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The patent gives no specifics about the engine or about anything else. I'm surprised they even got a patent for the combination. The only unique thing about it is the sterling engine, the rest is off the shelf hybrid technology.
No mention of any transmission which is one of the reasons why wheel to wheel regeneration in electric hybrids is so poor, in the neighborhood of 30% after you go through all the conversions involved.
Advocates of direct drive electric vehicles state the lack of a transmission makes the vehicle more efficient. In one manner it does that, but in order to recapture several hundred horsepower seconds of energy in a rapid stop, you only have in the neighborhood of 20 revolutions of the wheels to capture the energy. No chemical battery can accept energy at that rate (several hundred kilowatts in a few seconds).
This is one of the main reasons I advocate the hydraulic approach, just like the arrestor gear on a carrier. Imagine the power that system has to handle to stop a 40 ton aircraft from 150 to 0 MPH in a couple hundred feet.
Next Energy in Detroit stated that hydraulic hybrids were at 78% efficiency in regenerative energy capture, in 2006.
I just don't see the novelty in their claim, with the exception of the sterling engine. I have yet to read of any sterling design that would be compact and powerful enough for any automotive application.
I would seriously recommend an analysis by an independent engineering concern, like my design was analyzed by Virginia Tech. They had nothing to gain from a positive or negative conclusion and they concluded it would be effective and competitive with gas-electric designs.
Do yourself and your wallet a favor and approach this with extreme skepticism until you get some real confirmation from an unimpeachable independent source. The inventors will need to provide a heck of a lot more specifics about the sub systems when they are subjected to real scrutiny.
I always told potential investors that they could pay the people who were actually building something I could not and not worry about paying me anything until there was testing and proof of concept. I don't need money to live, I need money to develop my design. Funding would help to accelerate things, but it also brings on additional pressures and expectations and that seems to also bring on those magical additional obstacles to success.
When and if I get the results I expect from testing then I have a product whose value is tangible. Investors like to see all their ducks lined up with proof of performance, or their risk return ratio is very high.
Be careful my friend, I don't see any real evidence or data that would convince me of success and I have been studying the various hybrid designs and configurations for over a decade.
regards
Mech
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