The Mar '04 issue of IEEE Spectrum (the general audience magazine from the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers) arrived yesterday. The cover story is on high-tech cars, but there's a small article about the military's investigation of hybrid powertrain technology for armored vehicles. (p22,25) Apparently, there was an early effort which culminated in a demonstration vehicle in 1990, but this (RST-V) is much more advanced. Much is made of the military advantages of "stealth" mode and the reduction in sound & infra-red emissions. Also, the reduced fuel consumption would be a savings in logistics. The vehicle does 0-97kph (0-60 mph) in 12 seconds, so it's no performance slouch. It can go 32 km on just battery power (~20 miles) and I assume it has an EV switch :lol: They don't explicitly give mpg figures, but one can estimate. Present Humvees get ~9mpg (diesel), and the hybrid is expected to use 200 kg of fuel in a standard deployment (vs 470 kg). This leads me to estimate 21 mpg. It would come at a 20% premium above the $70k cost of the present military Humvee.
Apparently, from what I've heard about the original Humvee, it was modular, so if you needed to run it on say, biodiesel as opposed to regular gas, they would just swap out the corresponding parts. Of course, having this as an option in the commercial one would be bad for 'business' (ie, oil co's), so obviously it was never put in. -m.
Since the mill spec humvee's (and H1) are diesel powered, running on biodiesel is only a matter of pouring it in the fuel tank.
This is funny because my friends and I were recently talking about how stealth mode would make the Prius a good cop car.
