Hybrids for Beginners

On Monday night I was at a Fisker Presentation evening. Aside from meeting the man himself (designer of the DB9 amongst others), I was given an understanding of the engineering wizardry behind this car - solar panels, one speed gearbox and a haptic touchscreen display unit!?

Personally I think its the most beautiful 4-door car ever and I will definitely get one for myself AND one for the company but its worth explaining why this hybrid carries the most important powertrain innovation in over a decade.

All hybrids as we know them currently are petrol-hybrids. Ie the main source of power is the petrol engine. The battery only kicks in at extremely low power ranges to provide some zero emission mobility - useful for parking and crawling in traffic; otherwise its principally a petrol car. And of course the source of the energy for charging the batteries is petrol anyway - so it's only a mild improvement on a standard petrol car. Of course some energy is recovered during braking which also improves efficiency.

The Fisker is what is sometimes called an electric-hybrid. In this case the main powertrain is an electric motor and the car is always powered by electricity from the batteries. The magic on this type of car is that the petrol engine is only ever used to generate electricity to charge the batteries. Of course this means you don't need a very large petrol engine, and also it can operate within its optimal efficiency range at all times. Unlike a petrol-hybrid, it means that if you charge the car at least every 50 miles - sufficient for most people's daily commute - you need never use petrol at all. [Yes I appreciate the argument that the electricity has to come from somewhere and that today that is mostly fossil fuels, but at least you have a solution to the dependency on oil for mobility and then the engineers can concentrate on developing more low/zero emission energy sources for electricity.]

Anyway, I think it is a step in the right direction and I will be giving this company whatever support I can. Expect to see this car at e25 in 2010 and do let me know if you fancy buying one and putting it on the Vehicle Owner's Programme, I could probably get you a special deal.