2018 Truck Sales Numbers

[The Gritz Carlton]

No electric...gas powered (small engine) hydraulic pump with hydraulic drive motors. No reason it shouldn't work. It works great on most construction equipment and commercial lawn equipment. Why can't they do it with a small car or a light utility truck?

[JamieGeek]

Originally Posted by The Gritz Carlton

No electric...gas powered (small engine) hydraulic pump with hydraulic drive motors. No reason it shouldn't work. It works great on most construction equipment and commercial lawn equipment. Why can't they do it with a small car or a light utility truck?

My guess would be speed: Running at highway speed would mean a large volume of hydraulic fluid moving through the system. Perhaps efficiency takes a nose dive at high speeds.

Trains have proven that a hybrid system is better for the long haul (Diesel-electric).

[Chance]

Hydraulics have been tried many times, but it keeps losing out to electric because of various reasons. I’ve seen some buses and commercial delivery trucks that had hydraulic accumulators to provide regeneration, but they end up being less efficient, heavier, noisier, and harder to package in vehicles, particularly as they get smaller.

Carbon fiber technology promised an opportunity for much lighter accumulators, as well as more practical flywheels with higher energy density, but as battery technology shifted from lead acid to lithium, these options just can’t compete.

My university worked with hydraulics some but electric for cars and buses was more practical. That was decades ago, but the basics haven’t changed.

In industry we used hydraulics to create hydrostatic transmissions to power pumps, conveyors, screws, etc., but over time we replaced them all with electric drives powered with Variable Frequency Drives (VFDs). They are so much better in so many ways that going back to hydraulics is hard to imagine.

[The Gritz Carlton]

Originally Posted by JamieGeek

My guess would be speed: Running at highway speed would mean a large volume of hydraulic fluid moving through the system. Perhaps efficiency takes a nose dive at high speeds.

Trains have proven that a hybrid system is better for the long haul (Diesel-electric).

That's it... 400,000 pound car with only two seats and steel wheels that burns approximately 200 gallons of diesel per hour. All this for electric power. Sounds efficient to me. (But...in reality, if you run the real numbers compared to semi trucks and the loads it can carry....it averages about 60 MPG vs what a comparable fleet of trucks would use hauling the same amount of freight in 53' trailers.)

[Chance]

Originally Posted by JamieGeek

My guess would be speed: Running at highway speed would mean a large volume of hydraulic fluid moving through the system. Perhaps efficiency takes a nose dive at high speeds.

Trains have proven that a hybrid system is better for the long haul (Diesel-electric).

Speed has very little to do with it because you’d end up with variable displacement motors at axles which would keep pressure up and fluid flow relatively low at high pressures. That’s the best option to maximize efficiency. Regardless, it’s just not competitive against battery-based hybrids for many reasons.


It’s funny to think how much trouble and expense auto industry has taken on just to get rid of hydraulic power steering when possible. That’s a case where hydraulics provide better steering feel yet disadvantages are too great in other areas.

[Bob Denman]

I fear that my head is going to explode over all of this "Techno-Speak".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghmsaqMeDKw

[The Gritz Carlton]

I remember when the only 2 options on a new car was radio and heater. If it came with a clock, it was a luxury ride.

[blw2]

ha ha....for me AC was an option....but heat? Heat was standard.

[Chance]

Originally Posted by Bob Denman

I fear that my head is going to explode over all of this "Techno-Speak".

.....cut......

In that case, keep it really simple for it to make more sense. Gearing, or gearboxes, can increase torque but not power. The output torque of a gear box can be higher than its input torque, but its output power can not in itself exceed its input power. I’m talking of simple gearboxes of course, and nothing weird like if they have built-in electric motors or flywheels which is a totally different discussion.

People often assume that by changing gearing you can end up with higher power, but you can’t make power out of thin air.

Proper gearing can, however, allow the input power to be greater. In the case of engine-driven vehicles, for example, choosing the proper gear can allow the engine to operate closer to its peak power, which means more power will go in and out of gearbox.

The point here is that if you start with 100 “horsepower” at engine, you can not end up with more than 100 HP at wheels no matter what gearing is used.

Torque is another matter entirely. If you start with 100 HP at engine, you can use different gearing to end up with 100 lb-ft, 1,000 lb-ft, or 10,000 lb-ft of torque at wheels. However, the speed at which those driven wheels turn in each of these examples will be drastically different because you can’t exceed 100 HP.

More confused?

