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Many years ago I heard of UPS trucks experimenting with a hydraulic regenerative system, where upon braking the hydraulic pump on the engine would engage and pump pressurized fluid into a high pressure reservoir, so after stopping the truck can you use the accumulated hydraulic pressure to help launch the truck. I recall it actually works fairly decent I don't know why they never implemented it. It's basically hydraulic version of a hybrid drive, and one could do it with a compressor and an air tank and an air pump.

I know some of you guys like to pulse and glide, and I've been thinking about it that instead of removing the alternator, if you were to install an actual generator, you could have the best of all worlds where you could get one or two horsepower out of an alternator generator to increase your coast downtown and distance. Some of the old vehicles on the road at generators, I even had a long tracktor that used the same generator to start the engine which then turned into a generator after starting. What's old it will be you again, and this could prove reliable enough.

Mercedes has such a system on one of their cars, a small lead acid battery with just a few horsepower to eight in acceleration, just enough so they can call it a hybrid but it really is not. But the way you guys drive and is efficient as your cars are, it actually might work out quite well

I think the biggest missed opportunity would be the Scuderi Split-Cycle engine.

carbuzz.com: The Most Important Engine Of The 2000s May Have Been Lost To A Ponzi Scheme

Quote:

While the Scuderi Split-cycle engine may be very new (his patent was filed in July 2001), it is based on a design that's been around since 1914. Not to get too technical, but basically where a normal, Otto cycle engine (the internal combustion engine being used in most modern cars today) has four strokes to produce the engine's power, a split-cycle design divides the four strokes over two paired cylinders, one intake/compression cylinder and one power/exhaust cylinder. The two cylinders are then connected by a crossover port. This means that the workload is halved, in that only two strokes are needed to produce the power, instead of the four of the Otto cycle engine.
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It is unfortunate that the current inventor of the Scuderi engine, Carmelo Scuderi, died soon after filing his patent in 2001. His children started the process of bringing the engine into production in 2002 by founding the Scuderi Group, but troubles soon emerged with the authorities.

The family started raising money to further develop the ground-breaking engine technology, through investors, soon after Carmelo's death. But instead, according to court papers and reports at the time, it appeared as if the group was taking investor funding and using it for purposes like paying the family's salaries (of $2.9 million) from 2008 to 2011, and issuing bonuses for personal expenses.

It's something I've considered for years, but I've also owned a hybrid for years, and have had no vehicle to convert.

As you say, the largest benefit (aside from some extra torque off the line) would be found in extending the engine-off portion of pulse and glide, which most people aren't willing to do to begin with. However, for an ecomodder, this is not to be dismissed.

To get their fuel savings, most hybrids downsize or lengthen the gears on the gasoline engine, and the hybrid assist makes up for the lower power to the wheels. Without doing either of these, in most cases hybridizing is mostly just a power-adder, rather than a fuel saver.

The easiest way to implement this would be one of GM or Hyundai's "altermotors". These are 3 phase motors which are approximately the size and shape of an alternator, which bolt in the location of an alternator, but are more efficient and can be used for assist or regen. The control is actually quite simple, with off the shelf parts. You really just need a programmable ebike motor controller (e.g. phaserunner), and a DC-DC converter to make 12v in lieu of an alternator. It can even add zero weight to the car.