If there is any type of vehicle that would seem ideally suited to a hybrid drive application, it is a garbage truck (right, Volvo?). With the continuous stop and go driving involved with collecting the detritus of modern civilization there is plenty of opportunity for regenerative braking and electric launch. ISE Corporation already has a series hybrid system that they've developed for transit bus applications. ISE is partnering with Crane Carrier Company to build five series hybrid trash haulers for testing in New York, Chicago and Houston. The project is being organized by the Hybrid Truck Users Forum of CALSTART. ISE's ThunderVolt system is a self-contained hybrid drive system designed for installation into existing vehicle platforms. A pair of motor-generators are mated with a combining gearbox and replace the conventional transmission unit in buses and trucks. Electrical energy storage will be handled by either nickel metal hydride batteries or ultra-capacitors.

[Source: ISE Corp]

Ron Gremban of CalCars has written an interesting guest piece over on Green Car Congress examining the debate between General Motors and Toyota that started last fall about the best approach to plug-in hybrid vehicles. The debate started when Toyota executives criticized the whole series-hybrid/extended range EV approach of the Chevy Volt. Gremban does a good analysis of the numbers looking at each type of powertrain over different driving cycles. So the obvious question is: Who's right, GM or Toyota? Both. As the old saying goes, tell me which side of the argument you're on and I'll give you the statistics to prove you're right.

The bottom line is that the better configuration depends on which driving cycle you use. For the foreseeable future as batteries remain expensive, getting maximum benefit depends how far you drive and at what speeds. For shorter driving cycles and lower speeds, the less expensive blended PHEV approach used in the plug-in Prius and Saturn Vue get the most benefit from a smaller battery. People who drive at higher speeds or longer distances will get more benefit from an E-REV like the Volt, which comes at a higher cost. The bottom line is that there is no one right answer for everyone. The replacement of petroleum will require a diverse approach to energy. The best answer will depend on where you live and how you use the vehicle.

[Source: Green Car Congress]

This week, Fifth Gear did a side-by-side review of the Mercedes Smart electric drive and regular Smart car that runs on petrol (watch it below the fold). Fifth Gear found out that zero-to-thirty is a lot faster in the petrol but the handling, thanks the heavy batteries lowering the center of gravity, is tops in the electric. Just 100 Smart EDs (electric drive) are coming to the UK as a trial, and the launch will be based on demand, according to Fifth Gear. I think Fifth Gear's distance/cost comparison is kinda biased to the electric but the show does something very interesting at the end of the review. They put a portable gas generator in the back of the EV, charging the car and instantly turning it into a series hybrid. Why don't we see that more often?

[Source: YouTube]

Recently, we told you Th!nk would introduce a larger car made by one of the top three American automakers. Green Wombat has more details on the car thanks to coffee with Th!nk's Jan-Olaf Willums at the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco. The car is a stylish and aerodynamic five-seat, four-door sedan, made by an unnamed Fortune 100 automaker and will be released in 2011. We'll be able to confirm this for ourselves when it is introduced at the Geneva Motor Show next week. The car will also be electric and include a range extender which I believe supports my pet theory that the unnamed automaker is GM.

You don't have to wait until 2011 for new things from Th!nk. According to Willums, Th!nk's two seater will be delivered to customers in March and introduced to Paris and the UK this week with production ramping up to 10,000 cars a year by the end of 2008. Th!nk hopes to have a plant in the United States by 2009, too. When asked if they were competing with Tesla, Willums said "We won't compete with Tesla. ... The Tesla will be more a BMW; we'll be more the Volkswagen."

[Source: Green Wombat]

During the 2008 Detroit Auto Show, ABG sat down to chat with Malcolm Bricklin about his latest project Visionary Vehicles. Mr. Bricklin has been involved in the car business for four decades and could be described as a serial entrepenuer. Over the years his projects have had varying degrees of success including being the original U.S. importer of Subarus as well as importing Fiats in the eighties after the Italian company pulled out the U.S. market. He also pre-dated John Dolorean in attempting (and failing) to build and sell a gull-wing coupe. He also brought America the Yugo.

These days Bricklin is focused on building a series hybrid electric car and creating a supply and distribution base for upstart car manufacturers to tap into for electrically-driven cars. As usual, Bricklin has some grand plans and the name Visionary Vehicles certainly seems appropriate. Read on to find out what he has in mind.

ABG: We're here with Malcolm Bricklin at the Automotive X-Prize booth to talk about your latest venture. You are working on a new plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. Why don't you tell us about the project?

Malcolm Bricklin: Actually, we are using the vehicle only as a way to sign up the dealers. But to truth of the matter is what we are really doing is trying to set up the infrastructure for electric vehicles and electric hybrid plug-ins. What we are doing is we are designing a vehicle as you can see right over there, which is going to be the size of a Mercedes S about the width of a Lamborghini that will get 100 miles to the gallon and sell for 40 grand. That, we think, will dispel everybody's thoughts that you can't build a big car and use electricity and get great gas miles and still sell at a decent price.

