questioning my own beliefs

[note: this page originally posted at HybridScoop.com, others originated at La Casita]

I used to think hybrid/electric was for golf carts. Didn't we all? That seems to be one of the myths. And as a life-long wire monkey and electron junkie, I should have had more faith. But I didn't.

My buddy Tony lived off campus, across the tracks. One night outside his place, the railroad engineer began to tighten the couplings, revving the engine, so that when he rolled nothing would snap.

Tony: "You know that thing's electric, don't you?"
me: "You have to be kidding!
    Why turn motion into electricity just to turn it back into motion?"
Tony: "Would you wanna pop the clutch on that?"
me: "You have a point."

That was a long time ago. More recently, my better half and one of the offspring were watching PBS. The program presented a high school shop teacher (Harold Miller? dunno) who assigned his students electric conversion of petroleum powered cars. This was way cool! The teacher kept prior years' work for his daily commute.

her: "Why don't we have cars like that?"
[scene cuts to an auto race]
me: "That's why. You could never race an electric car."

But, silly me, the very scene we were watching was of electric racers. This, umm, shocked me. So after picking up my jaw from the floor, I went into a six week obsession. Ford then had the RangerEV. Chevy had an electric S-10. Even Chrysler was in the game with the EPIC minivan. But these were out of my league. The prophets were saying that hybrids would be coming. I had neither the time nor the money to pursue electric drive, so I had to to put the whole thing out of my mind.

Diesel locomotives are "series hybrid", my goal. Current automobile hybrids are "parallel hybrid". Ford and Toyota offerings act a little like that series hybrid I want. (They call their cars "full hybrid".) In my obsession days, I learned that there was much more to the story than just the pop-the-clutch factor (control) where electricity has obvious advantages. Even as a life-long electronics buff, I had never known the other advantages of electric motors.

And now I'm in the market again for a car. Can we go semi electric? (That is, can we get a hybrid this year?) Ford has finally begun to play. Toyota and Honda have been at it long enough that the public can at least spell h-y-b-r-i-d. (But do they know what it means?)

I'm a believer again! Electric motors have one moving part. Their performance curve is flat. They run cooler. They're quieter. They're obviously cleaner. Control is more effective with electronics than with cables, levers, vacuum and hydraulics. The more service that can be run through the hybrid battery the better. But a Honda with a common crankshaft between the ICE and the electric motor simply cannot stop those pistons from pumping. If the A/C compressor is belted to the gasoline engine, we have the same problem (ICE won't shut down) in the summertime. So I'm leaning towards the Ford or Toy.

But with fuel prices escalating, Prius is so popular that they're just a couple $K out of reach. There's a sad double meaning in the term "sticker shock" when trying to buy a hybrid. So we wait. Maybe there will be a decent dealer incentive.

I'm a believer again. I'll keep ya posted.

-- R;