Hybrid Technology

Today i attended a technology forum open to professional engineers to discuss the technologies surrounding road vehicles, the predominant feature was hybrid technologies, their applications, and their advancements and future applications in vehicles. Personally i found it very tedious listening to so many figures being quoted, and very little in the way of practical technologies in applications, but being me i turned it into a contentious issue by asking some very pertinent and relevant technical questions.

Before going into the subject any further i thought i would put it into the open for discussion by site members to assess their thoughts and opinions on hybrid technologied in road vehicles.

not many takers for hybrid technology?

I did a training course on mitsubishi canter hybrid vehicles 7 months ago so i can now de-commission one to make it safe to work on and then re-commision it etc, but not seen one since!!!!!!
and just about to go on a course for the new vito e-cell vehicle even though there is only going to be 50 in the uk to start with and all to be in london,dont think one will make it up the m1 to barnsley

and hopefully going to be involved with dual fuel (gas/diesel) conversions in the future

dont think there is one complete solution just different systems for different applications

ie electric for inner city use,hybrid for longer distances in hilly terrains(to allow regeneration on the down hill bits)

dual fuel for long distance trunking either returning to base for refuelling or using routes that take in existing refuelling sites (no national chain of methane retailers)


not very technical I know but its a start

What has developed on the hydrogen front of late, anyone know? Not so much the hydrogen you can get from pumps at service stations like in the U.S. but on-board generators that can produce hydrogen via electrolysis systems in water.

Tom hydrogen fuel is more harfull to the envionment, what comes out of the exhust is water, which then goes up in the air to create more rain clouds which then falls back to earth as rain. Disrupting the egolodagle cycle. more floods.

sorry for spelling.

"sorry for spelling" - what, you've never apologised before> No need to start now mate!

I thought CO2 was more harmful, or have I been getting it wrong for all this time? Maybe Clarkson is right, it's all a load of scientific gobbledegook and claptrap? Who knows?

[quote=

I thought CO2 was more harmful, or have I been getting it wrong for all this time? Maybe Clarkson is right, it's all a load of scientific gobbledegook and claptrap? Who knows? [/quote]

Well you are right in short time, but looking at the long term, when oil runs out as it well do, if then all cars uesd hydrogen fuel, it will be more harmfull.

will not apologize again. thanks,

I think its better to be more efficient, but im not taken on the whole global warming thing. Over the last 10 years the global temp has dropped 1.5 degrees. They say were running out of fuel, yet Russia, 6 months ago found a deposit of oil large enough to run all cars on the planet for another 60 years. Not to mention the oil wells they have already. Then you got saudi, america.

If combi technology fuel/hydrogen etc comes along way then I don't see a problem with it. Especially if this Governemt keeps putting the tax up.

For me tho I just think its alot of mumbo jumbo from the government, all propaganda, a fallicy for one thing - to take our money.

If I recall a non profit, non government regulated eco documentary, quote; "earth is still coming out of an Ice age".


If It saves me money, stops me paying my weekly income to the government then yes lets do it. Ecological effects? The planet on a whole is thriving.

TJ

Just a few facts and questions to highlight the real issues with the alleged low emissions technologies, which will undoubtedly open a few eyes to the realities and implications of the technologies, and hopefully let people see them for what they really are.

Electric and electric-hybrid vehicles predominantly rely upon one type of electric motor, this is called the rare earth motor as it uses rare earths to manufacture it, these are very efficient, powerful, and reliable; but the issues come with its manufacture.
These motors are manufactured almost solely in China, and for good reason, China has no health and safety laws or environmental legislation, this is the reason these motors are made here. Manufacturing them is a highly toxic process which uses many highly toxic chemicals to produce the rare earth magnets themselves, if they were made in any civilised country it would be in a totally sealed environment and staff wearing air fed visors and full contamination suits. This is a vast expense, as is the various legislation and costs of the correct disposal and processing of the considerable amounts of toxic chemicals used in their manufacture, it is these factors which make them uneconomical to manufacture in civilised countries with these rare earths, such as Australia, UK, New Zealand, and Holland as they all have legislation.
Chinese workers get no protection at all, and they are not manufactured in totally sealed environments, just in ordinary factories so all the emissions from the various chemical processes end up in the environment, in addition the toxic waste is simply dumped onto the land or into rivers, thus an environmental catastrophy. In addition the Chinese workers manufacturing these motors have an average life of 5-10 years due to working with these toxic chemical processes and having absolutely no protection. This is not environmentally friendly, it is merely a case of moving the considerable contamination and pollution elsewhere, and killing people working in these factories, and in the vicinity of these factories.

The question is simple, would you buy a hybrid vehicle with a rare earth motor if you knew it polluted to such an extent, and killed workers manufacturing such motors???


