Posted on 06/12/2009 8:36:49 AM PDT by janetjanet998
Langford Performance Engineering (www.lpengines.com), headquartered in Wellingborough England, designed and modified the Ford S-Max seven seat crossover vehicle into a series hybrid plug in vehicle with a C30 under the hood as an electric range extender. Langford reports that the "Whisper Eco-Logic" car gets up to 80 mpg in early stage demonstration testing. "The Ford modified by Langford is an extremely practical solution and one that Langford has been working on for over two years," said Jim Crouse, Capstone's Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing. "The design characteristics of Capstone's turbine permits ultra low emissions, high fuel economy, multi fuel capability, no coolants or lubricating oil, and little to no maintenance in an automotive application," added Crouse.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Yes, same with the Volt. Once the battery is discharged the engine/turbine produces electricity for the vehicle. It's this mode of driving that is quoted for the mpg figures. The Volt 4 cylinder can give about 50mpg. A more efficient turbine could do 80, but I would like to see more data.
It’s nonsense to talk about mpg when you are also taking on electric “fuel” from the grid. An electric golf cart gets more than 1,000,000 mpg.
That's the neat thing about the series hybrid is the combustion engine can be "tuned" to run in it's most efficient state. As opposed to the high and low revving that a normal engine has to contend with.
A turbine done right could be amazingly efficient.
US Army has used turbine engines in there tanks for years. Modern locomotives use turbine engines that get over 45 MPG.
It’s about time someone “shrunk” turbine technology down for use in automobiles. My question would be is why do you need batteries? Can’t a turbine engine run a generator alone? Couldn’t the generator power an induction motor?
The exhaust could flow through a heat exchanger supplying climate control. Bleed air could be used to wash rain from windows. The exhaust could also be used to power an assesory generator to suppy power to other automobile utilities.
This is technology that has been used in the aerospace industry for literally decades, but for some reason has not translated to the auto industry.
Just my .02
Interesting. Trains are all diesel electric and the only purpose of the diesel engine is to produce electricity that drives the train and charge a battery system to start the diesel. Little more complicated but this is basic.
Harley?
Have you ever priced a turbine engine?
LOL!
That "some reason" is that turbine engines are way too expensive for automotive use.
Yes. I've wondered about this before. Some ships work this way too. Seems like a diesel/electric combo could be very interesting in vehicles. The diesel (or a turbine or whatever...) is always operating at it's most efficient RPM, and the variable demand for torque is handled by the electric motor(s). Sounds like an interesting thing to me.
after the up front price it will cost less....
again only 0ne moving part means less repair costs...no oil, hoses, belts, and better MPG then a niormal car...
some of these microtubines has been going years nonstop in other apllications
Today we are seeing small teams working to develop hybrid vehicles, battery powered vehicles, etc., in pretty much the same way the backyard mechanics build the original horseless buggies. The current buggy manufacturers in Chrysler and at Government Motors are of no help...having been married to the head (or maybe the rear) of the buggy manufacturers' and the buggy-whip manufacturers' unions--BHO.
I suspect that the time is fast approaching in which a new automobile manufacturer will arise in the United States--but will steer clear of New Fallujah--when looking for locations to manufacture its vehicles.
I am tickled pink over the idea of powering my car with domestic coal and nuclear power rather than imported oil.
Material cost higher but in much less quantity and a tremendously lower part count.
Yep, probably just like a train...which can only negotiate inclines of 2%.
He's in trouble if he wants to go anywhere interesting.....except for Kansas or Nebraska.
It can also come from micro turbines running off of natural gas, mathene, sewer gas, etc...which Capstone makes too(they have a great product if you look into it)
many cities are now collecting sewer/landfill gas to turn into electricity....
These turbines can also use the waste heat for heating or a chiller for air conditioning
You seriously think we can collect enough energy from “sewer gases” to power electric cars? Seriously?
Natural gas is the only serious energy source in your list (another fossil fuel, btw.) Everything else is simple pie-in-the-sky stuff that people have been trying for DECADES. I remember articles from 40 years ago about getting methane gas from landfills, how far has that technology gone in 40 years? Not far.
