Hybrid Hellcat??

[oilhammer]

Originally Posted by tikal

If electrification and/or hybridization of an American 'brute-force' muscle car is a sign of things to come in the mainstream automotive world for the US then, why not?

I totally agree. However, by the same token, why haven't hybrids in general become "the norm" by now? I would have expected it, Toyota certainly did. But after some 20+ years, they still seem to not only be somewhat rare, but even their systems are not even spilling over in great numbers to non-hybrids. I would have thought for sure we'd have more mild hybrids by now, sort of a glorified (but FAR better executed than the ill-fated GM C-trucks) start-stop setup.

We have more and more start-stop vehicles, but they are just using software, no real hardware changes. To me, one of the true hybrid's best attributes is its lack of a conventional starter and generator. They are integrated together into the bellhousing in one slim compact and generally trouble free unit. You could do this, and have a better, more reliable, FAR more durable start-stop feature, without actually employing the expensive and heavy high voltage battery pack of a conventional hybrid.

And this would, I would think, be not as huge of a cost increase, and would eliminate the specter of expensive battery pack service which we do on Priuses now almost weekly.

We DO have some pretty good use of electric steering assist. But beyond that, nothing. Still reliant on mechanically driven water pumps. Still reliant on engine driven A/C compressors.

With an integrated M/G setup, but without the battery, you wouldn't be able to employ regenerative braking to power the motor to get the vehicle moving again, but you could certainly use it to better manage the electrical loads. So every time you press the brakes, all the loads are "powered" by inertia. With modern computers, we already do this to some extent, but it is still done via an old fashioned mechanical driven alternator. Which is still run by the engine.

[DPM]

Elsewhere in the world, Valeo produce a very pretty S&S combined starter/alternator...

https://www.valeo.com/en/systems-stop-start/

[oilhammer]

GM tried those, too. Complete failure. The early Malibu and some Saturn hybrids had those miserable things. Like an add-on JC Whitney start stop system, belt driven.

[tikal]

OH, good point in your post # 16. For me it goes back to the cost/benefit analysis the American buyer does pretty quickly in his/her mind:

1) 'Joe Doe I' says: Pump fuel prices adjusted for inflation are at the lowest since the 1980's (link); why should I bother with a hybrid and/or electrical vehicle as a daily driver?

2) 'Joe Doe II' says: Man I want one of those Hybrid Hellcat that can put to shame the gasser version!!!!!! SOLD! Here is the check/down payment/collateral/previous muscle car ...

[oilhammer]

The "hybrid = performance" angle isn't anything new to me. I was working at Lexus when the RX400h debuted. And I can tell you from a standing start it will tear the paint off a standard issue RX330, and they both used the same 3MZ-FE 3.3L V6. And the hybrid GS450h, which uses the same 2GR-FSE 3.5L V6 as the GS350, is even more brutal with performance. That car is seriously fast, although obviously just in acceleration... but shoot, it gets into the illegal side of the speedometer so quickly that it hardly matters if its top speed is no better than the non-hybrid version, both of which are probably limited to a specific number anyway.

But Toyota had to be careful, because on one hand they were working hard to make all the greenie feel good people want a Prius, so they couldn't exactly flaunt the performance attributes of other hybrids. And the Prius is the exact OPPOSITE of performance. A Corolla with a trunk full of sand and a weak cylinder could beat a Prius in the stop light to stop light gran prix.

And so I think, to some extent, the Prius... the darling poster child of the hybrid mindset (let's be honest, most folks now, when you think "hybrid", you think "Prius") has in some ways tarnished the idea of a performance hybrid even though it doesn't necessarily mean it should be so. The ill-fated hybrid Jetta is another one that is a seriously zippy car, but consumers here surveyed by Volkswagen during the Moonraker project showed Americans equated hybrids with slow, dorky, awkward little cars. In a later survey, they found the same results, and is why they specifically touted the Jetta hybrid's performance, with lots of use of the word "turbo" in their marketing. Yet it still sold poorly.

Prius still sells well, despite the fact that later in life they are not without their faults. Here are some of the more recent Prius Fails we've addressed here:

Inverter water pump and cooling system control valve:

(this, along with a mechanical water pump drive belt... unrelated... is nearly a $1k repair, and this car hasn't even traveled as far as a TDI of the same year would have gone to require a timing belt replacement)

Transmission:

While these never outright "fail", the CVTs the Priuses use are very good in that respect, they have coolant flowing through them to cool the M/G, and there is a seal in the bellhousing that fails and causes a leak out the bottom. This requires the ENTIRE gearbox be taken apart to fix, and Toyota does not even sell any parts of these anyway, so even if I wanted to just replace the o-ring, I can't. This one *just* made it to 100k miles.

And of course, the ever popular hybrid battery pack:

We do a TON of these. Fortunately, in the last couple years, Toyota started an exchange program, which reduced the cost considerably... so much that we no longer mess with used ones or piecing cells together to make a good used one. This is still not a cheap job, and they did NOT make it easy to do, half the rear portion of the interior of the car has to come apart.

We are also starting to see a bunch of evap cores leaking on them, which is a complete dash removal job.

