My kind of Hybrid...640hp, 0-60=4.5 sec.,AWD, 150mph, 80mpg and 900+ miles range.....
A British engineering firm has put together a high-performance hybrid version of BMW's Mini Cooper. The PML Mini QED has a top speed of 150 mph, a 0-60 mph time of 4.5 seconds. The car uses a small gasoline engine with four 160 horsepower electric motors — one on each wheel. The car has been designed to run for four hours of combined urban/extra urban driving, powered only by a battery and bank of ultra capacitors. The QED supports an all-electric range of 200-250 miles and has a total range of about 932 miles (1,500 km). For longer journeys at higher speeds, a small conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) is used to re-charge the battery. In this hybrid mode, fuel economies of up to 80mpg can be achieved.

Explains Martin Boughtwood, PML’s MD: “Until now, most electric vehicles have been little more than souped-up milk floats, limited by range and speed, with compromised performance. For those with a green conscience who also value an enhanced motoring experience, there is still something missing.

“Working in partnership with our customer, Synergy Innovations, we set out to demonstrate what our electric wheel technology is capable of. We simply took a standard BMW Mini One, discarded the engine, the disc brakes, the wheels, and the gearbox. These components were replaced by four of our electric wheels, a lithium polymer battery, a large ultra capacitor, a very small ICE with generator (so small it almost fits alongside the spare wheel), an energy management system and a sexy in-car display module.”

The benefits of PML in-wheel drive technology are;

* It is adaptable to other vehicle chassis
* It eliminates the need for gearing and mechanical drive train
* It allows more space inside the car

The vehicle has three driver-selectable modes of operation:

* Eco mode for town/city frequent start-stop driving;
* Normal mode for daily commuting and ICE- equivalent operation, and
* Sport mode for super car performance.

Other notable features include:

* No (mechanical) brakes means returned energy!

All braking is performed by the wheel motors acting as very efficient electrical generators which return almost all of the energy back to the battery system. The beauty of this dual-circuit, ultra safe system is that your green conscience can be quite content even when accelerating hard, since you are assured of collecting most of the expended energy when it is time to slow down rapidly.
ABS as standard – even when accelerating

Because the wheels are high performance motors, ABS comes as a standard function built into each wheel’s software. Now anti-skid can also be applied to acceleration since the motor can smoothly control torque delivery to/from the road in both cases. Flooring the brake or accelerator hard merely results in controlled maximum torque, giving the shortest possible stopping or acceleration time.
Clever wheels

The technology eliminates the need for crude differential gears to share power between left and right sides. The wheels are in constant communication with each other deciding 1000 times each second how much torque share is optimum for the current driving conditions. Should one wheel detect a slippery surface and take appropriate anti-skid actions, the other wheels are aware of this instantly and adopt an appropriate compensating strategy to keep the vehicle as stable as possible.
640 brake horsepower – for life!

Each wheel develops 160bhp - 640bhp in total. The original Mini One develops less than 100bhp with an engine that weighs nearly double the weight of the four electric wheels! Apart from wheel bearings there are no wearing parts in the electric wheels; this means the horsepower stays for the life of the vehicle - and beyond.

As the battery level reduces, the rear mounted ICE/generator starts to automatically top up the battery. So when you arrive at your destination you can simply park the vehicle knowing that when you return the battery will be replenished. Alternatively you can take advantage of lower cost mains electricity and plug in to recharge. So you never need to worry about battery capacity or how to recharge. During operation, as the battery level falls the generator cuts in, enabling an average speed of 60 – 70mph to be sustained with no further battery depletion.



http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006...ybrid_mini.php

 

The motors-in wheels layout is what soalr car teams have been using forever (I was on a team in college) and it's a great setup. Tons of torque and no efficiency lost to friction from a mechanical drivetrain. And with 4 you have just about the best AWD system possible. I'm actually quite suprised nobody's gone this route yet, would seem to make all kinds of sense.

