Military wants a greener replacement for the humvee
In recent years civilian Hummers like the H1 and H2 have become symbols of extravagance and disregard for the environment. While the H2 is essentially a re-bodied version of the last generation Chevy Tahoe, the H1 was a barely civilized version of the military Humvee. The Humvee was developed in the late 1970s as a replacement for the Jeeps that had been used by the military since the second world war. While renowned for its off-road capability, the Humvee has never been very efficient. The official designation of the vehicle is High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle or HMMWV or as it became know the Humvee. The key to that name is the word multi-purpose. The specs set out by the defense department resulted in a vehicle intended to be used for a wide range of tasks that ended up being optimized for none of them. As a result, this is a vehicle that can be used as a general transport, but weighs 2.5 tons (or up to 5 tons if fully armored) but only carries 4 people in base configuration. Even with a diesel engine, the Humvee only gets 4 mpg in urban driving and 8 mpg on the highway. The US defense department spends over $10,000,000,000 a year on fuel cost alone and needs to find ways to reduce its dependence on oil. As part of a drive to reduce energy costs the pentagon is now looking toward a radically redesigned replacement for the Humvee. Given that US military is now spending upwards of $2 billion a week on the war in Iraq, at least in part to try and stabilize the political situation in a region of the world that supplies a large portion of the oil that the military is burning, this needs to be a major priority.
[Source: Detroit News]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jay Rosenberg 11:11PM (2/23/2009)
We have been developing a high efficiency multifuel Diesel replacement. Lighter, cheaper, more robust, better MPG, less thermal signature, longer MTBF, shorter MTBR. How do I contact a decision maker in commercial / Military? CEO, Sannerprojects, Inc Sannerwind@gmail.com
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Ron Fischer 3:24PM (10/06/2006)
If GM introduced it's two-mode hybrid drive in the H2 or H3 Hummers that might show they're serious about hybrids, or at least confident enough that they can make it work for a 'tough image' brand. What would be spectacular is a full serial hybrid H1 with hub motors, allowing even greater ground clearance, per wheel antislip and regenerative braking. Power handling in such a heavy hybrid would be massive. Perhaps they could try a hydraulic hybrid? I'm not convinced about the reliability of those however.
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Peter 4:00PM (10/06/2006)
The US Department of Defense wants to reduce its dependence on oil? Now that is ironic.
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Sam Abuelsamid 4:11PM (10/06/2006)
From both a strategic and economic point of view it does make sense. If they can reduce fuel consumption, it helps to alleviate a lot of supply problems that like those they had during the early part of the Iraq invasion. As for using in-hub motors the problem there is unsprung mass. One of the elements of the humvee design is the indepedant suspension with most of the hardware including the brakes mounted inboard to reduce unsprung mass. Weight at the wheel is the enemy of this type of vehicle where the wheels need to move up and down a lot.
Either the electric or hybrid options would add weight and the usage profile may not benefit from a hybrid. Hybrids work best in stop and go driving where you can get lots of regenerative braking.
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cheezedog420 7:47PM (10/06/2006)
Unsprung wieght should not be a huge issue... A while back PML redid a mini to work on Inhub motors, and gas generator. The finnished weight of the Unsprung wieght was 24 kg over a stock weight of 22.5 kg. Noticably larger... but still vary controlable...
http://www.autoblog.com/2006/07/21/pml-s-mini-qed-boasts-640-in-wheel-electric-horsepower/
Comment 24...
The problem that I have to worry about is not so much sprung wieght... but In a Inhub motor can withstand water forking. a Internal combustion motor can because water is easy to seal out on those units... but a electric motor is much more diffrent...
A simple solution may be to take elements of the Hybride silverado's drivetrain and fit it to a Hummer. May of same solutions can apply since GM provided most of the parts to begine with for the Hummer. Come to think of it... why haven't they Implamented a Hybrid Hummer for slow H2 sales yet?
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1985 Gripen 9:17PM (10/06/2006)
Maybe they can convert the existing HMMWVs to biodiesel (B100) or even SVO/WVO to reduce the "dependence on oil"?
Seems to me a replacement for the HMMWV should not try to be a "jack of all trades". We can see the inefficiency this has wrought. Maybe have various vehicle designs optimized for their particular applications?
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cheezedog420 5:25AM (10/07/2006)
: Maybe they can convert the existing HMMWVs to biodiesel (B100) or even SVO/WVO to reduce the "dependence on oil"?
Probably not in the field, or durring this theator of opperation... But the potential is there... It may only require the army to order more cooking oil over diesel fuel... But that then defiers the energy cost awayfrom the theator, instead of off the army as needed.
Chances are they may upgrade the HUMVEE Transmission to better suit it to its new mission. A commerialy avilable Allison 6 speed automatic transmission might provide enough of fuel economy boost to overcome these difficulties... Its fairly fast and easy since the army has the know how and tools to do it. But all they stand to gain is a Mile or two in gas savings at varying speeds.
Even better would be to add GM T900 serries Hybrid system as seen on some of the Contractor duty issue Silverado pickups. (Yea, GM trucks can be had with Hybrid systems.) It's a gas system, with a relativly small Chevy V8, (compaired to the HumVee Diesel V8, but could probably be added to the GM Diesel system used in the Humvee's with careful modification... This in turn would vastly improve they Humvee's urban range.
: Seems to me a replacement for the HMMWV should not try to be a "jack of all trades". We can see the inefficiency this has wrought. Maybe have various vehicle designs optimized for their particular applications?
Your right. The Humvee is being addapted to problems it can't solve without heavy and expensive modification.
When its doing what its design to do. The Humvee system is unparralled as fast responce unit capablie of delivering a quick hit of heavy firepower, or traveling rough terrain at high speed. But all this urban fighting crap forcing it slow down while driving down narrow residental streets, and depend on armor it does not have for survival. Thats something that was far off its mission profile.
The army knew this, and was working on correcting that issue, but corrections where not made in time for this war.
The army is now moving to put more Striker units in the Iraqie theator. The Strikers are better armored, and better suited for urban patrol missions then Humvees. Exsample, Strikers tend to have a sort of Metal cage system surrounding the armored body. This cage catches RPG round before they hit the armor causing it to explode harmlessly away from the armor.
In the end, The army will saves money, and lives by using the Striker over the Humvee because the Strikers RPG cage system is easy to repair in field, the personaly in the Striker are less likely to be injured, and the Striker is less likely to be taken out of commission.
Still, the Striker unit is a even bigger diesel powered hog then the Humvee. And still must depend on wheels over tracks, which are suspetable to all the same dangers as Humvee wheels where. (The push for development of a Tweel technology will correct that, but thats years away from use, and too late for this war theator.)
In the end, the best solution is of course to get out as fast as possible. This saves suposidly precious fuels, and more precious lives. I could of told you this war was bound for failure years ago when we American decided to invade in the timeframe of less then a year. Preperation for occupation should be for no less then you plan occupy the territory in question.
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MikeW 2:24PM (10/09/2006)
Why would GM bother with hybrid H2 & H3s when all they have to do is put their 6 speed automatic in.
The electric mini does not have any brakes, and the weight comparison was with the MiniOne, and did not say front or rear, runflat or not. So it is not valid.
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lawstudent 2:14PM (10/09/2006)
this idea of saving money by buying new fuel efficient hummers. what a JOKE they pay sooooo much for a hummer for starters why buy another corporate pork barrel excuse of a vehicle.
the DoD needs to talk to the EPA about hydraulic hybrids, they will spend over 150-200k on a future hummer when they could alter the ones they have already for under 1k and save a bunch of money right there.
the armor upgrade kit they sent over to help protect crews cost over around a 100k per vehicle. wTf!
its not fuel they need to save, it is the amount of money they squander on repairs and servicing. heck if they took a hummer to a jiffy lube for an oil change they would save thousands of dollars.
It is hypocritical to say they want to cut costs by replacing hummer with another money sucker. They spend around a million dollars a year servicing these trucks.
the Dod needs to accept bids from foreign manufacturers and then some competition for the contracts would lower the price. this policy of pork barrel local only costs the US taxpayer more. if they were really concerned with saving money then they should begin at the source of all this hypocracy.
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Ryan 3:24PM (10/09/2006)
The challenge the Army faces with replacing the current truck doesn't involve the simple act of replacing an older model with a new one that would otherwise give them no new capability or increased efficiency. The Army does look to foregin companies to compete. EADS own Stewart and Stevenson who manufacture the current medium series trucks the Army owns...but even foreign owned compaies have to build them in the States as required by Federal Law. However, fuel cost reduction and fuel economy are also related to tactical advantage. A hybrid would bring with it an element of stealth. Better fuel economy extends the range of the force. Other factors are that current civilian vehicle offerings are limited for military use (e.g. how much additional structure needs to be added to, say, a Dodge Cummins to accomodate a crew-served weapon system). And from a research standpoint, the military can definately shape the future of alternate fuels. For example, pure hydrogen fuel cell systems would probably not be favored in lieu of ammonia based systems that are less prone to explosion. I think properly done, such projects can both improve current military capability and provide a research stream applicable to daily civilian use.
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