Tech Talk

For those of you who can't live without my little rants (you may want to seek professional help for that) I apologize. The last couple of weeks I have been preoccupied with Mass Effect 3. But now that I have a moment, I thought I'd get away from politics and religion to discuss some interesting upcoming technologies.

As a geek, and before my laptop took a dive, I would check out Sci-Fi's (I refuse to call it SyFy) Dvice blog. While most of the time the stories were essentially "ain't this shit cool" yet entirely useless, on occasion I would find stories on things that might actually be useful as well as cool. Here are two such items that are both potentially useful, and would compliment each other perfectly

http://dvice.com/archives/2011/03/shock-wave-engi.php

http://dvice.com/archives/2011/04/protean-electri.php

The first is an article about a shock wave driven turbine engine that can run on any combustible, and is about 3.5 times more efficient than current internal combustion engines. While the design isn't all that good for variable speed work, it would make the perfect prime mover for a generator.

The second is about a new concept in electric drive motors for vehicles... mounting them directly to the wheel. The assembly would include brakes, transmission, drive line, etc, all in one tidy little package mounted to each wheel hub. This would open up massive amounts of space in the engine compartment for battery storage as well as, perhaps, the shock-wave generator to keep it charged.

While I don't know if these two groups have ever discussed the idea, I think their projects compliment each other so perfectly it would be insane not to combine them. Especially in light of the fact that current generation hybrids just don't seem to be doing the trick.

In my opinion, the biggest problem auto manufacturers have with making truly effective hybrids and electrics is that they're too busy trying to build them as they would an I.C.E. engine, with the central drive engine or motor (or both) being linked to the wheels by an expansive and highly inefficient series of linkages and gears. If they would simply look at the problem from a different perspective, they might come up with something that is a true quantum leap forward in alternative power plants for vehicles. In this case, a hybrid in which all the gas powered engine does is keep the battery, which is much larger thanks to the drive motors being relocated to the wheels, charged.

Does this make sense to anyone else? Or am I just being a dreamer here?