I used to like hybrids, and obviously series hybrids are the coolest kind of hybrids, but now that I’m driving a budget EV, I honestly don’t see the point anymore. Just get the EV and skip the awkward half-way step that inherits the most expensive and complicated parts from both designs.
Seeing a sleek modern car pull away whisper quiet and then start the ICE 3 seconds later with a stutter and a puff of water vapor from underneath is the most schizophrenic sight, it somehow feels more dated than actual ICE cars.
Unless you live in bumfuck nowhere with expensive electricity, zero solar power and a daily 5 hour commute, an EV will likely work just fine for you.
One thing that always puzzled me was how the gas engines in hybrids were so efficient. Technology Connections has a great video explainer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnUFH5GX_fI
tl;dw: constant RPM and a weird stroke geometry where the power stroke is longer than the other strokes to extract more energy from the expanding gasses.
I'm surprised there isn't more effort to create hybrids in reverse--an electric car with optional gas generator. The gas generator could run at constant speed, never changing RMP, while the battery handles constant changes in acceleration. The idea is not mine. I've heard about it in China
I think it's also because EREVs need a performant generator that isn't much different from the drive motor. So you'll have a full ICE+EV drivetrain on top of an EV as its battery for it to work, which is not ideal.
Compared to that, other hybrid systems like the motor-clutch combo packs that sit between the ICE and gearbox, as well as the fixed gear Toyota systems, can have motors that are weaker, lighter, and cheaper than the ICE, while being able to be additive to the ICE power output. That makes more efficient use of steel and copper than full serial setups.
BMW i3 had such EREV option, but it apparently used a cheap OEM bike engine(not like a BMW Motorrad engine) and also could not overcome power draw of the EV drive motor. So it literally just extended the range, not allowing it to run indefinitely at highway speeds with just refueling. Nissan e-POWER system is powerful enough to do that, but then the readers of comment will have to back to the line 3.
I've done some long trips with my i3. The key is to turn the engine on when the battery reaches 75%. The battery then absorbed the large power draws when accelerating or going up big hills. The engine does vary in RPM depending on my power draw, and by the end of my trip, the battery is usually not significantly lower, maybe around 60%. I usually turn off the engine when I'm almost at my destination so I can use the remaining battery energy.
That is exactly what ePOWER is, that configuration is called a series hybrid and is more commonly seen in heavy industry like diesel trains or trucks in the mines (for better or worse).
More recently effort is also going into series hybrids for public road haulers, which I personally think is a great application for it since you can potentially put a lot of the equipment into a hot-swappable dolly.
I drove a Nissan Note (Nismo esition) with ePower and it could happily spin the wheels when taking off, not something you normally get out of a tiny economy hatchback. I think it has 140kw electric drivetrain? 140kw is pretty sporty when delivered instantly.
Range extender EVs made a lot more sense a decade a go when batteries were much more expensive, and fast chargers were not yet ubiquitous. Then range extenders were more affordable than EVs and could go to places EVs couldn't.
Now these EREVs are mostly luxury niche of big cars (where extra space taken by two power trains doesn't matter) for people who don't want to spend 20 minutes at rapid chargers on that yearly long trip they do. Or for people who live in some global warming ignoring backwater[1] that hasn't built out rapid charger yet.
[1] even China has ubiquitous fast charging network now
China is the first country I would expect to have ubiquitous fast charging. They are years ahead of the west in the EV rollout. Also high speed rail, robotics, high tech manufacturing in general is kind of their jam now.
> China is the first country I would expect to have ubiquitous fast charging.
Everywhere in China? China is a large place. My money would be on a small rich country that’s (almost) entirely a city. Monaco, Singapore, maybe Luxembourg.
Googling gives me https://transition-energetique.gouv.mc/en/themes/mobility/mo... which doesn’t mention fast C
charging but says “Every Monegasque resident is now less than 200 metres from a free public charging point” ⇒ it wouldn’t surprise me if Monaco already meets your definition of “ubiquitous fast charging”
Maybe 80% of Monaco residents are millionaires / billionaires from other countries, be it Europe or rest of the world, mostly for tax evasion purposes. This includes many many professional sport persons who launder their sponsor income thus helping then getting millionaires surprisingly quickly, while public funds in their countries where they actually live and represent ie on olympics crumble.
#1 reason why I shy away from all professional sports with serious money involved, it just turns into typical ugly business with skewed incentives, while actual sport ends up being just a necessary afterthought.
Better apartments there cost often 10-20 million euros, there are special controls in laws (ie employment) ensuring better treatment of those few Monaco citizens that are there. Most tax avoiding folks like those sportsmen rent just po box to get some sort of special residence. Most people you can actually meet there live in France and commute daily.
That place is a special bubble even within bubbles, nothing that applies there should be expected to apply elsewhere, apart from similar places (of which I am not that aware of maybe apart from San Marino, ie Singapore is more like a real tiny country with actual serious business in trading and transportation).
Having done many road trips in a Tesla, I don't believe this is true. My trips were in the south west though. I'm sure there are areas where it is a problem but it depends.
I feel like this road trip thing is over exaggerated. What if we (as a society) rented a Toyota Sienna or something equally boring when we need to go on a road trip?
