It would have had to use lead-acid batteries, efficiency and range wouldn't be very high, either.
Today's hybrids aren't very fast compared to everything else, but they're no slouches either... 0-60 in 28 seconds might as well be a week. I also would suspect the electronic controller would have weighed about a metric tonne as well.
The idea for an electric car was born in the early 20th century (1910 I think), but it didn't become feasible for inter-city and inner city travel until the late 80's.
yeah but what im saying is if they had a car up and running in the late 60's what the heck happened ....?obviously the car is horribly slow and not feasible in the state is was but if they kept progressing that technology over the last almost 40 years im sure we would have seen much better hybrids solutions out by now
yea couldnt have been all that efficient
My car may run 18s, but I can do your taxes in 10 seconds flat.
JBO lube - they would never have enough in stock and we'd never see RodimusPrime again
=OrangeZ= wrote:yeah but what im saying is if they had a car up and running in the late 60's what the heck happened ....?obviously the car is horribly slow and not feasible in the state is was but if they kept progressing that technology over the last almost 40 years im sure we would have seen much better hybrids solutions out by now
True, but IIRC at the time GM was already shouldering new Technology in the form of the mid-engined Corvair, and was looking at incorporating a Rotary engine.
The fact that the car even got to a concept is amazing.
BTW, this was also in the days when Oil was expensive at $14 a barrel.
Well, battery electric cars actually predated internal combustion engines, but they moved 2-4 people, and nothing else... the first one was in about 1830's or so. Once model T/A became available, that was all she wrote for about 80-90 years.
Now that battery technology is a lot better, and electric engine and gear reduction is more advanced, we're seeing a resurgence of the electric car.
Given that Oil is closing above the $70 a barrel mark... it's hardly surprising. If there was a way to actually improve range somehow: you'd see these things start flying off the dealer's lots.
I think your also forgeting about cost. Hybrid cars are still expensive and don't make the company's very much money. Back then it was probably shelved because no one would pay the price. It's the same with ethanol, as other gas prices go up ethanol becomes more practical. I would bet it's the same thing for battery technology.
I've never understood the fascination with Hybrid GAS cars. Diesels would make much more sense. Use a small (under 999cc) clean diesel to power a generator which powers the electric motors. The car wouldn't use the diesel itself to run so it would just idle all the time and use a teeny amount of fuel. With a Diesel/Hybrid system in a lightweight car like a Yaris I'm sure you could hit 100mpg.
You could also implement a legislation that all Taxis and Buses need to be Hybrid/Diesel. Would make the technology more feasible and accessible. And while we're drafting laws we could have one that regulates what kind of cars are allowed in the city. Delivery vehicles, Taxis, cop cars, Japanese Kei cars and Hybrids only. That way you'd reduce pollution without costing or penalizing everyone like they're doing now. People in the country need cars, people in the city don't. It's unfair to punish BOTH for driving.
Another regulation should be that all trucks should be diesel and all trucks over a certain weight should be hybrid diesel. Would make more sense instead of those moronic MPG laws. Oh, and any car made in amounds of under 5000 should be exempt from all MPG regulation and all cars made in amounts of under 500 should be exempt from pollution requirements.
That's fair right?
As for GM and the old school Hybrid stuff. Most of what's being made today is directly descendant of those old programs. The car companies knew that there was a looming gas crisis even back in the 60's and they were preparing for it. They never went very far with it simply because it wasn't cost effective and apart from a few bad years the crisis' were averted. Took 35 years for gas prices to really go up and make hybrids and low MPG cars attractive again. I don't think they hid it so much as they simply didn't want to throw good money at projects that may not be needed.
Eric Esler wrote:I think your also forgeting about cost. Hybrid cars are still expensive and don't make the company's very much money. Back then it was probably shelved because no one would pay the price. It's the same with ethanol, as other gas prices go up ethanol becomes more practical. I would bet it's the same thing for battery technology.
IF it was solid state technology (which it would HAVE to be) it'd probably cost about $8-9000 in 69. Expensive, and how reliable it would be: I don't know. It COULD be done was more the point.
$8000 in 69 (I forget the price of a loaded muscle car but it was about $5000 at the time) is not inconsiderable, but if you figure that it would have been possible costs could have come down.
Welcome to GM. They've always had excellent prototype concepts that debuted well before broad market adoption, but were either shelved due to technology concerns (like this) or @!#$-poor execution or reliability (Cadillac's V8-6-4 displacement on demand) .
1989 Z24 Convertible - Dust Covered
2006 tC - Dust Covered, but driven more
theyve had electric cars for over a century, almost no car technology is actually modern, they just found ways to make it fesible. Go look up any supposed new or modern car technology and youll find all all that @!#$s been around for decades.
-Borsty
