Looks interesting... speaking of interesting automotive technologies, I was reading a little while ago about quasiturbine engines. They look especially well-suited for diesel in my opinion, and would probably be very fuel-efficient if engineered well.
Claims are easy to make, and these look like the usual exaggeration. As soon as I saw the word "clutch" I was turned off. One of the reasons I like the HSD setup is that there are no hydraulic valves, no friction clutches, far less to break or wear out. It's electromagnetic and computer-controlled.
This not only seems to have a clutch but a regular transmission iwth gears that would be shifting far more than in a normal car. The thing might work great till it wore out. I think Toyota will be doing something to improve efficiency, but it will hopefully be better than this. I could see sometihng with a clutch that never is allowed to slip so has no wear, for a cruising lock up like mode, but not something like this requiring lots of gears and non-optimum rpms on the engine. One reason I bought the Prius was to get rid of automatic gears shifting. I can't stand them and would never go back. I'll buy another plain old manual shift car before I'd do that. I like the totally smooth acceleration with no feel of a downshift jerk every time I need some power, and the extra skidding in winter it causes.
clutch and transmission...... give me a break, were supposed to be moving forward not backwards in the evolution of the automobile. :wacko:
A novel idea, but I don't think they've actually tried to implement it. Somehow I don't think that their gearbox and much smaller electric motor will be able to facilitate the regenerative braking as well as the Prius. There's a reason why MG2 sits where it does attached to the transaxle... it's there to regenerate as much electricity as possible.
