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Comment by beAbU | Hacker News Reader

Haven't watched the video yet, but is this anormal hybrid setup, maybe with independant power, diesel to the rear wheels, and electric to the front?

Or is this a diesel-electric in the sense of trains and mining haul trucks: diesel engine -> generator -> power transmission -> traction motors -> wheels.

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I'm not sure why you wouldn't watch the video before asking a question that you yourself imply is probably answered in the video.

It's an innocent enough question. I don't have 40 minutes to watch it now, and the answer will determine if I bother to watch it at all later today.

It's a long watch for sure, and it's just laying out the plan. To answer your question, basically they want to build locomotive style kits (diesel power, electric drive train), except with the addition of batteries. So, 3.6L Caterpillar diesel (next year) to generator, with smallish batteries and two electric drive axles, and probably update dashboards depending on the kit. Cool plan, but if you don't have 40 minutes now, I'd wait and watch later in the year as they release more and talk about the build process.

Thanks for the insights. This is interesting. This is why I will end up keeping an eye on it. I'm interested to see how they managed to scale down yet retain the effeciency. They've replaced a transmission and drive train with a generator, power transmission, electric motors and batteries. Maybe a 10x increase in weight. I'm curios if this is going to be a success or not.

My guess is that it's not that significant of an increase in weight. They're removing everything including the axles, and putting in their own. Guestimating based on the video, I'd say each motor+axle weights similarly to a transmission, the engine is a lot smaller but add the generator, that's probably a wash. Batteries, they're planning to be small and cheap (because they have a generator), so lets guess 20kwh, so maybe 300lbs in batteries. Fuel tank stays, drive shaft is out. So, basically a total increase of one transmission (150lbs) and 300lbs worth of batteries, so 450lbs in all. Definitely heavier, but I think it's a far cry from 10x. 2x would be my guess, which seems well within the realm of reasonability

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