It will be awesome when the alternative drivetrains are reliable enough for backcountry boondocking. Imagine crawling along a wilderness trail under 'silent' electrical power.
There's an outfit in winfield ks where this guy is using turbine motors to replace the regular engine in a Hummer H1m, and electric drive motors in the hubs. Not only is he able to get an amazing efficiency of around 40 mpg (diesel or gas) on the road, because the turbine is also large generator, he can run the turbine at very low speeds (and fuel consumption) to make all the electricity a boondocker could ever want.
Ithink the Azure/Ford story is pretty old, in fact old enough that the vehicles were supposed to already have been on the market.
There is some encouraging news though. There is a current Army project (IIRC) where they are working with a battery and hybrid supplier to design and manufacture some hybrid electric vehicles. It seems like maybe CAT was involved.
This seems like a good application of the technology. THink about all those Army support vehicles that run a while and then sit and then take off again. They could save a lot by not idling and by having the electrical power for their technology.
That would seem to be directly applicable to SMBs.
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Greg in Austin
2008 Ford 6.0PSD EB/E-PH SMB 4X4 Aluminess f/r bumpers (13.5mpg avg, 15mpg hwy) 52k miles [Texas McBeast]
2006 Toyota Prius (48 to 68 mpg) 120k miles [Penelope]
2013 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon (15 to 18 mpg) [Johnnie]
2012 Mitsubishi MiEV (no gas required) ($.50/day in electricity) [Evie] https://badge.facebook.com/badge/1232...3.32047100.png
I am the one who brought up the Azure Dynamics program on the other Sportsmobile newsgroup. Here is the reply I received from Azure:
Thank you for your email and for your interest in Azure Dynamics’ products. Yes, we are developing a hybrid based on the Ford E-450 now, and hope to do the same with the E-350 next.
For Diesel owners bio diesel can be used now. A lot cheaper.
I have the V10. The most likely thing to do would be a natural gas conversion. I'll wait until the government pays me to do it.
Where is biodiesel cheaper? Around here it is ~$0.50/gallon more than diesel.
And more than 5% biodiesel can cause warranty issues.
Mike
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Alaska to Key West, Labrador and more
Prostate cancer survivor. See Thread Prostate cancer and Sportsmobiles
2015 VW GTI 2020 Fiat 124 Spider
2012 E250 Hitop camper
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