Featured Garrett Hybrid turbocharger in 2021

There are/were a few EU brands working on Diesel Hybrids - to get the best out of both worlds. Diesel is more efficient to start with, and lower CO2 than anything petrol - and with EURO6 emissions complaince are lower than petrol in most areas. This could be something which could be added in with existing Hybrid technology.

From memory, Citroen/Peugeot, Merc, BMW, AUDI/VW (probably more) were in the list of Euro6 compliant diesels which met the requirements for being exempt from low emission zone charges.

 

Reminds me of this: Volkswagen 1-litre car - Wikipedia

 

There are/have been numerous diesel hybrids in Europe.
Volvo, PSA (Peugeot/Citroën) and Mercedes all had or have diesel hybrids.
The downside is that diesel engines take longer to warm up and take quite a long time to reach the best fuel economy. I have been driving diesels for quite a while and they all took around 40-50km to get to their optimal temperature where the fuel economy got better. More recent diesels do warm up a bit quicker due to active grill shutters and such but they still hate short distances.

 

I never found that - I had 2 FORD Diesels (FOCUS 2.0 & FIESTA 1.6 - both developed in conjunction with PSA) - they'd idle a little faster for about 2 or 3 mins of driving (if you stopped) but got up to temperature not much differently from other cars I've had. Though - my ambient temperature is possibly higher than yours (not sure where Doesburg is).

 

You put a combustion chamber between the compressor and turbine and suddenly you have a man-portable, EV charger. Due to the compression ratio, inefficient as heck but adding a second unit in compressor and turbine in series would significantly improve efficiency at the cost of doubling the weight. Still, a nice solution for a mobile, EV or emergency generator.

Bob Wilson

 

The Netherlands.
The 1.6 PSA diesel does warm up quickly but still it took quite a while before it was completely warmed up. After 30 to 40km I saw the fuel economy increase. I had a Focus as my previous car with the 105bhp 1.6 Econetic diesel. It was by far the quickest to warm up from all the diesels I had.
From 2002 to 2005 I had a 1991 VW Golf Ecodiesel, that thing took forever to warm up, especially in winter. From 2005 to 2008 a Skoda Fabia 1.9 TDI which also took a real long time. From 2008 to 2010 a Ford Fusion (the European Fusion, terrible car) 1.6 tdci which was reasonably quick.
From 2010 to 2014 a Renault Mégane 1.5 dci which was slow to warm up. My last diesel was the aforementioned Focus in which I covered 252000km until the lease ended.

Temperature gauges in most cars are faked. Mostly everything between 70 and 90°C makes the needle stay dead center.
After the water is up to temperature it takes quite a bit of time until the oil is up to temperature. The coolant temperature isn't the best indicator to determine if an engine is warm.

 

Plenty of gasoline cars also have turbos, and more of both will have mild hybrid systems. Four Fords in Europe are getting a 48volt system, for instance.

 

Mild hybrids are indeed on the rise.
I do doubt the effectiveness of those systems. I haven't driven one so I do not have first hand experience but I'm not convinced that it saves fuel in the real world.

 

Depends on the drive. Any gains are probably small for someone driving mainly highway miles. The regenerative braking and engine off should help in town.

 

Most Euro6 diesels emit too much NOx. Only with Euro6d are there now diesels that genuinely meet emissions limits. There are millions of diesels on European streets (including Euro6 cars released in the last few years) that are still causing disease and death with their excessive emissions. Toyota hybrids still beat the best new diesels in most cases, without DEF or DPFs.

 

mThe point of a Diesel hybrid is to forgo the need for a turbo, the hybrid aspect makes up for the missing HP.

a naturally aspirated Diesel is currently only a few hundred dollars different than a gas motor of the same displacement and almost the same weight.

 

The OP is about an electric turbocharger that uses a motor to overcome the inherent lag, which could mean lower emissions and a minor increase in efficiency. Combined with a hybrid system the turbo will have slight regeneration ability when foot off the throttle. It could work mild or full hybrid, but I'm guessing the cost vs. benefit ratio favors this being used on a mild hybrid.

 

Besides those benefits you can also reduce the complexity of engines.

Manufacturers like BMW have resorted to triple or quad turbo setups for some of their diesel engines in which they combine small and large turbochargers to overcome lag and still have enough boost at the high end combined with the lower lag of VTG (variable turbine geometry) turbochargers which have been used in diesel engines for over 20 years this gives a very responsive and powerful engine (the BMW M50d engine for example).

Instead of twin, triple or quad turbo setups you can possibly reduce that to only one or two hybrid turbo's.

It is a really nice idea to have a traditional turbo combined with an electric motor.

For petrol engines this could also have benefits because VTG turbochargers are still quite rare because of material constraints so they resort to twin-scroll turbochargers with added complexity as well. A hybrid turbo can help there as well.