Hydrogen fuel cells looked promising as an alternative fuel supply, electric motors (predominantly rare earth) and electricity generated from a hydrogen driven chemical reaction, and very low exhaust pipe emissions. The issue is very simple, hydrogen is a very environmentally unfriendly gas to manufacture,its energy consumption is the issue. Hydrogen is so environmentally unfriendly that it is considerably more environmentally friendly to drill for oil, transport it, process it, and ship it around the world as petrol or diesel.


Ethanol E85 is derived from all manner of plant or organic matter, algae, and even waste cellulose materials, and is a vialbe alternative for petrol, but this too suffers from numerous issues. Ethanol is basically a form of alcohol, and this dissolves aluminium or aluminium alloys, and many rubber components such as seals, "O" rings, and gaskets. This means vehicles have to be free of such components making vehicles heavier, or if existing vehicles are converted for Ethanol they have to have considerable and very expensive modifications to replace such items with those made from materials which will not be attacked by ethanol. In addition converted vehicles will usually have to have steel fuel lines and plastic or steel fuel tanks replaced with stainless steel items as ethanol is a very abrasive substance which literally abrades or grinds its wat through such items. Ethanol also attacks many internal engine components, the main ones being piston ring coatings, and many of the other friction lowering coatings applied to other internal surfaces of engines, these generally would be bore linings, valve stem coatings, and bearing surfaces for camshafts or crankshafts.
Many convertors currently make spurious claims such as ethanol gives more power than petrol, this is a plain and simple lie, it is more volatile and explosive than petrol, but actually has a lower calorific value meaning it actually produces less power then petrol. To counter this lower power output a manufacturer has to inject more ethanol into the engine, this means much higher fuel consumption for the same power output, and for engine conversions it usually means larger fuel injectors need fitting, or lower power outputs if the standard fuel injectors are retained to cut costs.

Ethanol is actually more expensive to manufacture than petrol or diesel, it currently attracts a lower rate of duty then both petrol and diesel, and it is this and this alone which makes it cheaper to buy then either petrol or diesel; considering the fact you use much more of it (typically 15-30% more) the lower purchase price is less attractive overall. Fuel duties also rise, if a fuel becomes popular then its duty rises, add the cost of converting an engine into the equation, it becomes a very expensive fuel option.


Exhaust emissions are a contentious issue, CO2 is used as the current standard for measurement, but why? very simply its a good and simple way to allow a level playing field for taxation standards, easy to apply, easy to monitor, and the most consistent standard to extract the most amount of taxation while seemingly credible and acceptable to the public. Exhaust of petrol and diesel engines produce many other substances which are considerable more harmful to the environment and peoples health, so why are these not used? simply because they are easily changed by reprogramming the engine management system, an engine may be programmed to run hotter to reduce some of these other emissions, or cooler to reduce others. This means manufacturers would simply do this quickly and easily, but it would increase other emissions levels, but the vehicles would attract lower duties, CO2 is much harder to reduce.
Ultimately it comes down to taxable revenue, and certainly not reducing emissions, it is all about how much tax the Governments can extract from the motorist quickly and easily.


Electronics play a major part in modern vehicles, they are used in most aspects of all vehicles, engine management systems improve fuel consumption and reduce emissions, they are used in many safety systems, or maybe suspension systems which make a vehicle handle much better, and electronic suspension systems have a safety value.
Electronics and electronic systems are environmentally unfriendly, both to manufacture and dispose of, and many people will have seen the numerous electronics in many domestic items being shipped out to third world countries where they are just dumped and smashed, or even burned by the locals in these countries. The billowing clouds of toxic smoke going into the atmosphere and general pollution in these countries are killing people.
Vehicle electronics are very much a trade off, or balance, engine management systems reduce vehicular pollution by much more than their environmental costs of manufacturing and disposal, thus making them acceptable as they are the best option, much the same applies to electronics used in vehicle safety systems, they are acceptable as they save lives. Reducing accidents often means reducing the spillages of other toxic substances which can pollute the environment such as oil or fuel spilt in a vehicle accident, then we have air conditioning gases, brake fluid, anti-freeze, and all the other contaminants which can be spilt in an accident, reducing accidents reduces such spillages.

If we apply the same to the massive amounts of electronics used in hybrid or electric vehicles, we see these contain many thousands more electronics to control the electric motor alone, then we have even more electronics in systems such as the vehicles power management system, powerful processors for a variety of functions, and the basic electronic systems we accept as normal. Now we have many thousand times the amounts of electronics we would have on a well specified family saloon, and many thousands times the pollution form the manufacture and disposal of them, and many experts have measured the environmental impact of these components, and concluded they are unacceptable.

A few truths to consider.

all interesting stuff there. I've never really considered a Hybrid vehicle, mainly because I've never found myself in a position to part with that sort of money for any vehicle so I've not even really looked into the technology that much.

