Crazy Idea

b-white

b-white

New member
So I had this crazy idea a few days ago and I wanted to put it out there to see what you all thought.

What would you say to a hybrid JK. I am thinking about swapping the standard drivetrain with an electric drivetrain. The Jeep would be driven by electric motors only and there would be a small gas engine to charge the batteries. I am no tree hugger and I dont' want to do this for mother earth. Electric motors produce awesome amounts of torque instantly. I know that every one dreams about throwing in a hemi under the hood because power. I thought that an electric drive would be an interesting alternative, also with a gas sipper for a generator, you can go farther.

The down side is that you don't get the awesome noise on a huge engine, but if you really want that, there's an app for that. I am sure there is a couple of other down sides but nothing that couldn't be worked out.

What do you think? Is this something you all would be interested in seeing done?
 
It would definitely be interesting... If the generators would actually keep you charged for the several hundred mile across the desert runs and not leave you stranded...

It would also be cool to see what you could do for weight distribution.. You could possibly Have a super lightweight front end for awesome handling at high speeds.. And I'm not familiar with electric motors, but do they not need transfercases and transmissions etc?
That would leave a great place for the batteries to keep a low center of gravity!

Does seem a little hippie tho


05 Tj, long arm, one ton, lockers, winches, 39.5" Iroks
 
I am interested in this. It would be really cool to see how you would go about designing it and making it work. I believe that it would be in some ways better than having a gas motor because the power is instant. As far as David was saying I believe you would have to run electric motors on each wheel to get rid of any kind of transmission or transfer case. I am no expert at all on this but I do think it would be really cool to see it be done. Eventually we wont be using gas anymore so why not get started ahead of the game.
 
By the time you got an electric motor strong enough and all the batteries required to cover the current draw of a motor large enough to move the Jeep, you might as well use it as a paperweight cuz it would be heavy as fuck.
 
Getting serious for a second here,
There is all kinds of technology out there right now for electric vehicles. Look at what Toyota and Tesla are doing. The problems lie in the batteries right now. They are very expensive and heavy.

I used to drive a 48V golf cart all day. The thing has 8 batteries in it. When we decided it was time to get new batteries we loaded them into the back of our Jeep Comanche pickup and it was really squatted down.
At first I thought it was just because these were older Trojan brand one but the new Costco specials were just as bad.

With the batteries out of this golf cart it is very light. You can push it all over the shop easily by yourself. Put the batteries in and the thing is very heavy. (The only experience I have working on electric vehicles)

I wish you luck on your experiment. There are all kinds of books out there where folks have done electric conversions and offer up advise. In one book I read the guy converted a Porsche 911 over.

The time is coming. Yeah we have got a lot of fossil fuel right now but I can see a time where we may not be able to get it in the quantity we have got it now.
 
I think electric and hybrid cars have bad rap. Most people view them as weak ecocraps. I drove my sisters prius for 6 months, hey it was a free car when I had none, and that thing made me hate driving. The thing is that they don't need to be. Check this out for example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_cRqcbXAs4, start at 6:20, its about a Les Mans race car but I think you will see the point I am trying to make. Funny thing is that most people don't realize that these electric cars are worse for the environment than dinosaur drinkers are.

crowrb29 that's cool that Jeep tried this out once, and they made the good point about the weigh. You are basically swapping out the weight of the big engine with a small engine and some batteries.

The other thing is you do not need a full suit of batteries for range just enough get you going and the engine will take care of recharging it. And with that you can lower the CG of the entire vehicle by placing the batteries between the frame rails, making you much more stable rock climbing.

I will reiterate that the point isn't about a low the carbon footprint. The point would be awesome amounts of power instantly and over a wide range of RPMs.

There are few different ways I see doing this. I could reuse the standard transmission and create an adapter to connect the electric motor to the transmission. One motor might be enough but I could couple two in parallel as well. I could also remove the transmission and run the a motor directly to the each dif. Or remove all difs and run 4 motors, but then you are basically giving up your solid axles and going with independent suspension, which is going too far imo. Also the more you remove the more complex your computer needs to be to be able to control everything.

As for you wanting a vagina, OverlanderJK, I am not sure what that has to do with this discussion :bleh:.
 
I also think this is an interesting idea and would like to see it done. I think its very doable but you will have the same "problems" that all the electric cars, mostly the range, and for us that's a more important factor since we might be miles out in the desert/forest. But like you are emphasizing, the torque and power to the wheels is instantaneous which I would love to see how it would perform offroad. There was recently the first ever electric powered monster truck relieved and it seemed pretty effective. Also, what Telsa has done has seriously pushed the electric car up the food chain. If this is done right it may take some time to catch on for sure, I mean I don't think I'd want one at least not right away, but I'd still be interested in seeing it done and how it performs. Way to be thinking outside the box and funny, I thought Overlander already had a vag :confused:

The Force will be with you.... always
 
It would be an interesting idea to see done.
But there's enough hybrids in my family.. My sister has a Prius C, and Both my brother and mom have a Prius 5..
Gotta have one car that is worth it to use the Smith's Fuel rewards on..
 
Is this a pipe dream, or something you are really considering to do? Are you a fabricator/mechanic or have a ton of money at your disposal? Either way I hope you do what no one else(that I know of) has done before!
 
If you could get a brushless motor big enough , take one from the Rc crawlers go motor on axle, one running the front axle, one on the rear, issue with brushless, they don't like water , brushed motors can be used wet. As for batteries again take one from the Rc world, go lipo or the life( I think that's what they are called) less the half the wight and more power.
 
^i think you're thinking of litium-ion. Way lighter and last longer, hold a charge better etc..


05 Tj, long arm, one ton, lockers, winches, 39.5" Iroks
 
David1tontj said:
^i think you're thinking of litium-ion. Way lighter and last longer, hold a charge better etc..


05 Tj, long arm, one ton, lockers, winches, 39.5" Iroks
Click to expand...

Yeah that's it, I still have a couple crawlers but haven't stayed up on them the last few years.
 
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