Sen. Obama has released
a list of all of the earmarks he has requested. I have not made it through the entire list yet, but this one seems like a waste to me.
It doesn't take much to produce a gain in the accelertion of a Humvee. They weren't designed to be accelerate fast. Their purpose is to pull stuff, which requires torque not speed. An eight year old pushing it from the back bumper could probably double the acceleration :) As for fuel efficiency, all I can say is good luck. If the vehicles are stuck on a FOB in Iraq or Afghanistan, they will likely never go above 10 mph. If their on a military base here in the states, they don't do much over 30 mph. At those speeds, you aren't burning fuel efficiently and not much is going to change that. The biggest waste of fuel in military vehicles is idling time. It's nothing to sit with the engine running for hours before going on a 1 hour convoy in Iraq. Sure don't get any benefit from batteries in that situation. I just can't see this program being very effective given how Humvees are driven/used. Hopefully it will not get pushed down the DoD's throat.
Obama Requested $2 Million And Helped Secure $1 Million For HUMVEE Hybrid Electronic Conversion Technology. In 2006, Obama requested $2 million and helped secure $1 million for HUMVEE Hybrid Electronic Conversion Technology work at the Illinois Institute of Technology. This project seeks to apply the existing expertise of the Illinois Institute of Technology in the field of hybrid vehicle systems to develop a cost effective conversion kit to retrofit U.S. Army HMMWV ("Humvee") vehicles with electric hybrid systems. Prototype work suggests such retrofits will produce gains in vehicle acceleration and fuel efficiency of over 50%. Moreover, the conversions can be accomplished in a highly cost effective manner. [House Report 109-676 (109th Congress); Obama Request Letter To The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, 2006]
It doesn't take much to produce a gain in the accelertion of a Humvee. They weren't designed to be accelerate fast. Their purpose is to pull stuff, which requires torque not speed. An eight year old pushing it from the back bumper could probably double the acceleration :) As for fuel efficiency, all I can say is good luck. If the vehicles are stuck on a FOB in Iraq or Afghanistan, they will likely never go above 10 mph. If their on a military base here in the states, they don't do much over 30 mph. At those speeds, you aren't burning fuel efficiently and not much is going to change that. The biggest waste of fuel in military vehicles is idling time. It's nothing to sit with the engine running for hours before going on a 1 hour convoy in Iraq. Sure don't get any benefit from batteries in that situation. I just can't see this program being very effective given how Humvees are driven/used. Hopefully it will not get pushed down the DoD's throat.
