Re: 4WD - EVs etc.

[Dave Erb <dave_erb@mindspring.com>]

Martin Jackson wrote:

>   Dave Erb has built the hardware and knows the theories on Hybrids,
> so
>   I'm being presumptious here. A little padding on his comments are
>   coming.......

Martin -

You weren't being presumptuous at all.  I, for one, am glad that someone
who's obviously given the problem some serious thought fleshed out my
note.  I hope the list will forgive the petulance at the beginning of my
earlier post.  I'm a lot touchier than I should be about the "I stayed
in a Holiday Inn Express last night" approach, to the point where I may
read it into situations where it doesn't exist.  (If you haven't seen
the commercials, please forgive the obtuse reference, too!)  The more
I've worked with HEVs, the more scornful I've become of anyone claiming
to know a universal "right way" to build them.  I like to flatter myself
by believing that's a sign of my intelligence, rather than of my lack of
social skills.        ;-)

> >....Ohio State's 1996 FutureCar Challenge entry won
> >every objective (acceleration, autocross, emissions, energy economy,
> ...)
> >event except for a second place in city energy economy.  It was a
> pure
> >diesel, no hybridization at all.  All eleven other competitors were
> >hybrid (though only ten were hybrid **electric**).
>
>   Meeting the objectives can include exceeding the objectives. Aren't
>   some of these hybrids fairly high performance ?

To quell the semantic confusion, let me clarify that the "objective"
events I referred to in my post meant "measurable," in contrast to
"subjective."  The points in FutureCar Challenge are split roughly 50-50
between objectively measured (stopwatch, emissions meters, ... ) and
subjectively judged (design reports, design reviews, ... ) events.

In the other sense of the word, the "objectives" for FCC are the same as
for PNGV:  3x energy economy, drastically-reduced emissions, full
utility typical of present-day midsize cars, improved manufacturability,
and enhanced US economic competitiveness.  Forget about exceeding these
objectives:  if any school comes close to meeting them, it's damn
impressive.  I don't recall the exact numbers, but seem to remember
OSU's 1996 energy economy as something like 2.3x.  Not too shabby!

Several of the hybrids are, in fact, VERY high performance.  However,
FCC is a student contest, and being ready to play when the opening gun
sounds is far more important than optimizing the design to the Nth
degree.  On paper, UC Davis' car was the kick-tail class of the field in
both '96 and '97, but in '96 it arrived in baskets and was assembled in
the parking lot.  It's tough to run the dynamic events when your car's
up on jackstands.  By the same token, in '96 OSU brought an excellent
car with superb reliability, but had team strife which drove away all
the warm bodies who could have written good reports, prepared effective
presentations, etc. while the car was being built.  They placed second
to Virginia Tech by six points (out of 1100), having lost tens of points
in each subjective event due to lack of preparation.  "Them's the
breaks."

Best wishes,
Dave

--
David A. Erb
Erb Professional Services
2914 Halstead Road
Upper Arlington, OH  43221-2918
voice:     (614) 488-4254
email:     dave_erb@mindspring.com