Energy can’t be created by wishful thinking.
Chrysler was planning on putting an electric motor at each wheel to create the ultimate off-road vehicle.
Imagine rock-crawling in that!
They showed this over a year ago and were planning to roll out some product within 3 years.
Of course, that was before Obama “saved” them.
actaully the tech has gone very far using GE or CATs huge Generator sets...china is building a large methane plant although nuke is the answer..these mini-power plants combined with large central ones on a smart grid would be really good
from 2006.
BEIJING, People’s Republic of China (PRC), May 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Caterpillar Inc. has been selected to provide 60 methane-gas- powered generator sets to produce 120 megawatts of power at the Sihe Coal Mine in Jincheng City, Shanxi Province, China. The Shanxi Jincheng Anthracite Coal Mining Group Co., Ltd. is the project developer for the methane gas power project, which is expected to be the largest of its kind in the world when it is fully operational.
A motor in each wheel is a good idea. All-wheel-drive without the complex mechanicals.
>> Runs on electricity, which comes from.....a plug in the wall. Wrong!
It comes from burning coal, dams, or nuclear power. Electric cars mean more of these three. How many lefties would be so thrilled about electric cars if they realized it means burning more coal or building more dams and nuclear power plants? <<
I am all for Hybrids if it means building more Nuclear Plants, unfortunately the left hates Nuclear Power unless Iran and North Korea are the ones building the Nuclear Power plants....
They would have us ship dead batteries to Iran so Achmed-a-nut-job can charge us money to recharge them with his new “peaceful” nuclear plants....
Way to make us energy independant you left wingnuts!!
>> These Capstone microturbine also have only 1 moving part so down time is very low as is repair cost..they also use no lubrication(oil) to run either <<
Yes they are pretty neat, plus swapping out a Micro-turbine unit would be a lot easier than swapping out a direct drive unit. You would only have an exhaust port, a fuel port, air intake, mounting bolts and a wiring harness to unhook and re-hook up.
In essence it is almost the same tech as a Diesel Locomotive, only you add a battery pack as a Buffer between the generator and the electric motors. The plus side if you increase the efficiency of the conversion of chemical power in the petroleum product to physical work. Regular 4 cycle direct drive systems in regular cars are somewhat inefficient in that they produce a lot of waste heat that goes out your tailpipe.
I say they should make the mini-turbine be a modular, stack-able mass produced unit so for a small pious-mobile you only have one of them in them, but for a Hummer sized SUV you may have three or four of them and when driving around the neighbor hood you would run off the batteries, then more kick on automatically as you step on the accelerator or the batter runs lower.
With these since you can make the turbine and generator as one piece you remove a lot of the dead weight that you would normally have for the transmission and gear sets and use that weight for the buffer being the battery packs. Put a direct drive electric motor with a planetary gear set on each wheel and you can make any vehicle a 4-Wheel drive vehicle! It also simplifies front wheel drive cars as well, because you no longer need CV-shafts as well, more weight savings you can re-claim by adding batter buffer weight.
Accessories that normally run off the front of a gas engine also sap power from the engine, the power steering pump takes a bit of energy even when you are driving down a perfectly straight road. Or the alternator when you are driving down the road, even when there is no load on it, the pulley friction saps away a little energy that could be used to move you forward. So too with the AC unit when it is not needed. Making all these functions be electric would only make them draw power when needed and increase overall efficiency. The only thing you would want to not be electric would be your heater which would re-direct waste heat from the turbines in this case to the heater fans via airflow.
What electric cars really need is a standard “Power Bus” similar to what a computer has in terms of USB. Both power line and Data lines included in the electrical connector. A standard that would allow manufactures to buy different components from different companies to lower cost of manufacturing. So you could have three different companies make the same component and introduce some much needed competition back into the auto parts supply industry. Plus you wouldn’t be changing your motor designs from year to year
I am all for increasing efficiency of vehicles and performance at the same time. Well as long as the market supports it of course!
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