What you are referring to is usually referred to as an EREV (Extended Range Electrical Vehicle). The reason legacy manufacturers market their less efficient plugin hybrid and non plugin hybrids (100% of the power comes from petrol) instead is because that's what they have and want to milk for as long as possible. In terms of drive train these are more complex to manufacture and more costly to maintain than an EREV. EREVs typically have slightly larger batteries than a typical PHEV as well. Typical electrical ranges are at least 80-100 miles or more in some cases. Usually the cars are available as without the range extender as well. This is less common for PHEVs and hybrids. Though of course some legacy manufacturers are still trying to push compromise cars. Like Nissan in this case.
Nissan has been really struggling for the last few years, this new hybrid engine doesn't look like it will turn things around for them to me.
EREVs are an idea that is not new and also relevant in shipping and aviation. Many modern large ships (oil tankers, cruise ships, etc.) are already EREVs effectively: an electrical motor drives the propeller and a generator powers the motor.
And there are are a few plane designs that are using small batteries + generators to power flight. It makes a lot of sense: electrical motors are a lot simpler, lighter and cheaper to maintain. Engine maintenance is very costly in aviation. And so is fuel. The recently announced X1 is a good example of a plane that does this. There are a few other manufacturers working on this as well. Early days but the potentially large fuel savings probably ensure this is going to happen one way or another.
EREVs aren't magic. They make sense for some applications but less efficient than mechanically coupling the engine to the wheels. If the user is going to run mostly on fossil fuels due to trip distance or lack of available battery chargers then a parallel hybrid design like the standard Toyota Prius model is generally a better design.
The volt was never popular enough, unfortunately. Right around the time we were looking to buy a new car, and had the Volt high on our list, the retired the product line.
I've yet to meet a Volt owner who wasn't fanatically obsessed with theirs (myself included). One common theory for poor sales is that dealers tend to make more on service revenue than the actual sale, and Volts run forever with very little maintenance, but I don't know if that's just speculation. I've heard anecdotes of buyers walking in ready to write a check for a Volt, and the salesperson tried to discourage them and steer them towards an ICE vehicle instead.
The original/first BMW i3 (2013) was like this, full battery electric (with an admittedly small battery 80-160 miles range depending on model), with an "range extender" engine.
Personally I'm a big fan of the EREV (which only drives an alternator, rather than a PHEV which drives the wheels directly) due to the simpler mechanical design - however I'm not sure if it's a personal preference. I feel even a fairly small 30kw (40hp?) would make a huge difference to the utility of the vehicle, while still being small and economical.
I really love what Edison are doing, I have no skin in the game I just think it's a great business ethos.
Feom a fictional perspective I also dig the rugged blend of electric industrial equipment and utilitarian design. Like a mad-max solar punk, rather than a utopian one.
I picture them pulling up to a makeshift solar outpost en-route, in the middle of the wasteland desert, covered in red dust, the thick sheet metal scarred from raiders...
It seems to me you’re talking about a range extender, which lots of Chinese EV makers use. Many do buy them but sometimes you get the worst of both worlds: weighty like an EV and the heat, vibration, exhaust of a petro car. For most people the extended range is only needed very occasionally but you have to carry the ICE system the whole time.
Depending on the compromises you're willing to make, a small gas engine that doesn't run very often isn't a lot of excess weight, and it's not going to make heat, vibration, and exhaust except when it's running ... which could be 30 minutes a month (to keep it healthy) plus whenever you actually need the extended range.
Since it's just for range extension, you could maybe stuff the engine in the rear, so you don't have to pipe exhaust under the whole car. Although then you probably want to pipe coolant to a radiator in the front and have to protect that piping... but at least it's only coolant hot and not exhaust hot. The engine noise would be away from the driver at least.
You said you didn't want the heat of a gas car, but you might choose to run it a little bit more in the cold to help warm the interior on cold days (especially at startup).
Potentially, but not really likely, you could try to make it modular-ish... attach it when you need it, leave it in your garage otherwise. But I think it's going to be too heavy ... I have a 7200 W portable generator which is roughly half of what an EV uses at cruising speeds, and it takes two people to lift it. Automotive engineers do amazing things, but I don't think they're getting twice the power and less weight and easier to move...
You may be interested to read / watch videos of Audi's RS Q e-tron they raced in the Dakar Rally and even won with this type of powertrain - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_RS_Q_e-tron
There were several of them: the first and second generations of Chevy Volt, Fisker Karma, BMW i3, and a couple of Chinese brands.
They're less efficient than parallel hybrids at high speeds (on a freeway). And you also need a fairly sizeable engine to keep up with the consumption at freeway speed, so at this point you might as well just throw in a planetary gearbox.
The Chevy Volt (and it's predecessor the GM 2-mode hybrid, and the Allison power-split hybrid) was a work of art. It is fundamentally a planetary gearbox, with 2 motor-generators.
In ICE mode, under 35 MPH, it worked as a series hybrid. Above 35, the engine mechanically connected to the wheels. One motor-gen extracted power and fed it to the other, acting as a CVT in parallel. This provided the ratio changes needed for the small engine.
It was way too complicated and expensive the two times they tried it (2008, then the Volt). It was successful and lives on to this day in its original application: city buses.
Planetary gear plus 2 motor-generators is 'Toyota Synergy Drive' and also used by Ford and Stellantis in some hybrid models. At least the Ford C-Max and Chrysler Pacifica hybrids use this style drive train. I'm not on top of all the hybrids, but I'd guess if 4 car makers do it, there's others to be found.
It makes a lot of sense, works well, and is very durable... as long as Ford didn't forget to heat treat a bearing or whatever they messed up in early C-Maxes.
I had a 2012 Chevy Volt. It was indeed a delightful car!
