AUTONEWS

Towards electric trucks, it is better to exchange diesel for a flex engine

Hybrid Trucks
As electric cars advance into the market rapidly, there has been a huge effort to define how to make electric or even hybrid trucks.
Getting rid of diesel trucks is problematic for a number of reasons, but above all because engines are too expensive and batteries steal precious cargo space.
MIT engineers in the US believe they have found the ideal roadmap for overcoming these challenges.
For Daniel Cohn and Leslie Bromberg, the trucks of the future should be hybrid, but replacing the diesel engine with a gasoline or ethanol engine.
The concept involves the use of a hybrid engine system in which the truck is powered mainly by batteries and driven by electric motors.
But a spark-ignition engine, like that of cars - the diesel engine works by compression - would allow trucks to travel the same distances as today's conventional diesel trucks, that is, there would be no loss of autonomy.

Flex-electric truck
While not denying that the ultimate goal is to power trucks entirely with batteries, the researchers say this hybrid and flex option could provide a way to overcome concerns about battery life, cost or overweight - from 10 to 15 tonnes. of batteries for a standard truck.
In addition, using a flex configuration that allows them to run on gasoline, ethanol, methanol or a mixture of these, these engines have the potential to emit less greenhouse gases than diesel engines and even pure gasoline engines. The incremental cost to make them flexible from a fuel point of view is very small.
Cohn and Bromberg made a detailed analysis of the engineering and economic aspects involved in developing a flex truck engine to meet the needs of carriers under real operating conditions.
Computer modeling of a full range of engine characteristics, combined with the screening of results using an artificial intelligence system, provided clear indications of the most promising avenues and showed that replacing the diesel engine with a flex-electric hybrid set is indeed practical. and financially viable.

Bibliography:
Flex Fuel Gasoline-Alcohol Engine for Near Zero Emissions Plug-In Hybrid Long-Haul Trucks