As fuel prices climb and people switch to more fuel efficient vehicles, millions of gas guzzling pickups, SUVs, and vans will still be on American roads for many years, even decades. The average age of American vehicles is about 10 years, and quite serviceable vehicles with over 150,000 or even 200,000 miles on their odometers are no longer a rarity. Pickups will still be needed on the worksite, and SUVs and vans will still be needed to carry large families.
Billions of gallons of fossil fuels could be saved if it was possible to dramatically increase the fuel economy of the hundreds of millions of fuel inefficient vehicles that will be around for quite awhile. That’s what Chicago-based Hybrid Electric Vehicle Technologies (HEVT) is attempting to do with its plug-in hybrid electric conversion kit.
HEVT recently unveiled this technology in a Ford F-150 pickup retrofitted to operate as a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV). It’s great choice, since for years the F-150 has been America’s best-selling vehicle and there are literally millions of these pickups that could be converted. How important is this? HEVT claims that the economy of the standard engine in the F-150 is increased from about 16 mpg to 41 mpg in a typical day’s driving.
The technology is a scaled-down version of the drivetrain HEVT has developed for transit buses. HEVT’s Adaptive Control Unit (ACU) uses sophisticated electronics and software to control the hybrid drivetrain. An electric motor-generator is integrated with the existing drivetrain through a modified differential for electric traction. The ACU controls the electric motor and gasoline engine to optimize fuel economy and performance. An in-dash display unit monitors performance, indicating the charge remaining in the 12 kW-hour battery pack and the energy recovered through regenerative braking.
[via - Green Car]