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Old 01-20-2012, 12:06 PM   #79 (permalink)
Ken Fry
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JackMcCornack View Post
On another forum, Ken mentioned...Because it's cheaper (and in some situations, greener) to get your recharge power from a wall plug than from a gas station.

If I were building a plug-in hybrid, I'd do it your way, Ken, because on the small vehicle scale, simplicity trumps efficiency. But if there were an easy way to do it (perhaps some lightweight and inexpensive electronic way?) your customers will be money ahead if they series-hybrid their way home from a long drive and arrive with the battery at a low charge level. Then they can recharge it back to a high level on coal instead of gasoline.
All correct, and I think that is the logic/marketing mix behind the Volt.

In what I think of as a "pure" series hybrid, you need to stay a little ways away from really low battery levels, because you may have a mile long hill or three mile hill on the way home. The engine alone is inadequate to propel you up a long hill if you start with low charge: you'll make it up, but not at the usual performance levels.

I think your electronics idea would work. It would be possible to integrate GPS with the charge controller, and as long as you programmed your trip, you could arrive with the lowest possible charge.

I may have already mentioned this (in this thread or elsewhere). The night before an electric car event in downtown Atlanta, I had 30% charge (good for about 12 miles or so). Not enough to get down and back. (But I can get down and back with a full charge.) All seemed well until I heard a little pop. The fuse between charger and batteries had blown, I did not have a replacement, and stores were closed. So the next morning, I started the engine, left with 30% charge and arrived downtown with 50%. That allowed me to drive all the way back in silence. In the same admittedly arbitrary and coincidental situation, a Volt would have done the whole trip with the engine cycling.

The Volt is a pretty neat car. I just prefer manual control and simple architecture.
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