Hybrid vehicles have been with us for a while now and it seems they will get more and more common all over the world in the coming years. At least until full-electric vehicles solve their range and power station problems.

If you take a look at car markets, you will be surprised to find that all hybrid vehicles on sale today use petrol-electric drive. This happens even if diesel engines are proven to be more efficient, produce more torque, have better gas mileage and tend to be more durable. Diesels also have lower carbon dioxide emissions than gasoline engines. So why are there no diesel-electric hybrids on sale? Well, they would be more expensive to build.

Two-mode hybrid vehicles have two powertrains, one internal combustion and one electric. The electric portion is the expensive one, largely because of the cost of the big, powerful and special battery it must use. If you add a diesel to the equation, which is far more expensive than a gasoline unit, you get two high-cost powertrains on one chassis. On the other hand, diesels are often noisier, harder to start in cold weather and generate more particulate matter and nitrogen oxides.

Even in Europe, where diesel cars form about half the new-car sales, diesel prices are not equal with gasoline engines. And since a diesel has to endure significantly bigger operating pressures than gasoline units, the engine itself has to be much more solidly built. On paper, a diesel electric hybrid could bring together the best of both worlds. But what happens in real life?

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: diesel, Diesel Hybrid, Hybrid, Hybrid technology, petrol-electric drive, POWERTRAIN