 

Coolest mini ive ever seen.

 

GM has had a concept/test platform something like that.
The whole plan was to have one fully electric chassis that could be
underneath any body you wanted. Don't think they had the motors on the wheels though.

Would like to see the Bimmer design in action on a bigger vehicle..

 

Agreed. Simply the most efficient way to power the wheels...directly.

The hybrid solution is a bit of a scam, however, and nothing more than a temporary stopgap. We need to be planning for a time when fossil fuels are no longer available/feasible for personal transportation.

 

Mitsubishi had a 4 wheel motor version of the lancer running around a couple years ago.
http://www.worldcarfans.com/2050824.001/1.html
The hybrid FSAE car I built last year at school had some similar ideas. It was a series hybrid like this, with a motor for each of the rear wheels, although we had a belt driven CVT between the motor and wheel. I've finished at that school, but i know they were working on a regen braking system for this year, so i'm hoping they end up putting a motor at each of the front wheels, coupled to an ultracapacitor. An ultracap would be good at absorbing a lot of the braking energy more quickly than a battery, and then dishing it out really quick for hard acceleration out of the turns. But it seems like this has already been pulled off in this Mini.

I actually just happened to be looking at this car the other day. 640hp is pretty extreme, i would definitely settle for a 150hp version of this thing if it was at a reasonable price. I'm pretty sure this is one of those vehicles a company builds to showcase certain technologies, not exactly meant to go on the market, but it shows that some pretty awesome things can be done wwith some of these compact motors.

 

but see that's what's cool about this kind of a hybrid (plug-in, series). Its the perfect transition from traditional drive trains to electric. Turn off that generator and it simply is a pure EV lugging around some useless extra weight. Its just there for the few times you actually need to go beyond the range of your batteries. But if we build vehicles like this, as the battery technology gradually improves, you can downsize the gas engine, until people start deciding they can do fine with just the electrical range without burning any gas at all (quite possibly forced by scarcity driven fuel costs). Smoothe transition to a new type of transportation without any huge infrastructure changes like hydrogen pumping stations and stuff like that.

 

I truly think that when we are all driving electric cars they will be "Full Hybrids" like this car. Locomotives have been diesel/electrics for years (the diesel generator makes the power for the electric drive motors).

If you have a "pancake" motor at every wheel you have all wheel drive with no wasteful drive shafts, cv joints and transfer cases. With the right software you have anti-lock braking (with NO need for brakes), stability control and traction control!! With the motors in the wheels, no transmission or transfer case you have more passenger, cargo room or room for more batteries.

There are 3 companies that have developed L-ion batteries that have twice the capacity of current L-ion batteries and can handle much higher temperatures than current L-ion batteries. These batteries will be rechargeable in under 1 hour. As batteries get better you rely less and less on the ICE (internal combustion motor) generator. If the ICE is run on E85 fuel you get an equivatent of 500 mpg of gasoline (only 15% gasoline in each gallon).

I read a study that said if 25% of all cars registered were 100 mpg Hybrids we would never have to buy Imported Oil again!

 

640 hp and top speed of 150 mph well it is a hybrid. thats awesome tohugh!

 

I was always hoping this hybrid would go into production, but it doesn't look like it will:

http://www.seriouswheels.com/cars/to...ta-Concept.htm

 

To build on what Doug stated, I saw soemthing on Discovery Channel that used compressed air to run a mortor that looked like a minature ICE to create electrcity for the batteries. So using your own air compressor at home you could charge your car competely without gas. You would have an air powered car that never used gas and still make 600+ HP. I don't think it will be too long before we have more options.

I hate to suggest it but I'd love to try out something like they did with the Mini on a reproduction Mustang Body and Carbon Fiber body panels to keep the wieght down just to get people used to thinking sporty/fast cars don't have to use gas, and really who's going to complain about a 600+ hp mustang no matter what it uses for fuel.