Australia: Undergrad develops cheap kit for hybrid electric vehicle conversion
Australia: Undergrad develops cheap kit for hybrid electric vehicle conversion
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Great ingenuity but if falling into the inventor trap of "I've figured out one part of the equation and am neglecting the rest of it"
The inventor says "Some additional off-the-shelf systems – brake and steering boosters, as well as e-heating and air conditioning – would also be added under the hood." While also stating all the original components are remaining untouched.
Does he have any idea how cramped the majority of modern engine bays are? I used to work on saburbans, bucks, chevys, and ford's where you could literally stand in the engine bays. Modern cars though? Good luck having enough space to even get your tool let alone your hand where it needs to go.
Also "Off the shelf" systems?
Heaters are a nightmare. Resistive heaters, while being the most common, cheapest and easiest to access, use obscene amounts of energy and would put a huge drain on the tiny batteries he is proposing being used. PTC heaters are a possibility but Heat pumps would be ideal. Heat pumps take up space and are best designed into a car from scratch.
E-brake boosters are definitely a thing but are not a one size fits all and ABSOLUTELY require the removal of the existing system.
Finally the AC... The best electric units I've seen are retrofit kits for classic cars. Once again those require significant removal of existing infrastructure in order to be installed. More of an issue though.... they cost 2-4 thousand dollars! That's certainly going to eat into the project 4-5 thousand dollar estimated installation cost.
Side note: These are effectively motorized wheel spacers and I have seen a ridiculous amount of damage to vehicles from wheel spacers that are just simple chunks of metal.
Innovation is always encouraged of course and hopefully his work leads to something applicable. As it stands right now it's a bit of a pipe dream.
14The $5k AUS price is for the kit itself. The article mentions that traditional conversions cost $50k AUS.
4This reminds me of the solar roads stuff from about a decade ago. The blindspots on this project are huge, but the difference between this and the solar roads: the solar roads thing was a Kickstarter with a big marketing campaign, and this looks like a media organization is overplaying a small project, like the recent Verge article about that one dude's cyberdeck project.
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That means the gas engine needs to idle all the time in order to provide power to the power steering, ac, braking and other stuff?
7In the article it says there is a battery in the trunk powering the motors. The engine is not running when using the battery.
5but those are mechanically connected to the old motor. They would need to be replaced in order to work with a battery and that's not easy and not cheap because nobody can afford to lose power to the brake pump while in highway
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I'm guessing conversion of those boosters to electric would be part of the process...? But I don't know.
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