Quote:
Originally Posted by steensn
This is one thing I can speak of first hand. If for $200 worth of production parts you can increase 5 mpg, OEMS would be all over it right now making all their vehicles heads better than the competition. The auto industry is in a war to sell the most cars. It is no longer just about repairs and fixes. With sales so low anything that makes them more competitive will push theem over the competition in this crappy market.
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I work in HEV systems, and the benchmark commonly used is $100 / % increase FE on the EPA test cycles. OEM HEV's dont meet that. but we can make a (small) profit on them, so well sell them.
With such an emphasis on quality, the repair isn't nearly as profitable as it one was.
Quote:
Originally Posted by steensn
This system will not work based on the physics alone. electric motors are so in-efficient at steady state that you'll engine will work overtime to just power the thing all the time.
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ON electric motors/generators: Even the crappy 1950 alternator design (common today under the hood) is 60% efficient, which 2x better than most Spark Ignited engines today. The synchronous motors we use in our HEVs are over 80% efficent, and peak at 96%.
BTW, a XXX mpg improvement are different % improvement depending on where you start. Going from 5 MPG to 10 MPG in a heavy truck is a groundbreaking 100%, but going from 45 mpg to 50 is 10%, but is all a 5 mpg improvment