But I believe that the series mode was a mistake. The later versions of Volts removed it entirely, improving the fuel economy.
> It was way too complicated and expensive the two times they tried it (2008, then the Volt). It was successful and lives on to this day in its original application: city buses.
I don't think that it was too complicated. Hybrids are using essentially the same system, except that they have a smaller battery and less powerful electric motors.
And the range extender was underpowered. Drive up a hill on a freeway at 70 mph and the battery would deplete and the car would slow down to 25 mph which was the fastest the range extender could make it go up a gentle incline.
It's dangerous to do 25 mph on a freeway... There are some roads I'm too scared to drive my i3 on now.
If you pulled over to let it recharge, it wouldn't do so, since the range extender refuses to run at full throttle when the car isn't moving fast (perhaps no cooling fan??)
Yup, my friends had one and loved it despite the... unique styling.
They live in the Puget Sound area, and both work at the same place. It worked out to where they could do their commute, and ordinary errands entirely on battery, and only needed the range extender if they were going into downtown Seattle or on a road trip or such.
Even my really underpowered PHEV has a 65kW electric motor. No "off the shelf generator" can generate 65kW, in fact it would be a huge unit that could.
We could of course say - well, it doesn't need to match peak usage, it just has to charge the battery faster than it depletes - you still probably need around 20kW for steady motorway driving, and that's a pretty hefty generator.
I don't think you need to have it match the depletion rate. Even at say 10kW you'd doubling the effective range. The point is people want to be able to use their car for that twice a year road trip, or drive to the inlaws for Thanksgiving. If you can attach something that extends the range for these occasion then that's probably enough.
Furthermore, the generator can run 24/7, but realistically you will at most drive ~6 hours a day. So for a leisurely road-trip this may be enough to avoid needing stops at charging stations
The concept is called range extenders, and the video does explain why it’s one of those false great ideas and every production vehicle has failed: EVs with range extenders are at best bad EVs and at worst terrible hybrids.
> To further improve fuel efficiency and output, ZR15DDTe engine uses Nissan's unique STARC*2 concept paired with a large turbocharger.
If we are able to consider fixed RPM operation and are willing to endure turbomachinery, I don't know why we wouldn't just go all in on a gas turbine. You can reduce the number of moving parts dramatically and accept a much wider range of fuels.
Being able to engineer everything around a one fixed operating speed makes a huge engineering difference. Reciprocating engines are responsive to load and speed changes, but there are trade offs in many other categories.
You can also make a gas turbine power module quite small relative to the alternatives. Replacing the it at major service intervals could be made economically viable.
I suspect that the improvement in efficiency is small enough at the scale of an automotive power plant that it wouldn't be worth it.
Reading around suggests that in order to achieve decent efficiency from a gas turbine, you need quite a few supporting systems that only really make economic sense at larger scales (like the 10's of MW scales, not the 100's of kW).
(Although just from a fun technology angle I'd love to see a gas turbine in a car).
The trick in this scenario is the fact that you can run it at a constant RPM + load for a reasonably long duration. The cost of warming up a recuperator and other masses is amortized across a dependable schedule each time. The controller can ensure that the turbine (assuming the drive is long enough) will run for a minimum duration given a certain battery charge level.
The reason this stuff didn't work before is because we couldn't run the turbine this way. Now we have viable energy storage technology and can make some of the most difficult variables into constants.
This has been tried, but back in the day the automatic transmissions weren't really up to it, and they don't really like thermal cycling. And they're noisy. Exact opposite of modern stop/start petrol engines for urban driving.
I also suspect all attempts to keep doing combustion engines for mainstream driving are going to get gradually overtaken and lapped by BEVs.
That would be very cool. I wonder if you could get it through legislation though. I think all the legislation is based around reciprocating IC engines.
You might as well just use a small regular petrol/diesel engine.
The argument about fewer moving parts is often made. But generally turbines are more expensive to make. They require precision engineering. Whereas regular engines (if you've ever worked on one) don't require that nearly as much.
I appreciate this if it's for turbochargers, but turbines share many similarities with them.
I think these kinds of vehicles are fine for countries were fast charging networks are still not widespread. I drove a rental X-Trail e-Power AWD a while ago, and fuel economy, while not spectacular, was still great given the quality of the powertrain. Of course a low displacement manual can get better fuel economy, and an electric will be cheaper, but if you are driving 800km on a country with little charging infrastructure, powertrains like this one or Toyota's eCVTs make sense.
>X-Trail e-Power AWD a while ago, and fuel economy, while not spectacular, was still great
10L/100km on highway, worse than cheaper comparably powerful ordinary diesel. Seems like a pointless car, X-Trail 2.0 dCi M9R was better in every possible way.
Exactly, as owner of one of the latest versions of Nissan cars with e-Power, I just can say that it is extremely inefficient, especially during winter, plus it isn't recognised at all as hybrid vehicle in Germany (it misses the "E" at the end of the car plate).
For comparison, the full classic gasoline engine with manual gearbox consumes less gasoline than the e-Power one. This is just some pure greenwashing, that isn't even explained at car dealerships and people can't say anything about it, when you ask for information.
We had the X-Trail AWD version of this. The plus side was getting around 850km to a tank of petrol.
However, the EV-only range was very poor and the engine was quite harsh sounding when it spun up.
Super happy to get rid of it and switch to BEV.
