Just seen this for sale on the UK ebay site. MILLION POUND LUCAS HYBRID ELECTRIC RESEARCH CAR | eBay UK Never seen it before, never heard of it before. OK it was a prototype from Lucas! but surely it would be a fantastic addition to someones collection? A 1980's hybrid car! wow. (If someone does buy it because of this thread you're welcome to drop me commission - seriously )
Man, it kills todays models...wonder if you could use Prius batteries to get her up and running again?
Just needs to be lowered and swap in some 18's, add a body kit & tint, some HIDs, change the plates to say "FRESH" and put some dice in the mirror, and you'll be all set, GrumpyCabbie. Curious that the stated electric range is greater than a you know what.
Wow. I never heard of this thing. Sounds pretty awesome. Judging from the age, it has to be SLA batteries. This thing has to be very very very heavy. I would surmise that the 40mile range is when the guy drove it until it just didn't move anymore which is much more than the 40% capacity (80% fully charged to 40% fully depleted) of the similar packs in the Prius.
I believe it was a one off experimental prototype. I'd also guess the batteries are lead acid and not sure the petrol engine runs unleaded! lol I'm guessing the car would be very expensive or possibly be impossible to fix or get running correctly but even so it would be a fun vehicle from an engineering point of vehicle. And Bisco, I wonder how much of this car reflects the Volt too!?!
Did you notice the towing hitch at the back? Only joking. I'm guessing they'd be crammed all over the place. Saying that, the link doesn't indicate which battery technology it uses. Would the early 1980's have been too early for anything other than lead acid? The reg number is an old style type which has a Y at the far right, indicating it is 1982/3 year. If I could afford it I'd love to have it, even just to ensure it went to a museum or a collector rather than some idiot who just ended up wrecking it by not knowing what they were doing - or had.
I think the batteries are under the floor. What an interesting vehicle. I wonder how much it will go for (and if GM will be the winning bidder...)
How about this forgotten concept car. Plugged in early: Briggs had a hybrid in '70s - JSOnline HowStuffWorks "1980 Briggs & Stratton Hybrid Concept Car"
Hahaha. I've never heard of this before either. Lucas has no meaning to many of us Americans. A British former coworker told me about how British cars have electronics from Lucas which are notoriously bad. Even some American car magazines when they review British cars w/o (?) Lucas electronics still seem to encounter electrical gremlins and say "Lucas lives".
Lucas Hybrid Car 18 lead acid batteries. 216V x 100 Ah = 21.6 kwh pack 50kw dc motor 30 kw 848cc 4 cylinder engine 2240 kg no airbags ;-) That's a really small engine. It should be easy enough to run, but I doubt it would be that fun to drive. The biggest problem is if the engine doesn't run, how would you get a replacement. I think the idea of the volt and this car came about in the early 1900s. The volt has much better batteries and much better electronics which were the problems with building phevs in the early 1980s.
I bet there are some good 4-cyl Honda motorcycle engines that could replace this power plant. Electric forklift batteries would also be a good replacement candidate, though most don't run at that voltage. Some deep cycle marine batteries perhaps?
The engine is based on a fairly popular old design (Reliant) of which parts are available. I do believe it went out of manufacture before emission control legislation hit the UK though it was used in very limited road applications right up to about 1990. So could you get spare parts for the engine - for sure, but would you be allowed to import the vehicle to the US with an engine that doesn't have much if any emission control- hmmm not sure.
