Thread: Hybrid cars what to look for.

Originally Posted by Tahr

You gotta think in the terms of tomorrow, not today. The change in technology is swift and amazing.

Still not seeing anything that's going to reduce the weight of the things substantially enough to make a difference - the limiting factor with the utes is the fact that you hit the limits of Class 1 licence way before the limit of the vehicle, and if you are stacking 3/4 of a ton of hybrid crap into the thing before you start adding paying load to the vehicle. If you aren't loading the vehicle for the purposes of work and it's a glorified car with a big bum there isn't the issues but if you're carting a load for $ the economics of a hybrid ute start looking a little off.

On the other side of it, a hybrid assist on start off with a heavy trailer combined with a regenerative braking setup when on steep downhills stands to make a huge benefit to driveability. A fair bit of experimentation has been done overseas with a electric motor/generator that bolts onto the front of the rear diff and runs on a shortened driveshaft. Bolting a battery pack up under the waste space between the chassis rails and there's a useful advantage in traction and braking, but again the issue is weight and also a smaller effect in performance with the limits on angles the driveshaft can get to.