Machine guns are just paperweights if arrows are dime a dozen but 6.8x51mm is still at advanced stages of development. EV charging in mechanical parking system is still an unsolved problem and gas filling experience remains more than tolerable.
- Nissan's petrol engine is the crossbow, a well optimised generator for onboard battery
- Every other brand's EV is the machine gun. About 4 times as energy efficient as a petrol car when you take into account the lifecycle of the vehicle, so probably more when you talk about a hybrid car.
Nissan have decent BEVs, though - the new LEAF is great to drive.
I know the United States is significantly behind the curve on EV adoption, but I really don't understand who would want this, it's the worst of both worlds.
Why bother going to all this effort for an internal combustion engine (crossbow)? Why not spend that money researching 100% EV (machinegun) drive trains?
Its pretty obvious where the future is headed for personal vehicles (yes yes yes I am sure I will get loads of responses where people need to drive 750 miles a day non-stop every day, both ways, towing a boat, up a mountain etc).
It surprises me that these manufacturers like Nissan and Toyota and Honda seem incapable of reacting and changing their product line-up. You can get 100% EV porsches, mercedes, BMWs - hell even Range Rover now and yet these guys are dithering and have basically got only very very half-hearted efforts in EV offerings while apparently trying to pretend its not happening and relying on hybrids.
Meanwhile, at least here in London, I am seeing more and more and more EV BYDs & Jaecoos & MGs etc... so if you care about outward appearances you buy the merc/porsche/etc EV, if you just need a car and don't care what people think you buy the cheap & decent Chinese EV. Toyota, Honda et al don't compete at the luxury end, and they've got nothing to compete with against Chinese EV brands who seem to be taking over the lower end where Toyotas and Nissans etc used to be popular.
You can get a permit for a gun easily compared to a permit for a modern crossbow in some countries and in others crossbows are e.g. entirely forbidden for hunting.
This is coming out end of year in the U.S. in the 2027 Rogue. There will also be a gas powered 2027 with a CVT. It will be interesting how they compare, and also how the series hybrid compares to Rav4 or Corolla Cross with a parallel hybrid.
Hopefully it’s better than the second gen. Gas engine front only puts power to one wheel and electric rear only puts power to one wheel while the other two sit idle.
Bad state for a mild 4x4 unless you keep it on pavement.
IIRC both Nissan and Toyota have a dual motor options with super weak rear motors, largely to cover "but snows" arguments. The entire car largely remains to be boring family FWD cars, not like beefy Tesla duals. Maybe GP is referring to those.
Nice to see the packaging improvements, but the modularity of the original leaf motor enabled them to be come a budget staple motor choice for ev conversion
I forgot which marketing name it was, but one of Honda 1-motor systems that used the motor in clutch pack had a major design oversight that it can't handle a traffic jam in an incline, which happens in (of all places)Japan; the HV battery runs out and the car needs to be towed and/or driven at higher speed to both cool down and fill back up. Generator plus traction 2-motor systems feel stupid but it's necessary to cover those situations.
I used to like hybrids, and obviously series hybrids are the coolest kind of hybrids, but now that I’m driving a budget EV, I honestly don’t see the point anymore. Just get the EV and skip the awkward half-way step that inherits the most expensive and complicated parts from both designs.
Seeing a sleek modern car pull away whisper quiet and then start the ICE 3 seconds later with a stutter and a puff of water vapor from underneath is the most schizophrenic sight, it somehow feels more dated than actual ICE cars.
Unless you live in bumfuck nowhere with expensive electricity, zero solar power and a daily 5 hour commute, an EV will likely work just fine for you.
One thing that always puzzled me was how the gas engines in hybrids were so efficient. Technology Connections has a great video explainer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnUFH5GX_fI
tl;dw: constant RPM and a weird stroke geometry where the power stroke is longer than the other strokes to extract more energy from the expanding gasses.
> a weird stroke geometry where the power stroke is longer than the other strokes to extract more energy from the expanding gasses
A.k.a. Atkinson-cycle (1882): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkinson_cycle
I'm surprised there isn't more effort to create hybrids in reverse--an electric car with optional gas generator. The gas generator could run at constant speed, never changing RMP, while the battery handles constant changes in acceleration. The idea is not mine. I've heard about it in China
TFA is exactly that...
I think it's also because EREVs need a performant generator that isn't much different from the drive motor. So you'll have a full ICE+EV drivetrain on top of an EV as its battery for it to work, which is not ideal.
Compared to that, other hybrid systems like the motor-clutch combo packs that sit between the ICE and gearbox, as well as the fixed gear Toyota systems, can have motors that are weaker, lighter, and cheaper than the ICE, while being able to be additive to the ICE power output. That makes more efficient use of steel and copper than full serial setups.
BMW i3 had such EREV option, but it apparently used a cheap OEM bike engine(not like a BMW Motorrad engine) and also could not overcome power draw of the EV drive motor. So it literally just extended the range, not allowing it to run indefinitely at highway speeds with just refueling. Nissan e-POWER system is powerful enough to do that, but then the readers of comment will have to back to the line 3.
I've done some long trips with my i3. The key is to turn the engine on when the battery reaches 75%. The battery then absorbed the large power draws when accelerating or going up big hills. The engine does vary in RPM depending on my power draw, and by the end of my trip, the battery is usually not significantly lower, maybe around 60%. I usually turn off the engine when I'm almost at my destination so I can use the remaining battery energy.
That is exactly what ePOWER is, that configuration is called a series hybrid and is more commonly seen in heavy industry like diesel trains or trucks in the mines (for better or worse).
