most lately. Any improvements to that would help. I also like that I could do it in steps. Maybe diesel conversion, then aero, then hybrid mode, something like that.
And what I would want to do for it for a hybrid would be a parallel plug-in hybrid setup. I would want to be able to run on either electric, diesel, or both. I think in-town on electric only would be great, with diesel/bio/veggie available for long distance and towing.
Batteries and motor could go in the back of the truck. I've seen plenty of EV truck conversions with batteries where the gas tank, exhaust, and spare tire go under the bed. On a hybrid, the gas tank and exhaust would still be there, but I wonder how many batts I could cram where the spare tire would go....
I'd love to do regenerative braking, but I am only really familiar with permanent magnet and series-wound motors. I can get a big series-wound motor for free, but have no idea where I could get a BIG PM motor. Not having regen wouldn't be a deal-breaker, but it would be nice to have if I could. There's a fleet of diesel/electric school busses a couple of miles from my house. I think those are all "depleting hybrids" they just use the power from the plug-in batteries until it runs out, then they revert to just diesel after that.
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