Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2007 10:04:21 -0400
Reply-To: Jim Akiba <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Jim Akiba <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM>
Subject: Re: This just HAS to be a new question...
In-Reply-To: <474200.21785.qm@web52212.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Yeah the big problem is cost. I spec'd out what it would take to do it with
regen braking. It could be done slightly cheaper if you did it yourself from
scratch but developing the power/motor-generator controller would be very
hard and time consuming. $35k is the beginning price point. Not worth it
quite yet. I think that an ethanol boosted(intracooled) turbo setup would be
more realistic. It's cheaper, and would have just shy of the BTE of the
hybrid.
Jim Akiba
--- Kyle Davis <davis_family_46168@YAHOO.COM> wrote:
>
> > Hey all,
> >
> > From personal experience (and list lurking and
> > ebay hunting) powerplant transplants are pretty
> > common
> > in the vanagons... A majority of them are well
> > documented 2.1 in a 1.9, air cooled to water, diesel
> > to gas, vw to suby, vw to porsche, vw to tiico, gas
> > to
> > tdi, etc.
> >
> > I also remember reading about an electric bus
> > (not vanagon) so I can presume gas>electric.
> >
> > This brings me to my next question. Did
> > anybody
> > ever consider going halfsies with that last one, ala
> > Toyota Prius or Honda Insight style?
> >
> > The most bizarre conversion I've heard of was
> > VW
> > to Ford 2.8 liter v6 (somewhere, Ben Pon must be in
> > shock, or rolling over in his grave.)
> >
> > I would dearly love to tell the oil industry
> > what
> > to do with high gas prices and convert the westy
> > into
> > total electric, but a few things hold me back.
> >
> > 1.) Practicality. The westy is basically a
> > fully-laden with camping gear bus. An electric
> > motor,
> > no matter how many batteries feed it, just may not
> > be
> > able to do much with that.
> >
> > 2.) Cost.
> >
> > 3.) Safety. Excessive electricity around lpg
> > may be an inherently Bad Idea TM.
> >
> > 4.) Getting back to 1, it gets reasonably cold
> > here in the midwest, and my research of pure
> > electric
> > cars mentioned using hair dryers as heaters.
> >
> > So, how feasible would it be to meet in the
> > middle? And, I'm not necessarily saying bolt on a
> > prius or an insight, or even a ford escape hybrid
> > engine into this solution, or suggest that that
> > would
> > even work. I guess I am just wondering if anybody
> > has
> > tried this, and, if so what measure of success or
> > failure they were able to obtain...
> >
> > Kyle
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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>
>
>
>
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