@Grease Monkey

"Firstly develop a sense of humour (or failing that a knowledge of popular culture) before you get on your high horse. The joke goes: "Yes, I am serious and don't call me Shirley." "

OK fine you were making a joke, but there's nothing wrong with my sense of humour., and yes I have seen the Steve Martin sketches, however your use of the joke was pretty bad to be fair, as the joke is in Frank Drebin's misunderstanding of "surely / Shirley" not in the actual saying of it.

I'm sorry if you took offence at my comment - but I get so used to people using terrible English on here, you can understand my reaction. Also, I didn't resort to insults as you did. Perhaps you should grow a thicker skin, or learn to tell jokes better - for example by finishing them.

ANYWAY

"And you can achieve the same constant rpm using a mechanical variable drive, usually known as CVT."

You are correct in theory, but CVTs are piss poor for higher power applications - i.e. in any thing much heavier than a Ford Fiesta, or anything that you want to get from 0-60 in less than a week. This is because they can't handle the torque - generally speaking. Newer CVTs are coming out, but they still won't be as efficient as a serial hybrid, and they are horrendously expensive.

Also, an engine with CVT may be running at 1 or 2 set RPMs, but the load will vary. Engne->Generator is constant load, constant rpm and it only needs to run when the battery is low, or in some implementations, when an extra burst of power is required.

"Driving a generator will in itself take a certain amount of energy, you are converting energy from one form to another and that always involves losses. You are then converting it back again which will involve more losses."

Yes there are losses (tiny ones) in running a generator, but in the hybrid you are envisioning, you are running a generator AND running a transmission. Transmissions, even CVTs and IVTs are not nearly as efficient as a serial setup.

"There is also the fact that lugging around the weight of a generator and electric motors is going to make the whole car heavier than a conventional setup which will also reduce the efficiency."

Eh? You still need motors, batteries and a generator in a parallel hybrid.

A parallel also needs a far more powerful engine as it has to physically move the car, whereas the serial only need to generate electricity at a constant rate - and (excluding generation loss) NONE of the energy it generates is wasted. With serial hybrids you can also use in-wheel motors, which can also act as generators, so you don't need separate regenerative braking systems. So in fact, a serial hybrid is much lighter than a parallel

"My original point was that there is a headlong rush towards EVs without any real thought and so many of the ideas in use really need to be investigated more fully. The best bet would be to stop all development and have some thinking time. Unfortunately the nature of business means that this is unlikely to happen and a lot of blind alleys will be needlessly explored. Which is hardly an efficient way of doing things."

An interesting point, however that is what vehicle designers are paid to do. And development has been going on for years. The industry has already pretty much split into 3 camps: Electric only, Parallel Hybrid, and Serial Hybrid.

Personally I thing Serial hybrids are the way forward because they are so simple. Electric Only is currently no good unless you're buying it as a second car due to low range and long recharge times, and Parallel hybrids are overly complicated.

@DRendar

Firstly develop a sense of humour (or failing that a knowledge of popular culture) before you get on your high horse. The joke goes: "Yes, I am serious and don't call me Shirley."

And you can achieve the same constant rpm using a mechanical variable drive, usually known as CVT. You will find that these are less fuel efficient than a manual transmission, because more energy is lost in the transmission.

Driving a generator will in itself take a certain amount of energy, you are converting energy from one form to another and that always involves losses. You are then converting it back again which will involve more losses. There is also the fact that lugging around the weight of a generator and electric motors is going to make the whole car heavier than a conventional setup which will also reduce the efficiency.

Diesel electric locos and indeed earth moving kit do not use this arrangement for any reasons of efficiency. They use it because a conventional transmission could not cope with the loads, at least not without being huge and prohibitively complex. There are diesel hydraulic locos out there, but these tend to be more expensive to make and maintain than diesel electrics although they do have other advantages. There are also some diesel railcars which use more conventional transmissions, but these are generally capable of only hauling light loads.

My original point was that there is a headlong rush towards EVs without any real thought and so many of the ideas in use really need to be investigated more fully. The best bet would be to stop all development and have some thinking time. Unfortunately the nature of business means that this is unlikely to happen and a lot of blind alleys will be needlessly explored. Which is hardly an efficient way of doing things.