back to article Peugeot preps 4WD diesel hybrid

Peugeot's interesting HYbrid4 diesel hybrid 4WD system - previously known as HYmotion4 - has made the leap from the drawing board and concept car to prototype production in preparation for it hitting the streets in the summer of 2011. HYbrid4 will first see the light of day in Peugeot's new 3008 Crossover, the petrol- and …

COMMENTS

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  1. Paul Kench

    The battery won't go flat in 4wd mode....

    The engine will charge it, so you'll just have a slightly lower power 4wd.

  2. Paul Murphy

    Looks good - no plug-in though?

    Seems to hit all the right buttons, except it can't be recharged from the mains, which is a shame.

    I guess it would also be nice if people were planning for fuel cell use, so swappable components would be an idea, though of course a car manufacturers motives are more about selling vehicles than they are about the customers long-term needs.

    What else? induction charging and/or plug-in ... air con and toys, range and speed would be useful to know.

    oh and price.

    ttfn

  3. Steve

    flatt battery when off-road

    Off-road you're likely to be pottering fairly slowly ( i.e. not 100+ MPH) so I would guess that the diesel will have enough spare power to keep the rear motor driven, at least to some extent. It's an interesting design, and while I've always found Peugeots to have horribly uncomfortable seats, they do have some good diesel engineers.

  4. Ben Boyle
    Thumb Up

    And surprisingly for a hybrid

    it's not totally fugly

  5. Luis Ogando
    Go

    Not just off-road, y'know

    "Though, like most soft-road vehicles, the 3008 Crossover is probably no more likely be driven up a mountain than it is to be driven on Mars."

    True, but all the 4x4 cars I've driven have been so much better in icy and wet conditions and only twice have I ever tried to drive one up the side of a mountain!!

    Now, if the 'leccy bit was used as primary drive for reversing, that would be good.

  6. Michael Smith

    Needs a motor and a generator

    Unlike other hybrids where the entire drive line is in the front of the car, so that the generator can be mechanically coupled to the IC engine.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: Needs a motor and a generator

    Whilst pondering your bizarre claim, it occurred to me that it doesn't even need an electrical coupling to the IC engine since the batts could be charged from the motion of the rear wheels...

  8. lasersage

    more leccy rubbish

    68mpg isn't amazing to begin with but I don't really understand...

    "or to cut fuel consumption on the open road"

    how does lugging around an extra weight of batteries and motor cut fuel consumption on the open road? Surely you don't need four wheel drive on the open road, and if you consider a very long straight, constant speed open road I really can't see the benefit of lugging all this kit around.

    Granted if you've just built up some charge breaking here and there, then the road opens up then there might be something in it, but cruise for a hundred miles or more and I'll bet you're just lugging dead weight

  9. Andrew Tyler

    @ Micheal Smith

    I don't see any reason why the generator can't be in front. All you'd need to do is run a wire to the back. I do wonder why only the back brakes use regenerative power though. You'd think the fronts, which do most of the braking by a good margin, would give better results. Since I can assume their engineers know better than I do, there must be a good reason for it, but I'd be interested to know why if anyone can fill me in.

  10. Matthew Brown

    Nice, but...

    Come on Pug, put this technology in the 308 RC and then I'll be impressed.

  11. JohnG

    Off-Road and batteries

    If it is anything like the Prius, it will aim to keep the batteries at about 2/3 charged, so it would take a while to drain. If the batteries are running low, the motor will be run at higher revs to add charge - some power to the wheels, some to the electric motor and some to the battery pack. Some of the Lexus range and the Toyota Estima also gain 4WD from the electric motors.

    The Peugeot looks quite interesting.

  12. Anton Ivanov
    Thumb Up

    Re: Needs a motor and a generator

    It needs a much less complex transmission. The weight savings especially in a 4-wheel drive car are likely to be quite significant. Keep it simple and stupid. I am not a Peugeot fan, but I have to admit, I like the design.

  13. Andy

    Like this....

    Normally a car like this would be, hideous, crap, awful to live with and have very little ecological benefits compared to a small run-around 'tin can' with stupid-skinny tyres.

    People are going to love this car when our French neighbours launch it.

    I swore I would never drive a French car until I tried my g/f''s 309 estate, what a revelation!

    The French have managed to corner the market in this sector and provided jobs, space to develop ideas, nurture training and in turn guarantee a future of their industry.

    It's a shame that we have no manufacturing base in the UK that could follow their lead.

    We used to have a country full of clever, innovative people in the mechanical engineering sector.

