Amen!

To give some merit to Linc's point... if we could have a turbine engine with very high efficiency (inherently efficient anyways)running a compact generator, only need ~20kw at the most, so both would be quite small; that is your energy source... With a small powerful battery pack of between 10 - 20Kwh, made from the uber cells that Luc. has access to, would be provide a ton of power, and the whole power system would be quite light weight and would be very practical. You could have roughly 20-40 mile all electric range with the pack, then gen set kicks in, with 70% efficient turbine, running a 90% efficient gen., makes for a very good well-to-wheels efficiency, very, very good range, and is capable of going on long range trips, all day, same as an ICE car. Overall, this would be, if you factor in all costs, manufacturing, lifetime of components, more environmentall sound than an all battery electric EV with a mediocre battery... as soon as you replace that pack, the impact it has made has gone up.

If a system like this were developed for mass production, it would be very cost effective, and would be almost maintenance free.

I will admit, batteries are not an answer, but more environmentally friendly made batteries (ex. LiFe) are still better over their lifetime than ICE vehicles, several times over.

Linc. btw, I am not sure about in the states, but here in Saskatchewan, Canada, our power generation plants use a clean burning technique by grinding the coal and literally spaying it into the combustion chamber and all that comes out of the smoke stack is not much of anything, just a wisp of white smoke. Much of the power being generated is not used most of the time, so it would not contribute to much of anything. It bugs me when EV critics use that as there main excuse when they don't even bother to look at the numbers... not pointing fingers at you Linc. :smile:

Anyone have any thoughts on this idea?

I thought my last e-mail included something special. I'll send it again, please check and let me know what you think.

+1 on this. This talk about "electric cars pollute the same" is just plain stupid. Many big cities have problems with smog and polluted air. Electric cars resolve this easily plus many other.

Tesla IPO. Somebody will get some good change out of this and I hope it works out for Tesla. Maybe they can get some better stuff in future vehicles.

Oh yes, I see you emailed me... looks fantastic unit, exactly what I was imagining. I was gone for the weekend, so no access to PC.

I just did some more searching and found Audi launched a R&D project for turbine electric hybrids as well.

Now think about one thing. Audi is doing this now? That set up I sent you was from the early 90's and the units now are much smaller, powerful and efficient. Audi has a lot of catching up to do. Have you read about that Factory Five car? They use such a set up, but it's far from the one I showed you. I think the drive unit for the Factory Five car is from AC Propulsion.

BTW, nice avatar.

Thanks.

Ya, Audi has catching up to do, but at the same time, I am wondering if they have industry professionals working on it as well that would be up to date, relatively on that technology.

I know this works very (VERY) well on a larger scale (ex. tanks), but I am wondering how cost effective in the end it will be in small cars?

Do you have a link to the Factory Five Car? I have never heard of it.

They can have all the industry pros going at it and they'll never be at the same level as the US Military :lol:. Tanks with this technology is awesome and some are very fast. Those big Behemoth mining trucks use a huge diesel engine/generator and the motors are at the wheels, they are some of if not the biggest trucks around with a top speed of around 40mph (http://www.liebherr.com/me/en/produc...=106220!1944-0). Big ships use a similar diesel hybrid technology and trains as well.

Here's the company that's making the hybrid turbine/generator system http://microturbine.com/news/links.asp, here's an article http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009...-auto-show.php (There are many more and a video in Youtube) and here's Factory Five's website http://www.factoryfive.com/.

Huh, I wonder how much the 30Kw unit costs? That looks superb for a high performance electric hybrid, very efficient... should be able to maintain at least 175mpg at all times, over the range of the car, accounting for the initial all electric range.(depends on size of battery)

So do you have access to this type of gen. set then? at what cost?

I know you can make a crude turbine engine from a traditional turbo charger, not near as good, but it works non the less. I wonder if it could be fined tuned to power a small vehicle such as a hybrid motor bike?

Give Capstone a call, I posted the link above ( http://microturbine.com or http://capstoneturbine.com/). There's no secret with this one as it's a public company. The info I sent you is a different story. I don't know the cost, but it'll be worth every penny. Also, your 175mpg calculation is very conservative. I don't think the little home brewed turbine will have enough torque to get the 30Kw generator going. I might be wrong though, don't really know much about turbines. Capstone also has a 65Kw and a 200Kw unit. Best thing about them is the fact you can use 6 types of fuel, like the unit I sent you info on. Here are 2 distributors in Canada: www.onpower.com (Eastern Canada) and www.tarponenergy.com (Western Canada).

Sorry for the delay on my old drawings. I just scanned the ones with me today and I'll try to get the other ones from my friend. I'll try to explain some as I go along and keep in mind this was done almost 20yrs ago. If you notice some engines, well it was because at the time I wasn't doing much research on electric vehicles.

A few more.