Continue reading about Bricklin's plans after the jump.

When you you think of London England, there are certain iconic images that come to mind, Big Ben and house of Parliament, Piccadilly Circus, the red-coated black hatted guards at the palace, the black London taxi and, of course, the bright red double decker bus trundling around town. In particular people recall the classic Routemaster double decker which was specifically designed for the London application with an open rear deck and allowed people to hop on and off easily. Aside from a pair of old Routemasters running tourist routes in Central London, the others have now been retired replaced by generic modern buses.

The editors at Autocar have teamed up with Capoco Design to re-imagine the Routemaster for a new century. Among the problems with the old buses were smelly, front-mounted diesel engines that necessitated a floor too high for easy disabled access. The designers of this new iteration have replaced the conventional drive-train with a series hybrid setup using a hydrogen fueled Ford 2.3L four cylinder to drive a generator. The absence of a drive shaft allows the floor to be lowered even with the lithium ion batteries in place and air suspension allows the rear deck to be dropped to curb height for easy access. Check out the whole design at Autocar.

[Source: Autocar via Winding Road]

In the last couple of years, green car enthusiasts have gotten all hot and bothered by the idea of cars like the Tesla Roadster, Zap-X and Chevrolet Volt. And while these cars and others seem incredibly innovative today, in reality they all have roots in cars built over a century ago by one of the true innovators in the history of the automobile, Ferdinand Porsche.

Most know Porsche for the line of sports cars bearing his name or a round little car that came from Wolfsburg Germany or the insanely fast Auto Union Grand Prix cars of the 1930s. Early in his career in 1898, Porsche developed an electric hub motor design that was incorporated into a series of cars that eventually won a number of competitions. Ultimately Porsche even developed a series hybrid version with an engine that only ran a generator to charge the batteries. Sound familiar? Then, as now, the limiting factor was battery technology. A 1900 example will be shown on the Porsche stand at the LA Auto Show next week alongside the new Cayenne hybrid which is being displayed in the US for the first time.

[Source: CNN Money]

Our friend Mike Levine, the proprietor of PickupTruck.com recently had a chance to talk to Ian Wright. You may recall that Ian is the driving force behind WrightSpeed, the company developing an electric sports car called the X1 based on the chassis of the Ariel Atom. Ian may be a fan of electric cars but he also needs to drive a heavy duty pickup to haul lumber on his property. He is exactly the kind of person that GM had in mind when they started developing their two-mode hybrid system on their full-size trucks. Not everyone who drives a big truck does it just to look cool, many also use them for their intended purpose.

With that though in mind Wright wants to develop a series hybrid powertrain for use in heavy duty pickups. While a diesel HD pickup is actually quite efficient in terms of gallons per pound per mile when they are loaded, when they are empty they suck. An electric powertrain would be very efficient when the truck is empty and still has enough torque for loads. A big truck also has the space to package batteries under the bed that wouldn't be as available in a smaller car. Wright wants to develop the technology and then either license it to car-makers or build the systems and supply to them at assembly time. Check out Mike's whole article at PickupTruck.com

[Source: PickupTruck.com, thanks to Mike for the tip]

Over at the Toyota Open Road Blog, Communications VP Irv Miller has chimed in again on the whole parallel vs series hybrid debate, this time with some fresh definitions. The previous postings have generated quite a bit of commentary both for and against Toyota's position. Miller first refutes some previous claims about a ten-mile range for Volt prototypes. Some commenters had attributed this to Toyota when in fact it originated with a Bloomberg story last summer.

He also discusses the issue of using nickel metal hydride batteries in a vehicle like Volt. He comes to GM's defense here by explaining that although a NiMH pack could achieve a twenty-mile range from the same sized pack, it would require deep discharge of the pack. This deep discharge would have a serious impact on the lifespan of the battery so that it would not last anywhere near the life of the car.

Perhaps Miller's most interesting, if dubious, point comes when he tries to redefine some hybrid terminology. The series hybrid is simple: it refers to a battery-powered vehicle with some kind of range extender. Miller defines a parallel hybrid as a system like the Honda IMA that does not have an EV-only mode. Most other people in the industry would call this a mild parallel hybrid, since both the internal combustion and electric motors provide torque to the wheels. In function this is little different from the GM belt-alternator-starter hybrid system.

Referring to Toyota's own Hybrid-Synergy-Drive system, he now terms to this as a series/parallel hybrid system. The series portion comes in because the system can drive the vehicle from the electric motor only, in addition to using the combination of the ICE/motor or just ICE. Ford, GM and everyone else using such a system just call this a strong parallel hybrid. This move of changing the terms of the discussion really comes off more as obfuscation of the argument than advancement. It seems like Toyota may be regretting opening this can of worms in the first place. At least Miller does acknowledge that their is no one right answer and that their is room for multiple solutions for different applications.

[Source: Toyota]