Volkswagen’s been toying with hybrids for awhile and got electric-vehicle advocates in a lather over the diesel-electric Golf it unveiled a few months ago. Now the company’s promising a plug-in hybrid by 2010 and the German government’s written a big check to make it happen.
VW boss Martin Winterkorn says gas and diesel engines will be around for a long time to come, but “the future belongs to all-electric cars.” The automaker is staking a claim to that future with a plug-in hybrid drivetrain it calls Twin Drive. It will debut in a Golf fitted with a 122-horsepower diesel engine and an 82-horsepower electric motor.
“While the e-motor on a typical hybrid model just supplements the combustion engine, the exact opposite is true on Twin Drive,” Winterkorn said during the car’s unveiling in Berlin. “Here the diesel or gasoline engine supplements the e-motor.”
Start-stop technology will save power and regenerative braking will help generate it. VW says the car will use lithium-ion batteries and have an all-electric range of 31 miles. The company recently signed a deal with Sanyo to develop li-ion batteries…
Cripes. A diesel-electric plug-in hybrid. Way too intelligent a design for American consumers. We’ll probably catch on around 2015.
Or am I being too cynical?
#32, interesting you bring the Aptera up, since even they say the only reason why they didn’t use diesel is because of current issues with emissions in California.
#33, Craziness … a small engine is considered more polluting due to worse PERCENTAGE, whereas the larger engine is spewing a much greater amount in absolute terms!
#2, That’s the welfare state for you.
#5, I wonder how long it will be before the states figure out a way to get some of that kW tax money to compensate for the lost fuel tax — and how they will know how much is for the car and how much for the TV.
#30, There are actually quite a few different heavy machinery models that use the same method, not just trains. Another method is to turn a DC generator that supplies the electricity to the motors. There are quite a few of them around, too.
Back to the article…
It seems that most of us missed the big point of the article, which is the fact that it is a factory equipped plug-in hybrid coupled to LI-ION batteries.
Given that it’s a plug-in, short hops to the store and general around town driving won’t even start the engine.
And using the plug-in ability can get you this:
“Dramatizing the potential of the plug-in during the Tour de Sol race from 13 to 16 May in Schenectady and Albany, N.Y., a modified Prius equipped with a fully charged 9-kWh lithium-ion battery pack achieved 2.31 liters per 100 km (102 miles per gallon) on a 240-km course.”
http://tinyurl.com/5fbalu
That’s right, 102 MPG.
MPG on a hybrid is pointless when you are still using electricity that isn’t being counted.
Hopefully VW won’t be making them in china, otherwise we will have to wipe the car down when its new to remove the coating of lead. put plastic on the seats to protect from toxic chemicals embedded in the fabrics, and of course install a steel rollcage when the car folds up like an accordion in a minor accident.
John got it right. I wish we could develope better batteries.
Shheesshhh… people seem to confuse Hybrids with electric cars…
MikeN an Patrick and ProudCanadian and the lot:
These Hybrids SELF-RECHARGE. The explosion engine is there to deliver all the energy. The electric motor is there to optimize acceleration and recover braking energy. It also permits “cold” drive off, when you can shut down completely the fuel engine in short stops. This way you can fit a car with a “underpowered” engine and get better mileage.
#40 No kidding? That’s why it has 122 hp internal combustion engine? Who would have known?
#40, they said plug-in hybrids.
All Personal vehicles are better than any form of mass transit, so this is good.
Better though would be a version that can seat 5 adults with their luggage and tow a boat uphill at 80 mph. for 12 hours only stopping to pee.