GM and others announce hybrid project

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a @ Aug 12 2006, 07:34 PM) [snapback]302312[/snapback]</div>

I notice you ignore emissions... so I wonder what BS you're pushing now.

Also, I notice your reading for context skills have not improved at all. Tsk. With my message that you jumped on, I was responding to Godiva's claim that no SUV could beat a non-SUV hybrid for emissions or mileage. Try to read the whole chain before you jump in next.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a @ Aug 13 2006, 09:49 AM) [snapback]302317[/snapback]</div>

Huh?

GM has been not interested in the hybrid design because they believed there would be no consumer interest in it. AKA, no one would buy the cars. I am sure it has nothing to do with car complexity.

GM follows the money, like any other car company. It had nothing to do with complexity, but how much money they could make.

Jimmy

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a @ Aug 12 2006, 06:49 PM) [snapback]302317[/snapback]</div>

I can appreciate your concerns.

The full specifications on the production unit will be available soon. It will be expensive I'm sure, but we won't know for sure until they release pricing info, which will probably be mid-2007. GM is a different company than they were as soon as five years ago. Back before the recent gas crisis and gasoline averaged $1.50/gal the hybrid system wasn't worth it to most people. Sure, it helped emissions, but honestly I'm sure that wasn't a real priority; if it was maybe they were planning to use the money they would have to invest in a hybrid system to cut emissions some other way.

The "mild" hybrid Silverado was really an experiment and actually has benifits, like four 120V power outlets and enough power generation to run a house. The BAS system is a cheap alternative that gives real results, and it's simple, so it is making it's way into vehicles this year. GM then knew they would need to stop dismissing hybrids and collaborated with DiamlerChrysler and BMW to build a fantastic "real" hybrid unit that is pretty much contained in the transmission, so it's easy to adapt to existing models.

GM and all other manufacterers admit that there's no money in hybrids due to the cost of development and materials, but it's just something that has to be done until we get to the next step in automotive powertrains. I personally love the idea of serial hybrids (plug-in). It would be great to have an electric car that can run on gasoline when you need to make a longer trip than the batteries can provide. Projects like the EV1 and HyWire help develop the technology for the future.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tideland Prius @ Aug 12 2006, 12:20 AM) [snapback]301960[/snapback]</div>

How is HSD not designed for high speed? The nature of condition (air/rolling drag) demand 15+ hp all the time. The Prius ICE reaches near peak efficiency when making above 15 hp. This is the ideal situation to use ICE and the size of ICE was 100% designed to take advantage of highspeed.

HSD peak power is acheived at high speed. As you know, highway merging (30-50mph) acceleration is a piece of cake for Prius. Passing power and responsiveness (50-70mph) is also performed at ease due to HSD. Prius also drives with confidence on the hills and mountains at high speed. All high speed situations do take advantage of HSD and for Prius, it feels like a 2.0 to 2.4 liter ICE under the hood. It is easy to take for granted the absolute advantages that HSD offered us, in terms of fuel economy and power effiency.

Dennis

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(AndrewGS @ Aug 12 2006, 06:48 PM) [snapback]302288[/snapback]</div>

How is HSD only at peak efficiency at low speed? Care to explain? Can you provide an example (another production hybrid in the same class) that get better mpg on highway than Prius? The closest I can think of is Civic Hybrid. It gets less mpg on highway than Prius. Is Honda IMA considered to be inefficient on the highway as well? GM's two-mode system High mode will work the same way (even cyln deactivated) as IMA on the highway. Do you expect the two-mode system to outperform IMA or even HSD?

Step back and look at the end results. Let's not get stuck at mpg alone. Acceleration is also part of the equation. Prius outperforms the competition (Civic Hybrid) on the highway. It is easy get into the hype train from this two-mode system PR BS.

If you can do it with one single continously variable infinate mode (HSD), why do you need two seperate modes? Simplicity is better than complexity. If everything else being equal, the simple design wins.

Dennis

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jimmyhua @ Aug 12 2006, 07:57 PM) [snapback]302355[/snapback]</div>

Do some searches on "stop gap". You'll find a disturbing number of articles about GM claiming hybrids were a just waste of time & money, being only a "stop gap" until fuel-cell vehicles. They were attempting to draw consumer interest away from hybrids. It was already there. They saw it was there and were fighting it.

The fact that you are unaware of that history is somewhat disheartening. They've apparently done a great job of portraying an image of support. Fortunately, my blogs are loaded with documented cases to the contrary. I scrambled to record that history to prevent it from being lost.

Anywho, that's why some of us question their level of commitment to this particular effort.

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<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(AndrewGS @ Aug 12 2006, 10:08 PM) [snapback]302398[/snapback]</div>

But how many will we actually get it?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(AndrewGS @ Aug 12 2006, 10:08 PM) [snapback]302398[/snapback]</div>

That we actually know. 83,000 is a pitifully small quantity.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(AndrewGS @ Aug 11 2006, 07:59 PM) [snapback]301806[/snapback]</div>

Why are we comparing SUV from different classes? It'll be like comparing Camry to Corolla and saying Camry costs more. The funny thing in the fact you provided, the bigger SUV gets better mpg and faster than the compact one.

