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Originally Posted by EVmetro
What if you took that smaller motor and put it in the comparable ICE, minus all of the Hybrid related technology?
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Not feasible in the US market. It will get laughed out of showrooms.
Product developers refer to this as "consumer acceptance." Cars that do 0-60 in more than 9 seconds are considered "too slow" anymore. Unacceptable.
Case in point: the most efficient non-hybrid car you can currently buy in the U.S. is the Mitsu Mirage. 2000 lbs, cd 0.28, 1.2L, 3-cylinders, 74 hp. It has been regularly mocked in the U.S. motoring press as being an underpowered penalty box on wheels, verging on "dangerously slow". (For reference, it's slightly faster and slightly more efficient than the last generation Chevy Metro.)
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What would happen if you killed the engine on the comparable ICE as well?
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This will be widespread in U.S. non-hybrids within about 5-10 years.
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What penalties come from hauling around the waste energy harvesting system? ... How much additional gasoline is needed to haul this system around or to recharge it when one is traveling long distance?
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Hauling around the hybrid system is a net benefit for a typical driver.
Have you researched car models which have both a hybrid and non-hybrid version? Honda Civic, Toyota Camry, Ford Fusion, etc. There's sufficiently large enough ownership of each model that you could compare owner-reported fuel consumption (eg. on Fuelly), and could reasonably expect that the hybrid owners are not all hypermilers skewing the numbers.
If the question you're getting to is:
Can you build a small, light, aerodynamic, LRR vehicle with smart ICE management which outperforms the fuel economy of today's mass-market hybrids?
The answer is obviously YES.
Will it sell in enough numbers to justify manufacturing it? NOPE.