On Saturday, July 12th 2014, I attended the Silicon Valley STEAM Festival at Reid Hillview Airport in San Jose. This year's event includes all the vehicles from Mike Hennessy's Hot San Jose Nights. And although most of the event's vehicles were powered by petroleum fuel (cars, trucks, aircraft), there were a few electricity fueled and my Smart ED was one of them.
This event was definitely a display of the love vehicular engineering, primarily that of the power of petrol. But there was something uncharacteristic in a television show from the British Isles recently, that praised a combination of electricity and petroleum power. The show is called Top Gear and the particular episode showcased a McLaren P1 that uses both a gas and electric motors to do something unprecedented.
As mentioned in my previous post about electric drag racing, electric cars have immense torque from a stand still. But they also tend not to require a transmission. For these reasons not only do they accelerate quickly and do not make shifts that lose power.
When electric cars race against internal combustion cars, the electrics often win. But if internal combustion could use electric motors, they might be able to smooth out the rough parts of shifting and acceleration. That is exactly what McLaren has done with the P1.
The P1 uses the electric motor for the high torque in acceleration from 0 and when the transmission is shifting to boost the power yet again. Of course this means that the vehicle is more heavy than an electric or petrol alone, but with all that power, it may not matter.
Although I doubt that there will be a Smart Car hybrid, I would not be surprised to see more companies utilizing electric motors to boost power, not just efficiency. Where the Prius introduced the world to greater efficiency, the McLaren P1 has brought hybrid tech up to speed.
And this would seem to all well and good until the Lithium Air becomes available. Then petroleum powered vehicles will finally become a relic of a bygone era.
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