Making electricity for mostly electric drive?

Anybody know the best, most efficient way to convert liquid fuels to electricity? Hybrid cars that can run on just electricity until they need a recharge and then engage a motor/generator set to produce more electricity to keep moving and recharge the batteries seem highly useful to me.

I've been interested in such Hybrid electric cars since the 70's when I worked at GM as an Industrial Engineer and sketched together a schematic for one. I couldn't get any of my management interested then...and GM is showing litte interest in electric vehicles now.

I've read that Gas Turbines are the lightest, most compact and most efficient at a particular speed. Seems ideal for this sort of Hybrid design. Anyone know about this?

Re: Best way to make electricity? Parallel hybrid?

I may be mistaken, but I think you and others may be confused on your nomenclature. Check here, here and here.

Dan

Re: Best way to make electricity? Parallel hybrid?

PercaDan said: I may be mistaken, but I think you and others may be confused on your nomenclature.

I think you are right!

I've edited the post!

Re: Best way to make electricity? Parallel hybrid?

I don't see much (any?) discussion of grid-rechargeability of the parallel Hybrid configuration. In my way of thinking, that is the main reason to consider them.

Here is the guy who does them today, and does them extremely well.

http://www.evworld.com/databases/storybuilder.cfm?storyid=504

[ QUOTE ]

Carmaker's like Honda and Toyota have stressed in their advertising messages that you don't have to plug in their hybrids to recharge them. This is intended to assuage consumer misconceptions that the car will not run if it runs out of electricity even though it has a gasoline engine.

From Frank's perspective -- and many battery electric car drivers and California regulators -- this may have helped sell cars, but it fails to point out that plugging in your car at night actually can save you a LOT of money! Dr. Frank estimates you can run a plug-in hybrid for the equivalent of 50 cents a gallon of gasoline! Gasoline in California, he noted, is now over $2 a gallon and climbing. He says that the plug-in hybrid will run just fine without plugging it in, consumers just have to buy more gasoline.

[/ QUOTE ]

Replace the "actually can save you a LOT of money" with "actually can save a LOT of energy and pollution" and you have the main reason I like this system best.

Oooh, but I'm getting off-topic, I see. Sorry!