Michael Kanellos

The Darwinization of Hybrid Cars June 20, 2008 at 11:43 AM

There’s an engine in the front, and an engine in the back. That’s the best way to describe the prize-winning through-the-road parallel hybrid from Mississippi State University.

In their car–concocted as part of the four-year Challenge-X contest sponsored by the Department of Energy and General Motors–an electric motor propels the wheels on the rear axle while a biodiesel motor runs the front axle. When acceleration is needed, the electric motor kicks in. When the car is at cruising speed, most of the work is performed by the biodiesel motor.

Dedicating the different engines to different axles makes it far easier to swap out components. More importantly, though, it let the students put a much larger-than-normal electric motor into the car. They were no longer confined to trying to squeeze one into the space dedicated to the engine block. The larger electric engine let them raise the mileage to 30 miles per gallon, a 48 percent jump in fuel economy. Compared to a typical Prius, that’s not so hot, but remember, there are people out there still buying SUVs. (I ran into these guys and their car at the recent Freescale Technology Forum.)

Meanwhile, a group at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Indiana came up with a design that employs a single biodiesel engine with two smaller electrical motors, one for each wheel.

So what does it all mean? That we will likely begin to see more variability in hybrid designs. Think of it as Darwin meets mechanical engineering–different species will occupy different niches. To date, most hybrid cars have employed the power split/parallel hybrid architecture in which a single gas and a single electric motor work in tandem.

In late 2009 or early 2010, expect to see the first serial hybrids hit the market. In these, the gas engine only clicks on to charge the battery. It does not directly power the car in most cases. The Chevy Volt is the most touted serial hybrid, but you’ll see versions from Fisker Automotive and Tesla Motors.

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