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The very first episode of The Grand Tour (The Holy Trinity) was about how awesome hybrids are (the McLaren P1, Porsche 918 and Ferrari LaFerrari). Granted, thos

by tsomctl 10y ago

The very first episode of The Grand Tour (The Holy Trinity) was about how awesome hybrids are (the McLaren P1, Porsche 918 and Ferrari LaFerrari). Granted, those cars are worth over a million dollars.

bcrescimanno 10y ago
What's interesting about those 3 cars is that while they are hybrids, they don't leverage that technology to increase economy; they use it to increase power. There are real, physical limitations involved in gasoline engines and the electric motors are used purely to compensate for those limitations (time it takes for a throttle to open, fuel and air to mix, and ignite--the time it takes for a transmission to change a gear. These things can be made ultra-fast; but, they cannot be eliminated). BMW did a very similar thing with their 330e model; the electric motor is primarily used to increase the power from the relatively small engine that is normally only on the lower-end 320.
- rifung 10y ago
  I thought they, or some of them, also only use electric power at low speeds? Doesnt that count as increasing economy?
  - bcrescimanno 10y ago
    I'm not sure about low speeds; but, I believe all 3 cars technically offer an all-electric mode that will let you drive with substantially reduced performance and with a range of 10-15 miles. That said, my original statement was mean to describe the objective of these hybrid cars; any additional "fuel economy" is probably best described as a side effect.
  - ethbro 10y ago
    From the episodes (I myself not being in the market for million dollar hybrid supercars), there's a significant amount of button pressing to have it go all-electric. And I think only 2/3 even had that option.
- wlesieutre 10y ago
  They actually ran two of the cars in electric-only mode for one of the races and crapped on the third one for not having the option available.
- stuckagain 10y ago
  Combustion technology has also been favoring power over efficiency for at least the last 20 years. It turns out that once you get the car up to about 35 MPG, above that nobody really cares, statistically speaking. Specific power meanwhile has skyrocketed. You can now buy a 1000cc normally-aspirated engine that makes 200 horsepower.

by tsomctl 10y ago

bcrescimanno 10y ago

What's interesting about those 3 cars is that while they are hybrids, they don't leverage that technology to increase economy; they use it to increase power. There are real, physical limitations involved in gasoline engines and the electric motors are used purely to compensate for those limitations (time it takes for a throttle to open, fuel and air to mix, and ignite--the time it takes for a transmission to change a gear. These things can be made ultra-fast; but, they cannot be eliminated). BMW did a very similar thing with their 330e model; the electric motor is primarily used to increase the power from the relatively small engine that is normally only on the lower-end 320.

rifung 10y ago
I thought they, or some of them, also only use electric power at low speeds? Doesnt that count as increasing economy?
- bcrescimanno 10y ago
  I'm not sure about low speeds; but, I believe all 3 cars technically offer an all-electric mode that will let you drive with substantially reduced performance and with a range of 10-15 miles. That said, my original statement was mean to describe the objective of these hybrid cars; any additional "fuel economy" is probably best described as a side effect.
- ethbro 10y ago
  From the episodes (I myself not being in the market for million dollar hybrid supercars), there's a significant amount of button pressing to have it go all-electric. And I think only 2/3 even had that option.
wlesieutre 10y ago
They actually ran two of the cars in electric-only mode for one of the races and crapped on the third one for not having the option available.
stuckagain 10y ago
Combustion technology has also been favoring power over efficiency for at least the last 20 years. It turns out that once you get the car up to about 35 MPG, above that nobody really cares, statistically speaking. Specific power meanwhile has skyrocketed. You can now buy a 1000cc normally-aspirated engine that makes 200 horsepower.