I'd heard somethign about the nickel (I think) required for the batteries had meant that there was a lot more nickel mining and processing being carried out which was apparently very polluting, but that was about all I knew.

I really like the idea of more diesels being run on biodiesel, though realise that the UK is far too small to be able to produce enough rape seed oil to produce enough diesel for it to work effectively.

We used to have a guy locally that had a bio diesel company (selling 100% bio not a mix of bio and derv) and used to be roughly half the cost of derv - my old landcrusier at the time actually ran better on it than on derv. Tried a mix of SVO and Derv in various TDi landrovers I've owned over the past fw years and they also seemed to run better too.

Assassin very informative information, leart a lot.

It may have been a hoax, but in the 70's someone reported they had been able to run a car using water, it was also reported that a big oil comany had bought all rights to it and put it on a very high shelve. can anybody confirm it , or not.



My other gripe is all the talke about global warming, it is the government saying it is down to cars so they can tax the motorist yet agine. If you take all the car,truxs,trains,busses and planes, and add it up, it is less than all the cowes passing wind in this country.
I belive that all the countries cutting down the rainforest it is the trees that take in co2 and give out oxegen, they relly our the lungs of the planet, and we are not planting enough to replace them. also if you look at the evelotion of the planet it has been changing for millions of years. And thier is not a lot we can do to stop that.



(On a good note me and Dilys have coverd are carbon footprint we have planted 35,000 trees and 1mile of hedge)

35,000??? So that's what you two were up to last weekend.

Bio fuel and SVO are alternatives to diesel, but both have problems which many are not aware of, bio fuel is merely old cooking oils which are filtered and put through the transesterification process, or other suitable vegetable based oils put through the same process, SVO can be any vegetable derived oil not put through the transesterification process.

The bio element in current forecourt diesel is transesterified vegetable oil, this removes many of the nastier elements and reduces its viscosity from the thick liquid, to a thinner usable liquid as in its original form it is much thicker than diesel. Here lies the problem, many diesel engines rely on a cam chain or timing belt to drive the diesel injection pump to inject the diesel into the engine, the thicker liquid thickens the diesel and places a much higher load on this drive mechanism, so is subject to accelerated wear or overloading. In the case of cam belts it means they could be working with higher loads than they were designed for, thus stretching them or simply snapping them, particularly in cold climates when the liquid is much thicker. This is true particularly with SVO simply added to diesel.

Thicker liquids can also generate other issues, the injection system is designed to deal with diesel within a specified viscosity range, and SVO can move it outside this range, thicker liquids outside this range often have difficulty being atomised by the fuel injectors, incorrect atomisation means unburnt fuel in the combustion chambers and less power.

Many people try to emulate the transesterification process, and do not purchase any of the machines currently on the market which undertake this process safely, and in trying to copy this process means they often put themselves and others at risk. Transesterification means using many chemicals, and with a correctly manufactured machine this is no problem, but many try to use home made equipment and we see such dangerous practises like using a domestic drill with a paddle to agitate the mixture of raw oil and added chemicals. Here lies the problem, this mixture is around 7 times more volatile than petrol fumes, and electric drills have open electric motors producing sparks, the implications do not need highlighting, any commercially produced transesterification machines or commercial processers use FLP motors designed for use in such environments to stop any explosions occuring.
Many explosions have occured and people have been injured, property has been destroyed, and many people have now been successfully prosecuted for serious breaches of Health and Safety legislation, many more have also been prosecuted for the storing the chemicals needed for transesterification of vegetable oil in commercial quantities. Most have used what they perceive as suitable alternative chemicals and stored them incorrectly and many have leaked into the water course.

While transesterification is a safe process if done properly, with one of the numerous approved machines currently on the market, along with the safely used chemicals supplied through the machine suppliers network, this can be very rewarding to produce safe and effective bio diesel of the correct viscosity for use in diesel engines. Done with the heath robinson manner, it can be dangerous and illegal, and lead to all sorts of legal, health and safety, and environmental issues; and the subsequent prosecution of anyone adopting such processes.

The issue of global warming is a very contentious issue, and one with which i do not agree generally as for every argument for it, i and many others can produce ten arguments against, basically the facts for me do not stack up when subjected to close scrutiny. The earth is a naturally evolving phenomenan which operates in cycles, and during periods of history the earth has been a lot hotter than it is currently, in these times hundreds of years ago they could not blame industrial processes or vehicles as they were none of these, nor where they the numbers of animals we currently have.

Many arguments centre around taxation, and the way global warming is structured currently is purely for taxation purposes, and to allow the almost open ended supply of new taxation revenue streams for many years to come.

