Suburu Spreads its Wings

Suburu Spreads its Wings
Originally uploaded by lee.ekstrom

The Suburu Hybrid Tourer Concept uses twin gull-wing doors and steeply raked front windshield for a spectacular display at the 2011 North American International Auto Show in Detroit Michigan. Look for future Subaru vehicles to take on the new front grille design.

The Hybrid Tourer was unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show in 2009. Nice wide-open door to the interior. I'm not sure how this would work in Michigan with snow, sleet, rain and other nasties.

The Hybrid Tourer will use a 2.0 litre turbocharged boxer engine along with two electric motors. Suburu is planning on using a Lineartronic Automatic Transmission (actually a CVT) and utilizes a rear motor that can be used at start up or during acceleration. A front motor would be used as a power generator and aid in acceleration.

Reminds me of a fresh vehicle that could easily be used in "Back to the Future X."

High Voltage Transmission Detail

High Voltage Engine Detail
Originally uploaded by lee.ekstrom

Cutaway of GM's Two-Mode Hybrid transmission. Supplemental power comes from two 60kW motors housed within the electronically variable transmission. The two electric motors work in tandem with four fixed gears to distribute both gasoline and electric power as needed. The electric motors have two distinct modes of operation depending upon city or highway driving and can use the electric motors for boosting and regenerative braking. Claims include close to 40% fuel efficiency improvement in city driving. Chrysler and BMW Group formed a cooperative effort with GM called the Global Hybrid Cooperation, to help develop this next-generation tranny.

Electric / Hybrid Eye Candy

Love the deep burnt orange color on Canadian-made eVaro electric / hybrid made by Future Vehicle Technologies (formerly Fuel Vapor Technologies). This fully-functioning plug-in electric series hybrid produces no emissions for 90% of its time on the road. It has an unlimited range with FVT custom on-board high-voltage generator.

The University of Fraser Valley confirmed an amazing 275 mpg for city driving and an average 165 mpg for highway driving. But this is no slow-poke, eVaro has a top speed of 135 mph, and can go from 0 to 60 mph in a sizzling five seconds. Check out the eVaro testing tires on YouTube.

New York Times Delivers

The Detroit Free Press is going digital, well sort of. They are cutting daily delivery of the paper to three days a week. The morning ritual of coffee and a newspaper is ruined. Irate customers are writing in declaring their loyal dog will be in a fix without a paper to retrieve.

Management at the Detroit Media Partnership are trying to shift to a digital delivery of the news. Unfortunately, even though our family is entrenched in the digital domain, the facto-o-the matter is that we still like the renewable resource of tactile paper. You can use it to train a puppy in the finer matters and it can be split into sections - comics to the kids, sports to dad, and lifestyle to the wife. I'm not going to buy a Kindle 2 device for everyone. We only have one computer and that my Freep-friends is the dilemma.

An ad posted recently that caught my eye. The New York Times must have a local zip-code driven targeted advertisement in the Free Press hinterland. The Free Press has been trying to keep loyal readers from defecting to the Oakland Press with an option of mail delivery. It worked for my uncle, but came too late for my family. We already switched allegiances to the Oakland Press (even though its parent company has filed for chapter 11 protection). Now the NYT is advertising daily delivery for $3.35 a week. I know the digital age is here ... but I still want ink on my fingers.

The future of pneumatic hybrid technology

With four boys (and friends like Eric Diem at work), I know all about air powered rifles, Vulcan Nerf® guns and pneumatically-powered toys like Air Hogs®. To paraphrase a WardsAuto.com article, the Swiss are coming to Detroit in April at the SAE World Congress to "Pump us up" on air power.

Lino Guzzella, a professor of thermotronics in ETH Zurich's department of mechanical and process engineering, states that his tiny 1.0L inline 2-cylinder engine can match the output of a 3.0L V6 engine. Wow! This might be the justification I need to finally buy that air compressor for the garage.

Search Google for "potato gun" and you'll find hundreds of designs for innovative compressed-air powered spud launchers. One of the key ingredients of any successful pneumatic system is the valve. The same applies here as the valve and control system will be the most expensive part of the pneumatic hybrid engine. Many a spud launcher uses a valve from a sprinkler system. Not the Swiss team, they're using an electronically-controlled hydraulic valve from Robert Bosch GmbH / Bosch Rexroth. Haven't seen one of those yet on a spud gun.

Electric motors and batteries will always be better than compressed air in regard to energy storage, but there may be hope for a pneumatic hybrid engine in China or India. Overall cost will be a big factor. I think I'll just put up with my foot pump for a little while longer.