Featured It has started, 48 volt hybrids arrive.

If only it had a traction battery to get it to 10mph from a stop, it has the engine on off system and that's a pain without a traction battery. Had an X1, always switched the start-stop system off.
Not even going to mention the company owner (fiat)

 

glad to see them trying, i hope it sells. increased efficiency laws would help a lot.

 

I don't think fiat Chrysler gets it. It uses a 0.43 kwh nimh battery when everyone else seems to think lithium is where its at. If this uses the 40% SOC that the prius does to keep the nimh good, that is only 172 watt-hours of usable charge. Other things make the truck more efficient, but this is a start stop system, not enough power to really keep the engine off with ac or provide a big boost elsewhere. The good thing is its tiny, so it doesn't really cost much or add much weight, but its not going to do much good either.

 

Now the buyers get to choose.

Bob Wilson

 

Ram =/= Hybrid. What target market are they going after with that, tightwad Scottish Sheep Farmers?

 

Any improvement is good...but from experience I still rank Dodge's TCO and reliability only slightly better than VW.

 

bob, don't get me wrong, I think a 48v system may be good for pick up trucks. IMHO you probably want around 1 kwh lithium (600 wh usable, a little less than the prius) with a fairly small v6 with a small twin scroll turbo + electronic super charger and a small bas start stop system. That would weigh about as much as a V8 and cost at most $2K more, but provide more power and better fuel economy.

 

I’m fairly confident that buyers have the sense to see through the 48V hype. After all, it is fairly common knowledge that sales critters are pretty lame in selling the technology the PriusChat community has already bought. I have no doubt that 48V will have to succeed or fail on its own without an advocate on the showroom floor.

Bob Wilson

 

any published epa numbers yet?

 

The hybrid system is firstly for compliance. If your engine idles when you're stopped, you're illegal in some places as a new vehicle. The second thing is the torque band. The same thing I an others on PC have been saying for years about what makes the Prius awesome for towing compared to most vehicles even trucks. With all that low end torque, you can pull really heavy things from a stop. Way more than a sub-2L lean running gasohol engine could otherwise do.

In the redneck truck world, to get towing power you need a big engine. Because the torque curves suck so much, you need to be waaaaaaay overpowered 99.9% of the time so that you can start hauling. With this system, you now can haul from a stop much better than just an engine. And that's how they sell it. When you're cruising down the road, your big stupid engine doesn't do anything that a Prius engine couldn't do. When you're stopped it doesn't do anything at all. When you're getting going, you need power.

Other than that, yes this is just like GM's terrible mild hybrid crap and Honda's original IMA system except with a 48v system and the elimination of the 12v starter.

 

Calm my friends. We'll see the awesome sales spike in July 2018. Yeah, we'll see how many buyers love to pay for these 48V pickups.

I'm not in the market for a pickup so let the buyers choose.

Bob Wilson

 

You've got to be careful with comments like this. We might lose some of our PC forum base of Scottish sheep farmers.

 

I beg forgiveness from tightwad Scottish sheep farmers who like mild hybrid Ram pickup trucks made by an Italian company pretending to be an American company.

"Hey! That thing got a Hemi?"

 

I think the engine coolant to be used to heat up the ...to operating temperature, is similar to what you have in the Prius. I mean, the heat storage tank, used to heat the engine blablabla bringing it to certain temperature, to help the car start immediately.

 

If you are referring to the thermos bottle that was Gen 2 Prius only. Gen 3 and 4 do not have the thermos or fuel tank bladder.

 

GM put their 1st Start/Stop POS fake mild (non) hybrid in the Malibu iirc - around 2008. At least GM is finally making real product. As for the Ram? Yep, calling it a hybrid truly is ramming it to the customers. Some will say, "oh well, it's better than nothing". I suppose .... in the same way having a pet cat or dog with rabies is better than having no pet.

.

 

It depends who they bite

 

The truck isn't in production yet, so no numbers ;-) The first one with a 48v system from fiat chrysler will be the 2018 jeep wrangler. My guess is it will get 21 mpg epa versus 20 mpg on the 6 cylinder non start stop jeep. These compare to 18 mpg in the 2017 model year. My best guess is start stop on a ram won't increase a whole mpg but a partial, but that may be enough to get it to round up on the sticker.

similar and good idea. The heat storage tank was an awful idea, but new prii (gen III and later) use the heat of exhaust gas to warm the engine in a coolant loop during a cold start. Here it is using engine coolant in the rwd to both warm or cool the rear axle. During cold days this will give lower friction, during towing especially on hot days there will be less wear.