insights on a hybrid car

What if?

What if someone decides to build a hybrid car? Now I am not a mechanical engineer, CAD expert, or anything in particular. Just another schoolboy who has read a few books too many. Here is how I would go about it.

An important feature of a hybrid car seems to be a diesel/gas engine, batteries or other energy storage solution, and electric motors. Clutch and gears are likely to be obsolete as motors can provide varied RPM at high torques. Step on gas and your speed will go as high  as possible (200+ mph). Today's motors are easily capable of sports car like performance.

I would go about it with two concepts in mind. Generators working at constant engine parameters are much more efficient than Normal car engines. So instead of putting an IC engine that powers the wheels directly, with a lot of wasted fuel in accelerating, decelerating, we can introduce a dynamo and convert the engine power into electricity.

Now any high school kid might tell you that converting Mech Energy into Electrical and back again is not going to be very efficient. But it may work in situations such as cities where brakes waste an awful lot of energy. Regenerative braking takes the momentum out of your vehicle fast enough to absorb at least 60% Kinetic energy of a moving vehicle and puts it back when you release the brakes.

Now the energy inefficiency has been taken care of, we can proceed to more practical uses.

Ohkay, now we have got a portable 220 v generator in our garage which is very efficient and silent. This could prove a boon for any place with an unreliable electricity supply such as developing countries. Camping will definitely become more fun with ability to power external lights, speakers, projectors and whatever the people might conceive. Commuters in city won't even need to refill their gas tank as the batteries may be charged by cheap electricity and will have at least the range enough to get from home to office and back again.

Recent researches point out that soon even the engine will become obsolete. Batteries will be like gas tanks, you pour charged electrolyte, drive as much as the charge gets you, drain the discharged electrolyte at nearest gas station and refill with charged electrolyte. Another system plans to incorporate charging by Tesla coils embedded into asphalt, charging your vehicle as you drive. Much like wireless cell phone chargers of the present day.

The vehicles may become more safe as batteries and engine are pretty heavy and placed low in the vehicles body resulting in a low center of gravity. For all I know, you could even get a submersible automobile, which would work underwater as well as over land. Maybe someday, some comapany will work on such a system or probably is working on one..... Lets wait and watch.

Updates,

A new wave disk generator system aims at a revolutionary compact and efficient IC engine. It does away with piston and other parts and uses a very radically designed disk with grooves which combined with a lot of ingenuity has been able to achieve 60% efficiency and a weight much less than current engines.

The BMW i3 and i8 concepts are pretty close to what I think an hybrid vehicle should be like.