Dennis

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a @ Aug 13 2006, 12:07 AM) [snapback]302420[/snapback]</div>

Please post sources for your quantities! It makes you look much less credible when you make these things up.

FYI, the Saturn Vue, Aura and Chevolet Malibu are scheduled to receive BAS either this summer (Vue) or Winter (Aura) and next Spring (Malibu). I think that's what you meant by "But how many will we actually get it".

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(usbseawolf2000 @ Aug 12 2006, 10:42 PM) [snapback]302412[/snapback]</div>

It's a trap. They make people fall into the belief that highway cruising is at an absolutely constant speed on a perfectly flat surface. In that case, the lockdown nature of two-mode kind of works like a glorified overdrive. So there might be a tiny advantage. But in most real-world conditions, that may rarely be taken advantage of.

The computer industry has been dealing with this for ages. The specs look pretty good on paper. In practice though, few consumers actually benefit.

We have actual data showing that HSD delivers a pleasing efficiency improvement at high speeds. So claims that it doesn't are misleading, at best.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jonnycat26 @ Aug 12 2006, 11:23 PM) [snapback]302430[/snapback]</div>

People are quite familiar your attempts to discredit. In this thread alone, you claimed I was responding to something other than the quote highlighted and now you twisted the meaning of my response. That isn't even remotely close to what I was asking. What is the actual planned production volume, not the number of models.

A tiny quantity like 250 is almost pointless. Yet that was the full production of Insight for the United States last year. How many Vue & Malibu will GM actually be produced?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a @ Aug 13 2006, 12:40 AM) [snapback]302444[/snapback]</div>

Dude, I don't know. I couldn't follow your grammar in the first question because, let's face it, your sentence made no sense. But I'm positive, confident, and quite sure GM will produce more than 250 Vues and Auras. In fact, I'd wager more than 25K.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a @ Aug 13 2006, 12:24 AM) [snapback]302431[/snapback]</div>

I also think that since HSD offers "kick butt" mpg over the competition at low speed and not so "kick butt" on the highway, people assume that HSD is not efficient on the highway. The logic is flaw because one has to consider the limitation for improvement. Where can the efficiency loss can be recovered? Traditional design takes the most efficiency loss in the city and does pretty good on the highway. So, there are less room for improvement on the highway.

In the city, the brakes takes away most of the energy but on the highway, it is the air drag. Regen brakes can recover lost energy but how do you recover the energy lost in the air? Adding windmills won't help either. :lol: :lol:

Dennis

 

I don't get the HSD fanboi'ism.

If Toyota is so good, how come the v6 hybrid doesn't support cylinder deactivitation?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dipper @ Aug 13 2006, 03:38 AM) [snapback]302475[/snapback]</div>

Hi Dipper,

HSD does support cylinder deavtivation. Just they turn ALL SIX of the cylinders off. Not just 2 or 4 .

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dipper @ Aug 13 2006, 01:38 AM) [snapback]302475[/snapback]</div>

If cylinder-deactivation is so good, how come so few vehicles actually use it?

That's because of the side effects. Having only half of the engine producing power causes vibration. To counteract so people don't feel it, electric motor-mounts are added. They bounce the engine in a manner to cancel out that effect. The other effect is sound. Owners of Accord-Hybrid have described it as if you were being following by a miniature helicopter. To counteract that, microphones were added and the stereo system enhanced. Anti-Sound is produced to cancel out the that effect. There is a catch though, you have to keep the windows closed for that to work.

But despite the side-effects, you'd think cylinder-deactivation would be offered more. Why isn't it?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(usbseawolf2000 @ Aug 13 2006, 12:12 AM) [snapback]302454[/snapback]</div>

Say what? How many other cars get 50 MPG while cruising at 70 MPH?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(donee @ Aug 13 2006, 05:43 AM) [snapback]302501[/snapback]</div>

Yes. But then, the GS450h/HH/400h highway mpg improvement sucks... when comparing to using other cylinder deactivition systems like Honda v6... with vibrations and all.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a @ Aug 13 2006, 09:58 AM) [snapback]302515[/snapback]</div>

GM, Chrysler, Honda and Nissan use it... and to my knowledge, only on the Accord Hybrid is noise cancellation used. The other cars use balance shafts, something you may want to look up before you make blanket statements like these...

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dipper @ Aug 13 2006, 12:31 PM) [snapback]302561[/snapback]</div>

Toyota doesn't, at present, have the engineering know-how to implement a cylinder shutdown system.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jonnycat26 @ Aug 13 2006, 11:48 AM) [snapback]302568[/snapback]</div>

How long will you continue this insult and implied-meaning nonsense? How about just answering the question instead?

Again, why isn't cylinder-activation offered more?