It seems the car is much more complex, but it's not really. The electrical motor makes it possible to have a way less complex ICE engine, for many reasons. It's still an ICE car, but pollution & consumption is halfed.
There is a reason why Toyota Priuses (started building them 20yrs ago) and now Corollas are so reliable and cheap to maintain that you can find them in any cab.
Yes, an ICE car already has an alternator and starter motor, you aren't adding much complexity.
Considering how constrained we are by battery supply I suspect we would have got much more bang for our buck by using plugins as a stepping stone to full EV's.
If your designing a new suspension or whatnot then you or someone else need to build a factory to create it, it’s the same for every other car component. So there isn’t an actual battery limitation, just a question of building more battery factories. One level deeper building the machines or build batteries is more of a limitation which can also be scales up.
People point to Lithium as a limitation, but the price recently crashes in 2019 due to over investment demonstrating much faster EV adoption would and is possible.
Any good sources on hybrid vs conventional engines? I'm very surprised they have a limited increase in complexity.
I'll add that hybrids are more profitable for any manufacturer because it means that you can't take it to your family mechanic for service (You need special training and equipment to work on them because it's high voltage). Because the dealers are making a lot on service, the manufacturer can cut their bonus on sales.
The engines in a hybrid are mechanically the same as their traditional counterparts (except they run Atkinson cycle instead of Otto cycle)
The big mechanical advantage in simplicity is the transmission. While they’re called “eCVTs” in some cases, the transmission is better described as “almost no transmission”. They do not use the same belt and cone system that gasoline CVT vehicles use.
In Toyota systems they use a simple fixed planetary gearset and can vary the output speed simply by varying the ratios of speed of the two electric motors and the gasoline engine, rather than mechanically changing the ratio of the gears like a traditional transmission.
The Honda hybrid system is even more simple. They just directly drive the wheels with an electric motor and use the gasoline engine as a generator. (With the exception of a single lockup clutch that allows the engine to drive the wheels at a fixed ratio at highway speeds)
Hyundai is a weird exception. Their hybrids have traditional transmissions attached to them.
Except for some computerized parts of the system, the majority of them can be worked on by any mechanic, or even shade tree mechanics. The high voltage system requires care, but there are simple procedures to work on it safely. You can find many YouTube videos with instructions on tasks like rebuilding a battery pack, that dealers won’t even do. Most parts on a car aren’t the high voltage system anyway.
Having owned a Prius for a decade, and now a Hybrid RAV4, I can say with confidence that even if they were somehow more complicated, the great feature is that they never need work. Truly exceptional reliability.
The amazing thing about them is that they have no parts that need friction to work like belts, CVT axles or even the clutch. Nor do they have any moving parts like a regular transmission which shift into place.
It's 2 electric motors connected via a planetary gearset to the ICE. Nothing can get out of alignment or get loose.
Serial hybrids IC engines are simpler, because they only power the generator - no need for transmission, gears, and adjusting power through a wide range of rpm. Basically generator+electric engine is the transmisson/gears.
Parallel hybrids ICEs are just as complex as normal ICEs.
There's a WeberAuto channel on YouTube, where prof. John D. Kelly explains them wonderfully, on live examples. What impressed me most is how simple the gearbox of a hybrid Toyota is – it's just three major parts!
I agree. We used the Toyota Highlander hybrid in the winter mountains of Colorado for our taxi service. They could go everywhere a GMC 4x4 could (almost), great on fuel, and were virtually indestructible. Toyota's continuously variable transmission (CVT) is rock solid too, wasn't always, but is now.
I don't even know if CVT is correct. Let's say it's the transmission thingy in 2003+ Toyota Highlander. The whole cars were indestructible, but the tranny impressed the most, especially up and down mountain roads.
It seems the car is much more complex, but it's not really. The electrical motor makes it possible to have a way less complex ICE engine, for many reasons. It's still an ICE car, but pollution & consumption is halfed.
There is a reason why Toyota Priuses (started building them 20yrs ago) and now Corollas are so reliable and cheap to maintain that you can find them in any cab.