1969: GM ad for Stirling-engine hybrid, the Stir-Lec I

They were on the right track 40 years ago.
Perhaps GM wouldn't be filing for bankruptcy now if they had continued with this?

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/05/27/blast-from-1969-gm-ad-for-stirling-engine-hybrid-the-stir-lec/

the technology of that time would have made the car impossible to be reliable. i worked for borg warner at that time and the engineers were not sure if the new anti pollution controls were going to work on the gasoline engines. at that time those controls consisted of two parts on an engine.one of those parts are still used today.the technology of today was built on these concepts and now we have the batteries and other bit`s and pieces to make these concepts practical. in 1969 gasoline was around 35-40ct gallon.the most expensive gasoline was sunoco`s 260 at 50ct a gallon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine#Power_and_torque_issues">One disadvantage of a Stirling engine (compared with an ICE) is that it really wants to run at a constant RPM, with constant power demands.

The idea (as I recall) was to attach it to a generator, and use the batteries to give a boost for acceleration (much as some electric car designs use capacitors as a boost for batteries.)

There were other similar designs, using more conventional engines to run a generator.

Hybrids have struggled with the car companies because of misunderstood goals for the vehicles. The problem is that the auto companies only think of them as "fuel efficient" vehicles. As such, the technology always suffers in various analyses because the added costs, weight, and other considerations can rarely be "justified" in comparison with more "classic" technologies used to improve fuel efficiency. Even today, many of the car companies can't get out of this mind set. Many of the hybrids are "gas first, electric when needed". They do this because they can't get out of their classic, internal combustion engine, mind set.

The purpose of hybrids isn't really to make more "fuel efficient" cars. It is to disconnect the car from gasoline. Electricity is not a "fuel" in and of itself. Much like most hydrogen sources, it is merely a part of a "storage medium" for energy harvested some place else, and in this case some other TIME. Hybrids are part of an evolution of the automobile in which the source for the vehicles energy can begin to come from more and more places, not just from oil/gasoline. Hybrids help us build the infrastructure to get from where we are today, to where we need to be in the future. You learn to crawl, then walk, then run.

Hybrids give a "market place" for technologies to immediately be used in moving towards the larger goal. Develop a better battery, it can be "in the market" within 2 years. Building a parking garage? The hybrid creates an IMMEDIATE customer for a charging station/connection as soon as you are done. If you engineer the home solar recharging kit, customers will exist as soon as you hit the market who will choose to use it to recharge their hybrid. And best of all, develop a better engine for working with the hybrid, maybe one that works on a biofuel, or hydrogen, and a car company will be interested in building fleet cars with such engines because the customers will be there.

And in the long run, as the batteries get better, and the availability of charging stations increases, and folks begin to figure out that the engine almost never kicks in anymore, especially if they are concienscious, and they'll start to buy all electric cars. They'll buy them because they'll be cheap to own and operate. They'll buy them because they are convenient. They'll buy them because they're quiet. And cities will start to prefer them because it keeps the air cleaner, and the city quieter. And then cabs will be all electric, and maybe buses too. And by then the role of hybrids will be obvious, and it won't have been anything associated with "fuel efficiency", and everything to do with getting the car we all really want to begin with.

You comments are good, but you forget one important fact, gasoline and batteries can be viewed as "Energy Storage Devices". If you view Gasoline as the same as a Battery, the INHERENT energy you can store in Gasoline is way more then you can store in a battery. The reason Hybrids have been popular (and were popular around 1900 before the Gasoline engine came into it own) is that gasoline engines have a lot of "Dead time" running, i.e. the engine is operating when it is NOT needed, such as waiting for a light to change. A secondary reason gasoline engines operate inefficiently at present is the desire for the engine to operate at all speeds and conditions, even if the conditions occur once a month (This means Gasoline Engines tend to be to large for normal use, most of the engine exist when you need that extra power to pull out of an on ramp onto a road).

Hybrids address these two issues by first permitting a smaller gasoline engine, the extra power needed on an on ramp being provided by the electric batteries. The Gasoline engine when its full power is NOT needed to propel the car, the excess power is used to charge the batteries. Notice a hybrid is designed to make the Gasoline engine more efficient NOT to provide a pure electric car while maintaining something close to operating speeds of a modern large gasoline engine. The reason for this is simple, batteries, as an energy storage device (and this includes Lithium batteries), weigh more then gasoline. The Gasoline-Combustion Engine-Transmission-trans-axial-Drive wheel combination is much lighter then the a pure Battery-Electric Engine-Drive wheel combination (One of the advantages of the Hybrid is you can eliminate the Transmission-Trans-axial part of a traditional car and hook up an electric motor directly to a wheel like an electric car, saving some weight).

Notice the advantage of the Hybrid is NOT that it does not use gasoline, but it uses gasoline more efficiently. Railroads have known this for decades, what we call "Diesel" Engines are in reality Diesel-Electric. The diesel engines operate generators that provide electrical power to the electrical motors on the wheels of the engine. Overall more efficient (and in Diesel engine no batteries exist, it is straight electric generation to the electric motors).