One survey has actually been completed into the environmental inpact of vehicles, this took several years and involved the entire life cycle of vehicles from their manufacture to end of life disposal, this was particularly complex as it covered everything, and which vehicles came out as the most environmentally vehicles? yes, 4X4's, but why.

Modern vehicles follow trends, in the 90's it was vehicle security, now it is environmentally friendliness and safety, particularly with the increasing numbers of small cars which utilise complex shaped panels using carbon steels which are environmentally unfriendly compared to the 4X4 plain and simple shaped mild steel panels and chassis arrangement. It was also shown that 4X4's only consume 10% more energy in their life cycle than small allegedly environmentally friendly vehicles, and last considerably longer than these, and it also showed 80% of a vehicles total emissions occur in its manufacture and disposal, the remaining 20% are produced from its working life.
This turns many claims of this being the opposite way around on its head, and is based on actual fact, and not speculation and innuendo, therefore its fuel consumption is not really that significant if only 20% of emissions are produced during a vehicles working life.

Assassin wrote:

The issue of global warming is a very contentious issue, and one with which i do not agree generally as for every argument for it, i and many others can produce ten arguments against, basically the facts for me do not stack up when subjected to close scrutiny. The earth is a naturally evolving phenomenan which operates in cycles, and during periods of history the earth has been a lot hotter than it is currently, in these times hundreds of years ago they could not blame industrial processes or vehicles as they were none of these, nor where they the numbers of animals we currently have.

Many arguments centre around taxation, and the way global warming is structured currently is purely for taxation purposes, and to allow the almost open ended supply of new taxation revenue streams for many years to come.

One survey has actually been completed into the environmental inpact of vehicles, this took several years and involved the entire life cycle of vehicles from their manufacture to end of life disposal, this was particularly complex as it covered everything, and which vehicles came out as the most environmentally vehicles? yes, 4X4's, but why.

Modern vehicles follow trends, in the 90's it was vehicle security, now it is environmentally friendliness and safety, particularly with the increasing numbers of small cars which utilise complex shaped panels using carbon steels which are environmentally unfriendly compared to the 4X4 plain and simple shaped mild steel panels and chassis arrangement. It was also shown that 4X4's only consume 10% more energy in their life cycle than small allegedly environmentally friendly vehicles, and last considerably longer than these, and it also showed 80% of a vehicles total emissions occur in its manufacture and disposal, the remaining 20% are produced from its working life.
This turns many claims of this being the opposite way around on its head, and is based on actual fact, and not speculation and innuendo, therefore its fuel consumption is not really that significant if only 20% of emissions are produced during a vehicles working life.

Have to agree you put it better than me, yes planet changing, govenment taxing becuse they can, and no one can stop them, as far as I can see.

roamingman wrote:

Assassin wrote:

The issue of global warming is a very contentious issue, and one with which i do not agree generally as for every argument for it, i and many others can produce ten arguments against, basically the facts for me do not stack up when subjected to close scrutiny. The earth is a naturally evolving phenomenan which operates in cycles, and during periods of history the earth has been a lot hotter than it is currently, in these times hundreds of years ago they could not blame industrial processes or vehicles as they were none of these, nor where they the numbers of animals we currently have.

Many arguments centre around taxation, and the way global warming is structured currently is purely for taxation purposes, and to allow the almost open ended supply of new taxation revenue streams for many years to come.

One survey has actually been completed into the environmental inpact of vehicles, this took several years and involved the entire life cycle of vehicles from their manufacture to end of life disposal, this was particularly complex as it covered everything, and which vehicles came out as the most environmentally vehicles? yes, 4X4's, but why.

Modern vehicles follow trends, in the 90's it was vehicle security, now it is environmentally friendliness and safety, particularly with the increasing numbers of small cars which utilise complex shaped panels using carbon steels which are environmentally unfriendly compared to the 4X4 plain and simple shaped mild steel panels and chassis arrangement. It was also shown that 4X4's only consume 10% more energy in their life cycle than small allegedly environmentally friendly vehicles, and last considerably longer than these, and it also showed 80% of a vehicles total emissions occur in its manufacture and disposal, the remaining 20% are produced from its working life.
This turns many claims of this being the opposite way around on its head, and is based on actual fact, and not speculation and innuendo, therefore its fuel consumption is not really that significant if only 20% of emissions are produced during a vehicles working life.

Have to agree you put it better than me, yes planet changing, govenment taxing becuse they can, and no one can stop them, as far as I can see.

Makes me sick.

Ultimately it comes down to basic psychology, and something Governments of all persuations exploit fully due to their connections within the media circus we have today.

If you convince the mass or middle England sectors, Government will also have public acceptance, it is this acceptance by the majority needs, once they have it they use it for taxation purposes with the full support of the public.

If the Government cannot get public support then it cannot be introduced.