More recently effort is also going into series hybrids for public road haulers, which I personally think is a great application for it since you can potentially put a lot of the equipment into a hot-swappable dolly.
I drove a Nissan Note (Nismo esition) with ePower and it could happily spin the wheels when taking off, not something you normally get out of a tiny economy hatchback. I think it has 140kw electric drivetrain? 140kw is pretty sporty when delivered instantly.
Range extender EVs made a lot more sense a decade a go when batteries were much more expensive, and fast chargers were not yet ubiquitous. Then range extenders were more affordable than EVs and could go to places EVs couldn't.
Now these EREVs are mostly luxury niche of big cars (where extra space taken by two power trains doesn't matter) for people who don't want to spend 20 minutes at rapid chargers on that yearly long trip they do. Or for people who live in some global warming ignoring backwater[1] that hasn't built out rapid charger yet.
[1] even China has ubiquitous fast charging network now
China is the first country I would expect to have ubiquitous fast charging. They are years ahead of the west in the EV rollout. Also high speed rail, robotics, high tech manufacturing in general is kind of their jam now.
> China is the first country I would expect to have ubiquitous fast charging.
Everywhere in China? China is a large place. My money would be on a small rich country that’s (almost) entirely a city. Monaco, Singapore, maybe Luxembourg.
Googling gives me https://transition-energetique.gouv.mc/en/themes/mobility/mo... which doesn’t mention fast C charging but says “Every Monegasque resident is now less than 200 metres from a free public charging point” ⇒ it wouldn’t surprise me if Monaco already meets your definition of “ubiquitous fast charging”
Maybe 80% of Monaco residents are millionaires / billionaires from other countries, be it Europe or rest of the world, mostly for tax evasion purposes. This includes many many professional sport persons who launder their sponsor income thus helping then getting millionaires surprisingly quickly, while public funds in their countries where they actually live and represent ie on olympics crumble.
#1 reason why I shy away from all professional sports with serious money involved, it just turns into typical ugly business with skewed incentives, while actual sport ends up being just a necessary afterthought.
Better apartments there cost often 10-20 million euros, there are special controls in laws (ie employment) ensuring better treatment of those few Monaco citizens that are there. Most tax avoiding folks like those sportsmen rent just po box to get some sort of special residence. Most people you can actually meet there live in France and commute daily.
That place is a special bubble even within bubbles, nothing that applies there should be expected to apply elsewhere, apart from similar places (of which I am not that aware of maybe apart from San Marino, ie Singapore is more like a real tiny country with actual serious business in trading and transportation).
I's already pretty ubiquitous in many western european countries
In America we don’t have enough chargers for roadtrips.
The capacity issue is specially evident on long weekends or sundays when everyone needs to use the same few chargers.
I road trip the east coast a few times per year. I haven’t had to wait at a charger for years.
Having done many road trips in a Tesla, I don't believe this is true. My trips were in the south west though. I'm sure there are areas where it is a problem but it depends.
I feel like this road trip thing is over exaggerated. What if we (as a society) rented a Toyota Sienna or something equally boring when we need to go on a road trip?
What you are referring to is usually referred to as an EREV (Extended Range Electrical Vehicle). The reason legacy manufacturers market their less efficient plugin hybrid and non plugin hybrids (100% of the power comes from petrol) instead is because that's what they have and want to milk for as long as possible. In terms of drive train these are more complex to manufacture and more costly to maintain than an EREV. EREVs typically have slightly larger batteries than a typical PHEV as well. Typical electrical ranges are at least 80-100 miles or more in some cases. Usually the cars are available as without the range extender as well. This is less common for PHEVs and hybrids. Though of course some legacy manufacturers are still trying to push compromise cars. Like Nissan in this case.
Nissan has been really struggling for the last few years, this new hybrid engine doesn't look like it will turn things around for them to me.
EREVs are an idea that is not new and also relevant in shipping and aviation. Many modern large ships (oil tankers, cruise ships, etc.) are already EREVs effectively: an electrical motor drives the propeller and a generator powers the motor.
And there are are a few plane designs that are using small batteries + generators to power flight. It makes a lot of sense: electrical motors are a lot simpler, lighter and cheaper to maintain. Engine maintenance is very costly in aviation. And so is fuel. The recently announced X1 is a good example of a plane that does this. There are a few other manufacturers working on this as well. Early days but the potentially large fuel savings probably ensure this is going to happen one way or another.
EREVs aren't magic. They make sense for some applications but less efficient than mechanically coupling the engine to the wheels. If the user is going to run mostly on fossil fuels due to trip distance or lack of available battery chargers then a parallel hybrid design like the standard Toyota Prius model is generally a better design.
Just a note: the Technology Connections video above goes over why this doesn't work well for cars (but does for train locomotives).
Chevrolet Volt (2011) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended-range_electric_vehicl...
The Volt was promised to use the gas engine only for range extending but they ended up connecting it to the drivetrain for highway speeds...
The volt was never popular enough, unfortunately. Right around the time we were looking to buy a new car, and had the Volt high on our list, the retired the product line.
GM will go down in history as the auto maker that had nine lives and blew them all on canceling EV and high efficiency products.
Or their customers, who bought less than 21,000 cars in a year -- I'd cancel that production line too.
