Electric bus

[chev49]

looks like a great toad

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Just been reading about the use of micro gas turbines as the new way of producing electricity to power hybrid vehicles.

Jeremy

  One of, if the the biggest issues with Turbine engines in a motor vehicle, has been how to connect the engine to the drivetrain. Anytime power is converted to another source, there is energy loss, and this has always been the stumbling block thats kept the turbine out of cars. The Turbine has the capability to be the most efficient powerplant, far exceeding the diesel. But its found its greatest use in applications where the engine could run at more or less steady speed, such as driving helicopter tranmissions and aircraft propellors.

  i am not sure how a gas turbine would work in a urban commuter scenario, you wouldnt want to be starting and stopping it, and they are not efficient at all when idling. But out on the road, I could see a gas turbine electric being very very miserly on fuel. And powerful when needed.

  Like you say, give time its measure, someone will think of something. In the mean time...drill baby. Drill!

[Jeremy]

In a commuter scenario the turbine would continue to run at a steady speed and charge the batteries. Assuming the batteries needed charging, otherwise the turbine would presumably shut down completely.

It's not a totally new idea of course - Rover did a lot of work on gas-turbine cars in the 50s (they had been involved in development work on early aircraft jet engines during the war). The turbines were fitted in a variety of Rover road cars, and also powered BRM racers which competed in the Le Mans 24-hour etc. They had most of the bugs worked out and had been seriously thinking of putting the engine in production models, but in the end hadn't been able to fix the problem of excessive fuel consumption. I believe Chrysler did similar research and came to the same conclusion. Obviously back then the turbines were large units that were powering the car directly, not these tiny devices which are only intended to generate electricity to supplement batteries.

I sell a lot of model aircraft magazines as part of my business, and know that miniature gas turbine technology is well advanced in that field. There are specialist model engineering companies that sell complete turbine engines that look superficially similar - and are of a similar size - to that Jaguar one. The technology for a home-built hybrid bus might be closer than you imagine. (The Jaguar uses two turbines incidentally - add a few more and who knows?)


Jeremy