[Bob Denman]

Now That I do get!
That's whyou you throw a set of 5.13 gears into the punkin'; instead of the meager 3.73's that came stock.
You'll be slower on the top-end: but you'll get there like a shot!

[rynosback]

Originally Posted by blw2

why propane?
I'm looking forward to a plug-in hybrid pickup...but I wouldn't think LP the way to go... less energy per gallon

In my thinking, the electric or hybrid might be a good fit for someone like me....daily driver, not usually loaded...occasional trips to lowes or a garden center, occasional trips towing a boat locally....otherwise unloaded back and forth to work. Long way from making sense for significantly towing I'm guessing.

Super clean and today’s gas with ethanol is not that great on small engines. I read where a lot of people converted there Honda geni’s gas carb to a propane one.

[The Gritz Carlton]

Originally Posted by rynosback

Super clean and today’s gas with ethanol is not that great on small engines. I read where a lot of people converted there Honda geni’s gas carb to a propane one.

Gas is crap today. I have several portable generators and use nothing but the non-ethanol gas in them. Once a year at least one carb comes off of something to get cleaned out of gunk...those little engines we thing we'll use enough but forget...tiller, leave vacuum machine, pressure washer. The non-ethanol is expensive but so is time and band-aids for the knuckles.

[rynosback]

Originally Posted by The Gritz Carlton

Gas is crap today. I have several portable generators and use nothing but the non-ethanol gas in them. Once a year at least one carb comes off of something to get cleaned out of gunk...those little engines we thing we'll use enough but forget...tiller, leave vacuum machine, pressure washer. The non-ethanol is expensive but so is time and band-aids for the knuckles.

There are not many places that sell non-ethanol gas. I would think it is 1 out of 1000 - 10000 gas stations that have non-ethanol gas option.
For an example, Arizona has 5, not a typo places to buy non-ethanol gas.
Supported here http://www.buyrealgas.com

[Bob Denman]

I saw lot lot of it in Missouri...
... And we have a station or two in my County that sells it that way also!

[The Gritz Carlton]

I have 3 within a mile of my house in Atlanta. They are all over Florida where I keep the boat at our beach house. Every marina around the south has nothing but non-ethanol. Regular gas is the enemy to most outboards. It's about $1.50 more than regular but worth it. I use the non-ethanol during the winter in the boat but not in summer as we run through a lot of gas. It's all I use in the generators unless doing an extended boondock as in next month at the Atlanta Race where we'll use the portables for about 10 days, off and on. I'll burn regular gas but refill them with the other once they go back in storage.

[Bob Denman]

Two-Strokes get killed by ethanol.
Snowmobile Country, and the Marinas; are the best places to find real gasoline!

[Chance]

Originally Posted by Bob Denman

Now That I do get!
That's whyou you throw a set of 5.13 gears into the punkin'; instead of the meager 3.73's that came stock.
You'll be slower on the top-end: but you'll get there like a shot!

It should be mentioned that as transmissions have greater number of gears and with wider overall gear range, while providing tight gear spacing, that final gearing becomes less important.

I was reminded of this while watching a towing test video of a gasoline pickup with 10-speed transmission that only had 3.15 gears.

It worked OK because there were plenty of gears down low to choose from to keep engine happy, although it could have been a little better. If your example above were a truck or a motorhome, then 5.13 final gears may allow it to remain in a 0.73 overdrive, whereas a 3.73 may require a downshift to drive (1:1). Combined gearing would be approximately the same in both cases.

[Bob Denman]

Of course!
More gears simply is another way of saying "greater flexibility".

[rynosback]

So there are approximately 13,953 stations that sell non ethanol fuel out of 168,000. At the docks around Annapolis, MD they all had ethanol in it. There are only 8 stations that sell non ethanol fuel in MD. Luckily my boat was fuel injected. As a whole I would say they are rarely seen. But it looks like we have a few lucky people that live close to one or more then the 325 million other Americans.

[The Gritz Carlton]

There are many small/independent gasoline retailers that purchase from local distributors that will never make it to "the internet surveys". One survey (pure-gas) shows 52 stations in MD that sell ethanol, so the numbers are not accurate. Most everything today is fuel injected or direct injection, but the problem with ethanol is in the seals, fuel tanks themselves and hoses moreso than the fuel delivery system. Second is the small amount of fuel that sits in the injector rails/carbs, etc. while engines sit idle. I guess I'm a lucky people...it's everywhere if you look for it and not read for it.