I think they just didn't do a good enough job at advertising it. Even the salesmen at the dealers didn't seem to really understand the Volt
I've yet to meet a Volt owner who wasn't fanatically obsessed with theirs (myself included). One common theory for poor sales is that dealers tend to make more on service revenue than the actual sale, and Volts run forever with very little maintenance, but I don't know if that's just speculation. I've heard anecdotes of buyers walking in ready to write a check for a Volt, and the salesperson tried to discourage them and steer them towards an ICE vehicle instead.
GM stopped caring about younger buyers a really long time ago. It's worth remembering that the "bailout" was really a takeover.
That's pretty much how the Chevy Volt worked. It was an incredibly good system in that car and GM did their usual thing and killed it
The original/first BMW i3 (2013) was like this, full battery electric (with an admittedly small battery 80-160 miles range depending on model), with an "range extender" engine.
The above comment’s video explains why.
You lose energy converting the the gas power to electrical power to mechanical power. Constant RPM doesn’t matter as much as you think.
Personally I'm a big fan of the EREV (which only drives an alternator, rather than a PHEV which drives the wheels directly) due to the simpler mechanical design - however I'm not sure if it's a personal preference. I feel even a fairly small 30kw (40hp?) would make a huge difference to the utility of the vehicle, while still being small and economical.
Not for cars, but Edison Motors in Canada seems to be going this route right now for their heavy duty trucks and heavy-duty pickup truck conversions.
Disclosure: I have a small investment in them.
I really love what Edison are doing, I have no skin in the game I just think it's a great business ethos.
Feom a fictional perspective I also dig the rugged blend of electric industrial equipment and utilitarian design. Like a mad-max solar punk, rather than a utopian one.
I picture them pulling up to a makeshift solar outpost en-route, in the middle of the wasteland desert, covered in red dust, the thick sheet metal scarred from raiders...
It seems to me you’re talking about a range extender, which lots of Chinese EV makers use. Many do buy them but sometimes you get the worst of both worlds: weighty like an EV and the heat, vibration, exhaust of a petro car. For most people the extended range is only needed very occasionally but you have to carry the ICE system the whole time.
Depending on the compromises you're willing to make, a small gas engine that doesn't run very often isn't a lot of excess weight, and it's not going to make heat, vibration, and exhaust except when it's running ... which could be 30 minutes a month (to keep it healthy) plus whenever you actually need the extended range.
Since it's just for range extension, you could maybe stuff the engine in the rear, so you don't have to pipe exhaust under the whole car. Although then you probably want to pipe coolant to a radiator in the front and have to protect that piping... but at least it's only coolant hot and not exhaust hot. The engine noise would be away from the driver at least.
You said you didn't want the heat of a gas car, but you might choose to run it a little bit more in the cold to help warm the interior on cold days (especially at startup).
Potentially, but not really likely, you could try to make it modular-ish... attach it when you need it, leave it in your garage otherwise. But I think it's going to be too heavy ... I have a 7200 W portable generator which is roughly half of what an EV uses at cruising speeds, and it takes two people to lift it. Automotive engineers do amazing things, but I don't think they're getting twice the power and less weight and easier to move...
Ford and Ram are both doing this with their next generation electric pickups. Range and towing on pure electric was deemed too compromised.
https://www.motortrend.com/features/what-is-an-erev-extended...
You may be interested to read / watch videos of Audi's RS Q e-tron they raced in the Dakar Rally and even won with this type of powertrain - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_RS_Q_e-tron
There were several of them: the first and second generations of Chevy Volt, Fisker Karma, BMW i3, and a couple of Chinese brands.
They're less efficient than parallel hybrids at high speeds (on a freeway). And you also need a fairly sizeable engine to keep up with the consumption at freeway speed, so at this point you might as well just throw in a planetary gearbox.
The Chevy Volt (and it's predecessor the GM 2-mode hybrid, and the Allison power-split hybrid) was a work of art. It is fundamentally a planetary gearbox, with 2 motor-generators.
In ICE mode, under 35 MPH, it worked as a series hybrid. Above 35, the engine mechanically connected to the wheels. One motor-gen extracted power and fed it to the other, acting as a CVT in parallel. This provided the ratio changes needed for the small engine.
It was way too complicated and expensive the two times they tried it (2008, then the Volt). It was successful and lives on to this day in its original application: city buses.
Planetary gear plus 2 motor-generators is 'Toyota Synergy Drive' and also used by Ford and Stellantis in some hybrid models. At least the Ford C-Max and Chrysler Pacifica hybrids use this style drive train. I'm not on top of all the hybrids, but I'd guess if 4 car makers do it, there's others to be found.
It makes a lot of sense, works well, and is very durable... as long as Ford didn't forget to heat treat a bearing or whatever they messed up in early C-Maxes.
I had a 2012 Chevy Volt. It was indeed a delightful car!
But I believe that the series mode was a mistake. The later versions of Volts removed it entirely, improving the fuel economy.
> It was way too complicated and expensive the two times they tried it (2008, then the Volt). It was successful and lives on to this day in its original application: city buses.
I don't think that it was too complicated. Hybrids are using essentially the same system, except that they have a smaller battery and less powerful electric motors.
bmw I3s were this type of hybrid as far as I remember.
the ICE extender was an option.
And the range extender was underpowered. Drive up a hill on a freeway at 70 mph and the battery would deplete and the car would slow down to 25 mph which was the fastest the range extender could make it go up a gentle incline.
It's dangerous to do 25 mph on a freeway... There are some roads I'm too scared to drive my i3 on now.
If you pulled over to let it recharge, it wouldn't do so, since the range extender refuses to run at full throttle when the car isn't moving fast (perhaps no cooling fan??)
