Featured It has started, 48 volt hybrids arrive.

yea what's with jalopnik - that they deliberately bork their sites that way
..... anyway .... their ad brags a 12" portrait screen;



well for one thing - the screen looks as though it's square, which doesn't lend itself to a portrait reference. Maybe they meant the diagonal is 12". That'd make the top & sides ~7¾" ... which looks about right, based on the radio underneath it.
The other thing - after the introduction of the11X17 screen -



Chrysler might just be stretching reality to call their 'nice' screen size, "insane" ... tho it's definitely nicer than their notion of this vehicle qualifying as a hybrid, if in fact start/stop qualifies as such in their book. Or maybe that's just jalopnik hype

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I believe clean mpg may be erroneous on the battery chemistry, another site has lithium mentioned for the wrangler which will be first out with the system. I'll withhold judgement. If its lithium that probably means anouther 50% useful energy and the battery will still be undersized by not by as much.

The government is giving start stop a 10% bonus for cafe, those rules really need to be fixed.

The system only adds 100 lbs to a vehicle, which means it doesn't really get in the way of anything. I have no idea what fiat chrysler's cost is, or what they will charge. I guess we will know soon with the wrangler.

Good ol' Jalopnik. The mg adds up to 90 ft-lbs for the v6 and a larger one adds 130 ft-lb on the v8 both only at low rpm. The v6 mg is smaller because it is shared with the wrangler, and that does not have as much physical space. This torque is not additive to peak engine torque at all. It will provide added torque up to around 1500 rpm. On the 4 cylinder wrangler it also reduces turbo lag, but a turbo is not offered on the ram.

 

So, my 15 ram ecodiesel longhorn with everything, including air suspension.
The front bearings aren't greased at the factory and so that's a problem.
The air suspension stops working at 20 degrees.
They rust when it's sunny.
The oem tires are worse than Toyota's toyo.
The proximity sensors stop working at 20 degrees.
Oil changes are 175-195$.
4% of the ecodiesel have blown up the motors.
The EPA wouldn't let any ecodiesel get certified in '17, and have yet to certify the 18's, not a good sign.

But, heated steering wheel, tows my 43 hp kubota up my mountain easily, gets 26-28 mpg summers on the highway, winters still gets 21-22mpg, the screen is great, and it's rectangular not square, isn't made in Scotland, you have to supply your own sheep and Vaseline.

Mild hybrid, on off at stoplights and stop signs, useless, 43v electrical system, about time, now you can hook up an audio system and lose your hearing much faster.

 

But they would need to add a false engine roar then!!

 

The V8 already revs at a very low rate, and has gobs of low end torque. This does let you lug it at bellow 1500 rpm and get a boost to accelerate without downshifting ... but ram has a handy dandy 8 speed to pick the right engine speed, which gets rid of some of this advantage. Ram also changed engine mounts and active noise control so cylinder deactivation at low rpms won't be as annoying to the driver. They likely are playing with exactly how much they can get away with now, and this will increase mpg, but not because of the bas start stop system.

Given the torque curves, the system will add more to the V6, and perhaps get it to accelerate from a stop better with load. If it does this well enough that probably is a big cost savings. Torque isn't nearly as good as the baby 2.7 L V6 ecoboost on the f150 and ranger 375 lb-ft of torque versus 269 lb-ft on the 3.6L normally aspirated v6 in the ram. The start stop system on the f150 is older and uses advanced glass mat lead acid batteries, but my guess is it will be upgraded to a hybrid lead acid 12v/limh 48v that its battery supplier is now making when its redesigned. The ford gets 2mpg more than the ram in 2018 guise, I'm sure the ram will close the gap with this new lighter truck and may even tie the ford in efficiency. The question is price and if people will buy the new ram. I am expecting a strong truck market for all this year. The f series will lose sales but ford will add the ranger back to its truck lineup.

 

Sure it is, it uses a hemi-spherical ignition chamber. just like most other ICEs....

 

Hey, the good news for Prius owners is that the coal rolling morons might leave y'all alone now and start rollin' on the 2019 Ram 1500!

...or it will be too confusing for them and they'll keep hunting Prius's

 

I vote for "too confusing," as they are morons. And even if they had one of the new trucks, they'd still find a new way to spew crap in other drivers' faces. Because — they're morons.

 

Once Ford went to aluminum body on steel frame, and people got used to the turbo 6 it became the big seller. 75% between the 2 turbo v6's, 15% V8, 10% natural aspirated v6. The

As far as better mpg, all things being equal the naturally aspirated v6 is going to do better in real world city driving, but that 2.7l turbo v6 won't be far behind and provide more power, better towing. The 2.7l turbo 6 only does slightly better than ford's v8 in real world highway or heavy load towing, that is even with start stop which is standard. I guess when the new ram's come out someone will do a test, but as always YMMV depending on the cycle. IIRC the chevy v8 got better fuel economy than the ford 3.5l turbo 6 in some magazines test.

 

Somehow we got a little off topic to efficiency from 48V start stop system versus efficiency of different engines in epa and real world, but I think its a good topic as long as we go back around and bring it to the topic.

The high power region of a turbo it becomes less efficient because typically a richer fuel mix must be used to avoid the charge going off before the spark. The benefits of turbo are lower friction, more efficient combustion, higher torque, lower weight, and reuse of waste energy in the exhaust, which means its a sure thing that if a turbo is designed correctly and driven in the right region, it will outperform a normally aspirated engine, but it will be more expensive. The bmw 2L seems fairly well designed, and in its efficient model produces 180 hp and 200 lb-ft, that would mean you replace that high power 5L V8 with a very efficient 4L V6 turbo that runs at lower rpm for similar power, and 3.5L is a good approximation, but it just needs a couple of easy things found on other cars, and maybe one better thing ;-) First a good efficiency indicator and/or economy button to cut off that range that needs an extra rich mix, second from the 2018 camry engine, it probably could use port injection as well as its di, to do some late intake valve closing tricks with a proper mix if boost or engine heat is too high for a lower compression stroke in the miller cycle (if valve closing is very late at higher rpm the di fuel doesn't have time to mix). That's probably it, and you still get more power when you want it at lower rpms than a v8. Other tricks that can be added would be agressive cooled egr - the denso part used on the Camry hybrid probably would work fine on the f150. Finally from audi playbook, an electric super charger could be coupled with a smaller turbo charger so boost is more optimal. Really if you do that turbo + electric supercharger along with aggressive cooled egr, the 2.7L is probably big enough if not regularly towing large loads.

In the old days start stop made the most sense on big old thirsty v8s, but these new v8s in the ford, gm, and dodge trucks are a lot less thirsty at idle. The older buyers will still want v8s, but they won't want the start stop systems, so its not a good match. Normally aspirated 6 is about lower cost, a turbo 4 or 6 will be the prime engines in pick ups in the US in 10 years, and already represent over 600,000 of the the F series in 2017

Back to topic, use of lithium 48V with a dc/dc converter to a 12V lead acid like I think is in the ram start stop system is probably a better but more expensive choice than ford's advanced lead acid. But ram is playing catch up, and I really think they need a turbo 6 to pair with that start stop system, the v6 is under powered, and the v8 buyers aren't going to want it or see much use. I expect ford to go 48V in a f-series redesign, but I also expect they will build a real phev or hybrid f150 soon, then we will see if truck buyers will buy hybrids. IMHO that 4 cyclinder turbo coming out in the new ranger is undersized volume wise, and the 2.7L v6 will probably do better in the real world.