And then all the things that allow the engines to blow up. Electric water pump quits working and the engine overheats? Death Triangle comes on. Run the engine out of oil and the oil pressure drops? Death Triangle comes on. No actual warning light, no gauges, no nothing. Just the Death Triangle... and people drive them until they die. Seriously, they went through all the effort to make the dash look like a 1980s Colecovision gameset, you'd think they could have put in a warning message "HEY, MORON, THE ENGINE IS OVERHEATING, STOP DRIVING!" or "HEY, YOU, WITH THE $11TY CUP OF STARBUCKS, THERE IS NO OIL REMAINING IN THE ENGINE, STOP DRIVING!" but no, just the gentle Death Triangle. They should have at least put a dollar sign in the middle of it.

Sorry about the Prius rant... been a busy week with them, and I am not even done yet.

But I still think if we took some of the better attributes of the hybrids, and integrated them into "mainstream" cars, without actually making them a hybrid, we could get most of the benefits without as much of the cost and long term misery.

[Jetta SS]

While Ford and GM are going with smaller displacement / turbo, FCA is taking this different route and keeping their V8's.

It'll be interesting to see which strategy comes out winning.

[GoFaster]

Charger/Challenger/300C continue to sell decently in part because FCA has built halo high-performance versions of those cars. (There's another one coming next year, I know what it is but I can't talk about it LOL) People come into the showroom because of Hellcat or whatever, but then they discover that a regular one actually fits their budget and still does what they need it to do and it still projects that certain image (even if what's under the hood of what they actually buy doesn't actually live up to it). The bulk of those cars are built with the V6. Is a V6 Charger really a "better" car than a Chevy Impala? Well, probably not, and there is a fair argument for the other way around. But the Impala is going away, and the big ole rear-drive (optional) V8 Charger is sticking around.

FCA does have a new turbo 4 cylinder engine (with eTorque) available in the new Wrangler. We'll see what that does. Bear in mind that most Jeeps are mall crawlers. Even if you do off-road trails ... It's still puttering around most of the time at part load, which is where the downsized turbo engines do okay.

For the trucks ... I know plenty of people who have trucks and use them as trucks (not mall crawlers). Evidence thus far has been that the turbo downsized gas engines don't save fuel in real world driving compared to a somewhat bigger but more mildly tuned non-turbo engine.

What the pickup trucks need is to become lower, and lighter, with less frontal area and less drag. (Lots of people who buy trucks, don't actually need a truck.) BUT ... Tell that to the people who buy them. A big tall impressive beast with a huge shiny chrome grill and big wheels and tires is what sells in that market. You just try doing otherwise. (See: Honda Ridgeline.)

[oilhammer]

Yep. And Ford has an even bigger gas V8 coming.

[turbobrick240]

It will be interesting to see if the new Ford 7.3 gas V8 can match the fuel consumption of the old 7.3 powerstroke- not that it would take a huge feat of engineering. They must be looking for the halo effect in the truck market. The 6.7 powerstroke has also received some significant tweaks and should be more powerful than the current 450hp/930tq. Seems ridiculous, but everyone loves a powerful engine.

[GoFaster]

There is no possibility that a port-injected gas V8 that big would approach the efficiency of a diesel engine, but it will do better than an old carbureted 460 (which is close to the same displacement!) by a long shot. The new engine has variable valve timing, etc. It WILL use more fuel than a PowerStroke diesel would. But ... It won't be subject to all of the emission-control-system headaches that have plagued the PowerStroke for years, and it ought to be less expensive to buy thanks to not having all that stuff, and no turbo and no intercooler etc. The emission control system will be the same as any gasoline engine ... 3-way catalyst, and the evap system, and that's it.

People who have traditionally bought diesels, but have gotten fed up with downtime and high maintenance costs, will buy these ... especially in this era of cheap fuel costs.

The large displacement and lack of forced induction means this engine shouldn't really be working that hard ... which means they should be better able to stay out of thermal-protection mode (i.e. running rich) ... which has been the bane of downsized turbo engines and I believe this is why a 3.5 Ecoboost F150 towing a trailer uses more fuel than a 5.0 F150 towing a trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8CafR1YxqE

[turbobrick240]

Of course you're right, the new 7.3 won't have diesel efficiency, but cost of ownership will likely be better. My 7.3 F250 averages around 15 mpg. I wouldn't be surprised if the new 7.3 can do 13-14 mpg. Once you load them down though, the diesel widens the FE gap.

Now I'm curious what FCA has coming. Maybe a good ol' 440 cube pushrod V8.

[GoFaster]

Hah. My posts above were written before finding this. My guess was right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FtNlfAbc2w

The 7.3 is designed to operate at stoichiometric right up to full load. Mentioned around 3:45 in. Ecoboosts won't, and can't, do that. Too much heat concentrated in a small space.

It's not direct-injection, but the injectors are installed in the cylinder head rather than in the intake manifold, presumably to get the injection point closer to the port.

It's designed to be matched to the 10-speed automatic transmission.

[piotrsko]

Originally Posted by GoFaster

It's designed to be matched to the 10-speed automatic transmission.

HAS to be, try buying a handshaker.

[oilhammer]

So Ford took a step backwards with this new engine. Because I assume they are ditching the 3V 6.8L V10, and there is no "new" modular 10 cylinder version of the newer SOHC V8s.

Hey, FoMoCo, 1985 called, they want their tech back. LMAO. But hey, it works, and gas is CHEAP, so...

[GoFaster]

In what way is it backwards compared to the V10?

What I'm seeing is that the 7.3 will be considerably better optimized for its application.