Yup, my friends had one and loved it despite the... unique styling.
They live in the Puget Sound area, and both work at the same place. It worked out to where they could do their commute, and ordinary errands entirely on battery, and only needed the range extender if they were going into downtown Seattle or on a road trip or such.
Theoretically couldn't you take an electric car and put an off-the-shelf generator in your frunk and wire it up to charge the battery as you drive?
My PHEV won't 'start' while plugged in. You'd need to bypass the usual charger mechanisms, and then the computer seems likely to get mad...
A minor inconvenience compared to the thousands of charger cables and wall boxes that would charge driving the cars for a very small moment.
>>and put an off-the-shelf generator
Even my really underpowered PHEV has a 65kW electric motor. No "off the shelf generator" can generate 65kW, in fact it would be a huge unit that could.
We could of course say - well, it doesn't need to match peak usage, it just has to charge the battery faster than it depletes - you still probably need around 20kW for steady motorway driving, and that's a pretty hefty generator.
I don't think you need to have it match the depletion rate. Even at say 10kW you'd doubling the effective range. The point is people want to be able to use their car for that twice a year road trip, or drive to the inlaws for Thanksgiving. If you can attach something that extends the range for these occasion then that's probably enough.
Furthermore, the generator can run 24/7, but realistically you will at most drive ~6 hours a day. So for a leisurely road-trip this may be enough to avoid needing stops at charging stations
The concept is called range extenders, and the video does explain why it’s one of those false great ideas and every production vehicle has failed: EVs with range extenders are at best bad EVs and at worst terrible hybrids.
Already a big push with this. They call them EREV now, extended range electric vehicles.
Edison in Canada is doing diesel electric hybrid trucks
Isn’t that how diesel trains operate?
Honda's current hybrid system and this e-POWER both work this way mostly
Aka EREV, thats becoming majority of “PHEVs” now.
per wikipedia
>From mid-2025, EREV sales in China declined year-on-year for several consecutive months
just in time as Toyota decided to go all EREV https://electrek.co/2026/09/21/toyota-joins-extended-range-e...
>Toyota will make the EREV in China, aiming to produce 200,000 units in 2027. In 2028, production is expected to rise to around 400,000 units.
Hilarious, from promoting fail hydrogen fuel cells and producing anti EV propaganda to chasing fading trends. Anything but real EVs.
Yes, this is an "Extended-range electric vehicle" or EREV
> an electric vehicle fitted with a fuel-powered internal combustion engine, acting as a range extender that drives a generator
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended-range_electric_vehicl...
Yes, gas engines have very bad efficiency. The best way to run them is with constant torque and RPM, that is, charging a battery
And yes the Atkinson cycle helps
> To further improve fuel efficiency and output, ZR15DDTe engine uses Nissan's unique STARC*2 concept paired with a large turbocharger.
If we are able to consider fixed RPM operation and are willing to endure turbomachinery, I don't know why we wouldn't just go all in on a gas turbine. You can reduce the number of moving parts dramatically and accept a much wider range of fuels.
Being able to engineer everything around a one fixed operating speed makes a huge engineering difference. Reciprocating engines are responsive to load and speed changes, but there are trade offs in many other categories.
You can also make a gas turbine power module quite small relative to the alternatives. Replacing the it at major service intervals could be made economically viable.
> why we wouldn't just go all in on a gas turbine
Cost, reliability.
I suspect that the improvement in efficiency is small enough at the scale of an automotive power plant that it wouldn't be worth it.
Reading around suggests that in order to achieve decent efficiency from a gas turbine, you need quite a few supporting systems that only really make economic sense at larger scales (like the 10's of MW scales, not the 100's of kW).
(Although just from a fun technology angle I'd love to see a gas turbine in a car).
The trick in this scenario is the fact that you can run it at a constant RPM + load for a reasonably long duration. The cost of warming up a recuperator and other masses is amortized across a dependable schedule each time. The controller can ensure that the turbine (assuming the drive is long enough) will run for a minimum duration given a certain battery charge level.
The reason this stuff didn't work before is because we couldn't run the turbine this way. Now we have viable energy storage technology and can make some of the most difficult variables into constants.
Chrysler built one in the 60s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Turbine_Car
afaik microturbines are less efficient, louder and hotter than piston engines.
This has been tried, but back in the day the automatic transmissions weren't really up to it, and they don't really like thermal cycling. And they're noisy. Exact opposite of modern stop/start petrol engines for urban driving.
I also suspect all attempts to keep doing combustion engines for mainstream driving are going to get gradually overtaken and lapped by BEVs.
That would be very cool. I wonder if you could get it through legislation though. I think all the legislation is based around reciprocating IC engines.
Gas turbines are not very fuel efficient.
Yeah but I suppose you'd only use them if your hybrid ran out of battery power.
You might as well just use a small regular petrol/diesel engine.
The argument about fewer moving parts is often made. But generally turbines are more expensive to make. They require precision engineering. Whereas regular engines (if you've ever worked on one) don't require that nearly as much.
I appreciate this if it's for turbochargers, but turbines share many similarities with them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bZu8atQ8lY
BTW, Garett builds/rebuilds turbochargers in many vehicles. If you have a vehicle with a turbo, see if it says 'Garett' on the side.
Like putting in the final optimizations in the crossbow right as others have figured out machine guns.
