So I was checking out a Chevy Volt in the parking lot at the grocery store. A Volt can run for 40 or 50 miles on a charge, while a Tesla Model S can go 250 miles or more. However, a Tesla battery pack weighs about 1200 pounds, while a Volt battery pack weighs about 450 pounds.
But a Volt has a gas engine for a generator that actually gives you more overall range than a Tesla, plus a Volt can fill up at ordinary gas stations, which you can find anywhere, in three minutes. And that gas engine weighs at least a few hundred pounds, and when you’re in electric mode, which ideally the Volt driver will be in almost all the time, you’re carrying all that dead weight around.
So if you’re going to be in electric mode most of the time, but you want the security and flexibility of having an ICE engine, it seems like reducing the weight of the ICE engine optimizes the design, right? And also you want that ICE engine to be as compact as possible too.
Now what kind of gas engine is both compact and has a real high power to weight ratio? How about the Wankel?
If you are planning on driving your hybrid 90% of the time on plug-in power, then I think having a light, small Wankel engine might be a way to get the lightest hybrid drive train available. The traditional weaknesses of the Wankel, that is shorter life expectancy and inferior mileage, are minimized in this application, while its strength, compactness and high power-to-weight ratio, are exploited to the max.
Plus, you get to drive a rotary! For car nuts, that’s a big plus right there.
What do you Oppos think?
Pictures:
RX-7: Bring a Trailer
Wankel engine: Science Time by beehivedoom on Imgur
Volt: PC World
