diesel electric hybrid, what's it going to be?

diesel electric hybrid, what\'s it going to be?

How are these going to work? Are they going to have an electric motor to assist at low speeds, or a more series design like the Prius? With a gas engine, you have less torque, so the battery assist at low speed seems to compliment it well. But a diesel has more torque? So what do you do in the hybrid, make the engine smaller and use the battery as an assist only, or do you run the engine semi-continuously and use it to feed electric motors to drive the wheels and recharge a battery?

Re: diesel electric hybrid, what\'s it going to be?

Check out either of the two Mercedes Sprinter van models that come as diesel/electric hybrids. As far as I can tell, they work a lot like the Prius. You can even manually lock them into electric-only mode for driving into a warehouse without emissions.

One model is a lot like the Prius, the other model has to be plugged in at night to maintain a full charge.