I think these kinds of vehicles are fine for countries were fast charging networks are still not widespread. I drove a rental X-Trail e-Power AWD a while ago, and fuel economy, while not spectacular, was still great given the quality of the powertrain. Of course a low displacement manual can get better fuel economy, and an electric will be cheaper, but if you are driving 800km on a country with little charging infrastructure, powertrains like this one or Toyota's eCVTs make sense.
>X-Trail e-Power AWD a while ago, and fuel economy, while not spectacular, was still great
10L/100km on highway, worse than cheaper comparably powerful ordinary diesel. Seems like a pointless car, X-Trail 2.0 dCi M9R was better in every possible way.
Exactly, as owner of one of the latest versions of Nissan cars with e-Power, I just can say that it is extremely inefficient, especially during winter, plus it isn't recognised at all as hybrid vehicle in Germany (it misses the "E" at the end of the car plate).
For comparison, the full classic gasoline engine with manual gearbox consumes less gasoline than the e-Power one. This is just some pure greenwashing, that isn't even explained at car dealerships and people can't say anything about it, when you ask for information.
Works like (?) an EV, it isn't an EV.
We had the X-Trail AWD version of this. The plus side was getting around 850km to a tank of petrol. However, the EV-only range was very poor and the engine was quite harsh sounding when it spun up. Super happy to get rid of it and switch to BEV.
The EV range is just 3km for me. Very much a joke
> it isn't recognised at all as hybrid vehicle in Germany
You surely mean that it is not recognized as plug-in hybrid vehicle.
Machine guns are just paperweights if arrows are dime a dozen but 6.8x51mm is still at advanced stages of development. EV charging in mechanical parking system is still an unsolved problem and gas filling experience remains more than tolerable.
Could you please elaborate what is crossbow and what is machine guns in your metaphor?
Not OP, but I'm going to guess:
- Nissan's petrol engine is the crossbow, a well optimised generator for onboard battery
- Every other brand's EV is the machine gun. About 4 times as energy efficient as a petrol car when you take into account the lifecycle of the vehicle, so probably more when you talk about a hybrid car.
> Every other brand's EV is the machine gun.
Nissan have decent BEVs, though - the new LEAF is great to drive.
I know the United States is significantly behind the curve on EV adoption, but I really don't understand who would want this, it's the worst of both worlds.
I think they mean they're polishing a turd.
Why bother going to all this effort for an internal combustion engine (crossbow)? Why not spend that money researching 100% EV (machinegun) drive trains?
Its pretty obvious where the future is headed for personal vehicles (yes yes yes I am sure I will get loads of responses where people need to drive 750 miles a day non-stop every day, both ways, towing a boat, up a mountain etc).
It surprises me that these manufacturers like Nissan and Toyota and Honda seem incapable of reacting and changing their product line-up. You can get 100% EV porsches, mercedes, BMWs - hell even Range Rover now and yet these guys are dithering and have basically got only very very half-hearted efforts in EV offerings while apparently trying to pretend its not happening and relying on hybrids.
Meanwhile, at least here in London, I am seeing more and more and more EV BYDs & Jaecoos & MGs etc... so if you care about outward appearances you buy the merc/porsche/etc EV, if you just need a car and don't care what people think you buy the cheap & decent Chinese EV. Toyota, Honda et al don't compete at the luxury end, and they've got nothing to compete with against Chinese EV brands who seem to be taking over the lower end where Toyotas and Nissans etc used to be popular.
You can get a permit for a gun easily compared to a permit for a modern crossbow in some countries and in others crossbows are e.g. entirely forbidden for hunting.
This powertrain is great for people that want to drive an EV, but they live in places with poor charging infrastructure.
Two motors and e-Pedal driving is the cherry on top imho (e.g. in the 2027 Rouge).
This is coming out end of year in the U.S. in the 2027 Rogue. There will also be a gas powered 2027 with a CVT. It will be interesting how they compare, and also how the series hybrid compares to Rav4 or Corolla Cross with a parallel hybrid.
Even more moving parts (turbo), and such a compact packaging... I wouldn't trust even Toyota for this
Hopefully it’s better than the second gen. Gas engine front only puts power to one wheel and electric rear only puts power to one wheel while the other two sit idle. Bad state for a mild 4x4 unless you keep it on pavement.
Wait, what? 1WD? Or 2WD, but then 1 front and 1 back? Which is referred to as 'mild 4x4'?
So many questions.
IIRC both Nissan and Toyota have a dual motor options with super weak rear motors, largely to cover "but snows" arguments. The entire car largely remains to be boring family FWD cars, not like beefy Tesla duals. Maybe GP is referring to those.
Nice to see the packaging improvements, but the modularity of the original leaf motor enabled them to be come a budget staple motor choice for ev conversion
That’s all well and good, but can we get something other than a yet another fucking “an box” car with “slightly different headlights”?
this is basically the same as the hybrid system in the Honda CR-V, except the CR-V can clutch the engine in directly to the wheels at highway speeds.
Which AFAIK is more efficient (no losses on converting kinetic to electric, electric to chemical, and back: chemical to electric and then to kinetic).
I forgot which marketing name it was, but one of Honda 1-motor systems that used the motor in clutch pack had a major design oversight that it can't handle a traffic jam in an incline, which happens in (of all places)Japan; the HV battery runs out and the car needs to be towed and/or driven at higher speed to both cool down and fill back up. Generator plus traction 2-motor systems feel stupid but it's necessary to cover those situations.
Toyota has the best one. No clutch at all, can drive only combustion engine