These guys have had a lot of press in the northern CO area. The CEO used to run a local robot
company that he sold.
Ron
--On Monday, August 10, 2009 2:39 PM -0700 Jones Beene <jone...@pacbell.net>
wrote:
Forget getting Zapped by EEStor, etc. This one is more shocking in a number of
ways –
http://engineeringtv.com/blogs/etv/archive/2009/07/07/lightning-hybrids-hydraulic-drivetrain-part
-1.aspx
yes - it is a hybrid BUT it does NOT use advanced batteries. Instead it uses
hydraulics for
energy storage. And it is a double hybrid since the small diesel is to be
fueled by biodiesel.
Carbon neutral.
And especially notable, it excels in energy-recovery from braking - where even
the Prius and
every other hybrid is weak- like 30% or so. This gets back almost triple that.
Also the mileage
is double the Prius, and the carbon footprint is lower than any PHEV (without
the shenanigans of
battery packs that require lots of carbon to recharge, on average due to
battery and line
losses). Shocking indeed - they don't call it 'lightning' for nutin' ;-)
Also, here is the aesthetic flash - its beauty, low drag, light weight and
drivetrain logic
almost strike one down, so to speak, once you get over the novelty of the
different approach they
are taking. How could Detroit have missed this? That was rhetorical. Detroit
misses everything,
almost. But how could California have missed it? Forget the Tesla with its
sticker shock - this
one has both beauty and brains without the big-bucks. … saving $30,000 on the
lack of a battery
pack alone.
… nearly 100 mpg is available without batteries - making one wonder if all
the emphasis by
DoE on battery hybrids is not totally misplaced.
