If they can make it...they will be rich(er). Every city,company,contractor will want one. By the time they made enough for fleet sales it would be nearly impossible to get one for personal usage. Just doesn't sound feasible but if they are right...Yikes...

 

doesn't sound too far out of reality to me.

Ever see a hydraulic Jaws Of Life cut through a A-pillar? That takes a tremendous amount of crushing power. If they've figure out a way to apply that to the ground, more power to em.

I would def love to have a full size truck that I only had to fill up every other month.

 

Yeh...they had a concept one or two years ago that got 50+ MPG from a hydraulic assist. It's been in development for a while now but always looked like something they could never perfect for production. Maybe they've finally engineered it so they can produce it...

 

It is certainly true that chemical storage has a lot of limitations. I have a friend that did a co-op a few years ago at the UT's Center for Electromechanics working on what they called the Advanced Locomotive Propulsion System... the main energy storage method was a big electromagnetic flywheel. It is composite, rides ina vacuum, and has magnetic bearings. They spun it up to a linear velocity of 3000mph in 2003. At any rate, the energy density is much higher than chemical batteries, and you can "recharge" the flywheel many many more times than you can a chemical battery.

They do alot of other cool stuff there like active magnetic suspension (think Humvee and M3 Bradley, not Corvette), to the railgun.

 

CLICK ME!

 

The hybrid shown in that govt pdf was supposedly completed and shown to the SAE World Congress in 2004 (with FAR LESS than 60mpg) - yet we have heard nothing about it from Ford? Why not? That should raise some eyebrows.

From that govt sheet though, it only says the cost increase is $600 per vehicle - which I bet would only be possible with govt subsidiaries. The amount of materials and engineering added to the vehicles would far exceed $600 I bet. If they can do that, again, why havent they? Even on gasoline cars?

Crash safety? Cost being more than $600?

Even for an additional 2mpg, itd be worth it on a big truck or SUV, even if it cost an extra $1000 - because it also has the advantage of additional pulling power with towing (which is what F350 Tonka had, I think like 1200tq)

 

If Ford, or anyone for that matter, can make a truck that gets 60mpg city average, I will cut it up, and eat it one bolt at a time.
No chance. But, if they can improve the city mpg even 3-4, that's something useful, and worth having so long as the cost isn't ridiculous.

 

In my research, I found a company in Australia named Permodrive (I think). Its an interesting concept, but mines better...

Haz-Mat, I've researched that also, and the electromagnetic bearings can't be used on a vehicle. At high speeds the system could destroy itself if you hit a bump.

edit: http://www.permo-drive.com/

 

A train is a vehicle

I was just giving an example of non-chemical energy storage. You wouldn't be able to put this flywheel on a car anyway... much too big. I got to see it in the test bunker. I would have rather had the railgun, although the power source was a problem.

edit: I was talking to my friend and he tells me that the e-mag flywheel was slated for use in buses as well (not to mention space stations...), but Houston Metro dropped out. The whole thing is mounted in a gimbal.

 

I read of somewhere that they were testing them in buses, but it was a generic statement, and didn't mentino Houston Metro, I didn't know that.
NASA has one that I saw a while back, I will see if I can find the pics real quick.
edit: apparently they have recently made a webpage with alot of images.

http://space-power.grc.nasa.gov/ppo/...l/gallery.html

 

33 MPG city sounds more realistic. That is still damn good and for $1000 I'd buy it.