Despite 15 years development that has produced more than 30 different demonstrators and despite a lot of hype lately, military diesel-electric hybrids are no closer to mass production than they were five years ago. “Right now we don’t have a hybrid-electric vehicle targeting fielding,” says Gus Khalil, director of the Army’s hybrid research.
The reasons are many. Despite advantages including modest fuel savings, power export capability, design scalability and flexible internal layout, hybrids are simply too expensive, too heavy and too fragile for military service. Batteries — or, alternately, capacitors — are particularly problematic: they’re unstable, finnicky in extreme weather and present enormous safety and logistical challenges.
In recent weeks, I’ve talked to hybrid programs managers at all the major U.S. military vehicle manufacturers. They all maintain the same line: hybrids are very promising, they say, but more work is needed.
Khalil says that the first mass-produced military hybrids will most likely be vehicles in the Future Combat Systems family, which should enter production around 2010. In the meantime, expect demonstrators like the HEMTT A3, RST-V (pictured) and hybrid Humvee to remain just that — demonstrators.
–David Axe
P.S. Publishers Weekly just reviewed my graphic novel War Fix!
UPDATE 8:58 AM: Noah here. I’ve been told by a high-level Army general who worked the hybrid problem for years that the problems which Axe details above can be overcome. But there’s an even bigger barrier to the new vehicles: Detroit. American auto– and truck-makers still aren’t committed to mass-producing hybrids on the level that the Army needs, the General said. (Look at their reluctance to make commercial hybrids.) Without their buy-in, the Army won’t have hybrids for a long, long time.
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Hummer, Schmummer—
The Germans already have two no! three hydrogen powered submarines and are working on another one.
http://www.fuelcellsworks.com/Supppage5033.html
The German subs don’t have to worry (as much) about compactness. Even on smaller European SSKs there’s more than enough room for the industrial-size Fuel Cells they use.
I have to agree with the good General, GM and DCX especially are dragging their feet on Hybrids. DCX has been experimenting with FCVs for years, but they’ve somewhat neglected Hybrids. GM had that skate-board chassis concpet car that everyone talked about a couple years ago, but they still aren’t fielding any commercial hybrids. Of the Big Three, only Ford is seriously fielding Hybrids and working to expand their offerings. And while they’re well ahead of the others, Ford is still far behind where they could be.
Sounds like comments mirrored in the last hybrid entry:
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002338.html#comments
Besides, the only thing that keeps Detroit from jumping into hybrids for the USGov is funding for R&D and perceived lack of necessity. Tanks remained stagnant between WW1 and WW2, and within a few years of the war’s commencement the Germans began producing sixty ton tanks with a 75 or a 88, previously towed weapons now mobile and heavily armored.
Going further back, the industrial principle of standardized parts can be applied to weapons. Eli Whitney was told to develop techniques for standardized weapons production by the government.
Nobody in any other industry had ever thought of the idea, apparently. Muskets were custom made one at a time, each part fitted with every other part differentially. Whitney developed the mechanisms for standardized parts, which made mass production possible in the future. Without the government behind him, it’s unlikely anyone else would have made a try at it.
Just apply pressure! What do you think Detroit would do if we ordered 150 Hybrid RST-V’s from Toyota. Congress would probably never let it happen, using national security as their excuse. Toyota could make it happen in a timely manner with very little R&D seed money. I’m sure they could evolve their technology using their own R&D funding to come up with a solution that would meet our defense requirements and give them a healthy ROI. US contractors are too short-sighted. We have created a culture where we are focused on short-term payoffs, and our contracts incentivise this behavior.
Aren’t the FCS line of manned vehicles Hybrid powered (whether turbine or otherwise)?
Or maybe production of batteries is short, just like American refining capacity’s been short for so many years..
The FCS ground vehicles development is a total mess. The whole program is stuck in a requirements nightmare which has been going on for 4 years and there is no end in sight. The recent Government Accounting Office report also shows the program is a technilogical disaster with very few of the technologies needed actually being mature enough to used in the system design. Boeing is really making some terrible decisions here, and GD is dragging its feet as they really don’t want the program to suceed (GD bid on the program and lost). GD has their fingers in every vehicles, every computer, and every FCS radios — great eh? I’ve also heard the price tag on an FCS ground vehicle is insanely high, so high that the Army will never be able to afford to buy that many. This program will be cancelled — just a matter of time.
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