    Are you reading this you short-sighted bunch of publicity-seeking, expenses-fiddling, short-sighted, political twunts?

  14. Chika
    Coat

    @Ben Boyle

    "And surprisingly for a hybrid

    ...it's not totally fugly"

    You jest! Pugs have been becoming blobbier and fuglier since the demise of the 306, especially with the habit they now have of putting an ever larger logo on the nose.

    The power idea is a good one, but Peugeot haven't had a decent idea on car styling since the turn of the century!

  15. Mike
    Alert

    What about battery life ?

    One interesting subject that never seems to get mentioned in all this talk of electric cars is Lithium Ion battery pack life (& servicing).

    The crux of it is that Lithium Ion batteries (and others) have a shelf life regardless of how much they are used. Apparently if they are stored at 20C & 100% charge then on average they will loose 20% capacity per year. This loss is speeded up with temperature. But based on this you'd probably be looking at a whole new battery pack after 3 years or maybe 4. If a Li-Ion laptop battery pack costs maybe £60 I dred to think how much a big electric car battery would cost to buy & replace every few years? Might write off the car quite quickly - especially the cheaper cars. Then there is the small point of waste & efficientsy (co2 etc) regarding the disposal & replacement of all those batteries.

    Here is a link to the battery info: http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm

    Just a thought...

  16. Lozzyho
    Thumb Up

    Nice one Peugeot

    Does look good - and 68mpg out of a 200bhp car is pretty darn good. The 136bhp variant of the same engine is fantastically smooth to drive, WAY quieter and cleaner than the equivalent Audi/VW engine.

  17. Colin Miller

    automatic engine start/stop?

    Can the generator act as a motor? Or will it swap between RWD and 4WD as it automatically turns the diesel engine on and off?

    That could introduce some *interesting[1]* handling issues.

    [1] As in "oh God, we'll all going to die" - Hoban Washburne

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    Not "quite literally" at all

    The 4WD system is still there - it's not lost - just not powered on.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Rear wheel brake charging?

    Everyone knows that the front wheels do the powerful braking. Thats why old cars used to have front disks and rear drums. Because what's on the rear hardly matters.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Maybe I'm missing something here.....

    ....but considering conservation of energy isn't some of the power output from the diesel engine being used to charge the battery? This electrical power is used to drive and electric motor.

    Are there not energy loses in wiring resistance and motor bearing frictions?

    Doesn't this ultimately waste some of the energy in the diesel?

    Wouldn't a smaller engine in a lighter car (no battery and electic motor to lug about) not be a better solution?

    I never did very well at physics A-level, so perhaps someone could explain that all to me.

  21. Iain

    and it handles like........

    a drunken sailor I expect with, to all intents and purposes, a random variation of power to front and rear.

    So that'll be like most other 4WD banana wagons then.

    As long as they don't try putting this in a real car that's fine with me

  22. Peter Townsend

    Rear wheel regenerative breaking

    I'd assume its rear wheel only in order to keep the two parts of the system separate - if you had front wheel regenerative breaking presumably you would need a generator up front to convert motion into energy?

  23. WinHatter
    Thumb Down

    Plain stupid.

    1st why a bloody SUV

    2nd why regenerative braking at the rear when 70% of the braking energy is dissipated at the front.

    Looks like the once outdated Yank rear wheel drive is now at the front of the progress.

  24. Jonathan Hogg

    Re: Rear wheel brake charging?

    > Everyone knows that the front wheels do the powerful braking. Thats why old cars used to have front disks and rear drums. Because what's on the rear hardly matters.

    Regenerative braking isn't and cannot be used for "powerful" braking. It's only used when the car is slowing. As such, there's no reason not to use a hybrid braking system where current is drawn out of the rear wheels motor when the brakes are gently applied (or just when your foot is taken off of the accelerator) and then the actual brakes applied as you press harder.

    If you need to stop a car then there is no substitute for traditional braking.

  25. Danny

    nice idea

    It is a nice idea that can probably be retrofitted to other designs quite easily. Its like KERS for modern cars :) need a boost overtaking?

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Regenerative at the rear?

    what all of 15% of braking force.. friggin useless pile of crap.

  27. David Beck
    Unhappy

    Toyota Highlander?

    Why do I read this and think of an unpowered Toyota Highlander Hybrid? (not sold in the UK)

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Regenerative braking: greenwash

    So little energy is recovered by regenerative braking that it doesn't matter how ineffectively you implement it - so long as you say you've got it then everyone will talk about it as if it will save the world, and waste their money on buying the car. Greenwash.

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