Thus the fact that you have charging stations will not change the fact that gasoline is a better energy storage device then a Battery. That problem has not been addressed for it can't be with out present knowledge of electrical storage. Fly Wheels are more efficient then any batteries at storing electrical power (90% efficiency, i.e for every watt into a fly wheel you get .9 watt out) but again not as efficient as gasoline.

If you're just talking about energy density by mass, hydrogen is a better storage medium than gasoline.

But, if you're looking at energy density by volume, gasoline beats hydrogen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density

Using either measure, both beat current battery technologies handily.

Hydrogen in the smallest atom, compress into a liquid it is even smaller. Thus hydrogen leaks through ANY storage device on what can be viewed as an excessive rate. Thus Hydrogen's main problem how do you store it for a long time period? And the answer is you don't, the loss is excessive. The leakage rate for hydrogen in 1% per day. After 100 days, the Hydrogen is gone, even if you do NOT use it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_hydrogen

Most storage plans use some sort of intermediate storage, mix H2 with something else till needed, then release the H2 and the other elements:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage

1% per day does NOT sound like much, but it means storage at the local level has to be at the Gaseous stage with a compressor to compress the H2 to liquid form when needed. Given that H2 boils at about 20 K (20.268 K, –252.882 °C or -423.188 °F) it takes a good bit of energy to get H2 to the liquid state. For more see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage

That math does not work. If we assume that a 1% loss is unavoidable, after 100 days, about 37% would remain. (0.99¹⁰⁰)

If you follow the reference from the Wikipedia article, you'll find this:
http://www.almc.army.mil/alog/issues/MayJun00/MS492.htm

This is a rather different statement. We're not talking about some sort of physical constant here. It's a limitation of the tanks.

https://publicaffairs.llnl.gov/news/news_releases/2008/NR-08-06-02.html


Chemical storage is another possibility, but there's a third way.
http://news.uns.purdue.edu/x/2009a/090402MudawarHydrogen.html

Many of us use metal hydrides to store hydrogen every day (in NiMH batteries.)

http://www.nwo.nl/nwohome.nsf/pages/NWOA_7KDFJG_Eng

But, in most cases you end up adding Hydrogen back to its max level every day, so you lose roughly the same percentage and total volume every day. I tried to simplify the situation, but the problem remains, you have a huge loss over time of Hydrogen compared to any other storage unit. This is much like 1/2 life of radioactive material, in a half life 1/2 of the radioactive material is gone. In the next "1/2" life period, another 1/2 is gone but that still leaves 1/4 of the original radioactive material. This goes on and on, but sooner or later you get to a point where the amount of Radioactive material is so small we can call it near zero. The same with Hydrogen leakage, at 1% per day, if the total amount of Hydrogen stays the same, then the next day it will be just 1% of the remaining Hydrogen, which will be only 99% of the previous day supply. This goes on and on, till either the Hydrogen is replenished OR someone says for all practical purposes the remaining Hydrogen is Zero. For my illustration pointing out you will lose the equivalent of 100% of the Original Amount of Hydrogen within 100 days is correct IF YOU ADD HYDROGEN EVERY DAY EQUIVALENT TO THE AMOUNT OF LOSS. For this purpose it is a close enough approximation.

As to the "storage" devices, they all depend on weak bonds to the Hydrogen that can be dissolved quickly so the Hydrogen is then free to combine with Oxygen. Some loss of efficiency but that is more then made up is the drop in leakage (In Theory at least). S the article pointed out this is still in research, which may be a solution to the problem of Hydrogen leakage but it is not available now and no one claims it will be within ten years (And the proposed Hydrogen Stations will have to provide that fuel independent of the Hydrogen being provided today, the two will NOT be compatible).

look, I want to cut the middle east out of the
world's transportation deal.

battery cars DO THAT

The cost is excessive no matter how you look at it and thus there is no way the modern US car base life style can survive do to the COST incur with any switch from the middle east oil.

As to Batteries, unless you are for a massive expansion of Nuclear power, between the energy lost do to recharging the battery and generating the electricity in the first place, walking quickly becomes the transportation system of choice. Batteries just can NOT do it and neither can fuel made from grain. Ending the car centered nature of our society is the only way, and we are fighting that option to the death,

I will not go into radiation and other dangers of Uranium, but th 1-2 million dollars needed to make a car the can be propelled by uranium is out of most people's price range. Pound to Pound Uranium is more compact then gasoline, but gasoline can be used in a relatively cheap car compared to Uranium.

AND you only need to fill it up once in your lifetime.

Tell somebody you've got a great technology, but that it will cost them 3 times as much as the competition, and offer them little or no benefit that they will perceive…

See how many units you sell.

The 1903 Krieger was a gasoline-electric hybrid, complete with regenerative braking.
http://www.shorpy.com/node/5734

But should certainly be doable with modern components and refinements. Stirling engines do suffer from relatively low power to weight/volume ratios but this is one way to compensate. Supercaps could possibly eliminate the need for heavy batteries. Smaller, more powerful electric motors.

Another option that could be revisited is steam power, piston or turbine. In the thirties A 5000 lb eight seat car could achieve 30+ MPG, surely we could get at least 60 out of a much lighter vehicle today.


Pneumatics is a possible alternative to shorter range battery electric vehicles. And for urban fleet vehicles.