3 ms·

There's a difference between something like a Prius+ and the PHEVs mentioned in the article though: the BMW X5, Volvo XC60 and Mitsubishi Outlander are big, hea

by zelos 6y ago

There's a difference between something like a Prius+ and the PHEVs mentioned in the article though: the BMW X5, Volvo XC60 and Mitsubishi Outlander are big, heavy SUVs, it's hardly surprising that they have poor emissions.

trhway 6y ago
if the implementation isn't screwed (sounds like a big if), they would normally have better emissions than their non-hybrid variants due to regenerative breaking (especially for big heavy cars) and better ICE burning modes (even if you use the same ICE, and much more improvement can be gained by making an ICE optimized for hybrid application). If the article is anywhere close to truth, then it can only be explained by the bad implementation - may be they moved the freed diesel engineers to do the hybrids after the dieselgate :) Recently walking a dog waiting for the light i saw/heard a Volvo XC90 hybrid doing ICE start from the red-light stop - the ICE started a moment before the car started to move - it did cross my mind back then that such start of engine would [unnecessary] burn a lot - ie. my Prius starts moving on pure electric with the ICE kicking, if/when needed, some moments later, much smoother, better torque and better efficiency. The performance-wise the XC90 had a regular start, far from anything fancy, and anyway large starting ICE wouldn't produce much performance while starting (and waiting for it to spin from the 0 in order to get some performance would eat the time thus killing that performance), so why would they do that ?
- horstmeyer 6y ago
  They have to carry the batteries around which are heavy.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  starting up an engine isn't nearly as "expensive" as people tend to think. engineering explained did a video on this, concluding that a warm start in a typical four cylinder engine uses about as much fuel as idling the same engine for only ~7 seconds. [0] kinda makes sense, since this is the whole motivation for start/stop systems in the first place. not covered in the video, but IIRC cold starts use quite a bit more fuel since the engine needs to run rich for a few minutes while it warms up. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFImHhNwbJo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFImHhNwbJo

by zelos 6y ago

trhway 6y ago

if the implementation isn't screwed (sounds like a big if), they would normally have better emissions than their non-hybrid variants due to regenerative breaking (especially for big heavy cars) and better ICE burning modes (even if you use the same ICE, and much more improvement can be gained by making an ICE optimized for hybrid application). If the article is anywhere close to truth, then it can only be explained by the bad implementation - may be they moved the freed diesel engineers to do the hybrids after the dieselgate :) Recently walking a dog waiting for the light i saw/heard a Volvo XC90 hybrid doing ICE start from the red-light stop - the ICE started a moment before the car started to move - it did cross my mind back then that such start of engine would [unnecessary] burn a lot - ie. my Prius starts moving on pure electric with the ICE kicking, if/when needed, some moments later, much smoother, better torque and better efficiency. The performance-wise the XC90 had a regular start, far from anything fancy, and anyway large starting ICE wouldn't produce much performance while starting (and waiting for it to spin from the 0 in order to get some performance would eat the time thus killing that performance), so why would they do that ?

horstmeyer 6y ago
They have to carry the batteries around which are heavy.
leetcrew 6y ago
starting up an engine isn't nearly as "expensive" as people tend to think. engineering explained did a video on this, concluding that a warm start in a typical four cylinder engine uses about as much fuel as idling the same engine for only ~7 seconds. [0] kinda makes sense, since this is the whole motivation for start/stop systems in the first place. not covered in the video, but IIRC cold starts use quite a bit more fuel since the engine needs to run rich for a few minutes while it warms up. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFImHhNwbJo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFImHhNwbJo