GM could have made a plug-in hybrid car 38 years ago
GM was very late to the hybrid car market. They released a mild hybrid in 2006, their first full hybrid will be released in a few months and they plan to release a plug-in hybrid next year. Things could have been a lot different for GM when it came to hybrids. GM was developing a Stirling engine series hybrid concept called Stir-Lec in 1969. The text from a page from a 1969 issue of Car Craft magazine says:
- "While the car's running, the batteries are constantly recharged by a small Stirling engine in the rear."
That car was very experimental but they had a plug-in hybrid commuter car almost ready for production back then as well. In the 1969 issue of Popular Science, a reporter says GM's XP-883 needed "no breakthroughs," just a nod from GM officials for it to go into production. The XP-883 was a plug-in hybrid with that ran on electric power at speeds below 10 mph and even had an option for switch between gas and electric mode. From the article:
- "Wouldn't it be great to have a car that changed from electric drive for use around town to gasoline power for highway driving? Impossible? Impractical? No-GM has built one, and it makes so much sense that we feel they're missing a bet if they don't put it into production."
- "You may think this little hybrid is pretty far advanced, but the fact is, it can be built today. It's not held up because engineers are searching for a breakthrough."
- "You can run the XP-883 either as an all-electric, or with hybrid drive. Even if you select the hybrid, it will run on electric power alone up to 10 m.p.h."
- "In case your batteries run down, the car is equipped with an on-board charger that can be connected to an external 115-volt AC source."
- "But whether, and when, you'll drive one is something GM chiefs haven't made up their minds about yet."
I wonder what technology GM has in their labs today? It looks like they just dusted off the Volt from technology sitting in their labs for decades. Will we have to wait another 38 years to find out?
[Source: Make]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ug 5:28PM (9/07/2007)
I don't blame them for not releasing this back in the day. The performance of it is nothing like what you'd get with today's batteries.
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hodad66 8:04PM (9/07/2007)
How about in the late 70's? You remember... when the middle east showed that it could cripple a giant by controlling the oil.
Perhaps we wouldn't be sending our young over there right now if America had shown some foresight!!
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Berkana 4:16AM (9/08/2007)
GM is either evil, or stupid. If they had put their minds to it, and kept the R&D money on this line of development, who knows how far ahead we'd be today.
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A D 9:16AM (9/08/2007)
GM is neither but the posters on this board sure like to be misled.
You want evil, go no further than Toyota. Any corporation that deliberately lies and involves itself in currency manipulation to "compete" is evil no matter how many Piuos Hybrids they sell.
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Rick 9:26PM (9/08/2007)
Big Oil has killed electric cars for 40 years now? Wow.
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Richard Slay 8:57PM (9/09/2007)
A. D. -
Remember that when the Asians keep their currency artificially low by buying our government's enormous debt, they also prop up the dollar so that we can afford to live beyond our means. They're not the only ones - the entire world is buying up US debt to keep the global economy from collapsing, desperate for us to stop our insane ways and wars. Yet we keep on doing it, and now they can't keep the bubble going. Poor, hard-working people who make real things put their money in their country's banks, the banks lend it to us, and then the Fed prints more greenbacks which are needed because in 1971 OPEC agreed to make all sales in US dollars, and the price of oil is going up. Yes, 1971. If you don't believe me, how about Reagan's very conservative Fed chairman Paul Voelker, who recently said "America can no longer live on the savings of the poor." Evil is holding the world hostage to cover the concentration of American wealth into the hands of 1% of its population.
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hodad66 11:22PM (9/08/2007)
They have killed more than that with their control.
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summazooma 7:17AM (9/10/2007)
The thing about other countries propping us up by buying our debt is that they're only doing this because we are such a prominent market for their products & services. Imagine what might happen if China becomes a market open to products & services from other countries... Do you honestly think that there will still be the level of interest in investing in the U.S., then?
No, in reality, what so many people complain about (the U.S. open market, essentially) is really our silver bullet for remaining relevant (NOT the use of the military in trying to exert American influence in far-off places, regardless of what Pax-Americana proponents think).
As long as we keep other countries' investment in the U.S., we're able to keep our quality of life. What we do with that investment is another thing...
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