Strange Bedfellows: BMW, Chrysler, and GM Band Together to Topple Toyota
The enemy of my enemy is my friend, at least according to top the executives at BMW, DaimlerChrysler, and General Motors. For over a year, engineers from the three companies have been secretly working on a new type of hybrid powertrain with several key differences from the one that Toyota has been using to corner the ‘green’ market. The new system, dubbed ‘two-mode’, was unveiled last Friday at an industry conference.
The three are certainly no strangers to electric motors. The painful results of GM’s experimental EV-1 in an Arizona desert waiting for the crusher, BMW has shown the 750hl, a fuel-cell hybrid prototype, and Mercedes has put some R&D dollars into their NECAR (New Electric Car) series. Toyota, however, through the trifecta of good timing, good design, and good marketing, has been the only maker to capture a significant portion of consumers’ dollars; they have further extended this by licensing software to Ford and selling mechanical parts to Nissan. GM, BMW, and Daimler-Chrysler’s research group, known as the Global Hybrid Cooperation, are seeking to provide a different type of hybrid with different applications in an effort to unseat Toyota.
Some parts of the new two-mode system remain the same as Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive: the batteries are charged during braking, the car can run solely on battery power, and both gas and electric motors are used to power the car.
Aside from these basic similarities, the design of two-mode is radically different. Firstly, the power is delivered to the wheels through a standard gear type of transmission as opposed to the Hybrid Synergy Drive’s continuously variable transmission (CVT). Toyota’s system relies on a fairly large electric motor for low-speed movement. The Global Hybrid Cooperation’s system eschews the CVT and electric motor big enough to power the car on its own and instead fit two, much smaller, electric motors next to an additional planetary gearset. The gears multiply the torque created by the electric motors, giving them enough power to move the car: the principle is the same as low gears in a standard transmission giving a motor enough power to overcome inertia. The second gearset also includes higher gears, allowing more power from the electric motor to be used at highway cruising speeds. In Toyota’s system, at high speeds the electric motor has much less input than the gasoline engine.
The two-mode system reaps several benefits from these changes. The drivetrain can generate enough torque to move large, heavy vehicles and tow trailers, all while seeing a 25% increase in fuel mileage. More importantly, at least from a business standpoint, is that the entire system can be packaged into a unit the size of a conventional automatic transmission. Not only does this reduce the cost involved in purchasing large, expensive electric motors and batteries, but it also reduces the degree to which vehicle redesign is necessary: automakers would no longer have to worry about where to store the battery and additional electric motor.
GM stands to gain the most from the development of this system. The second-best selling vehicle in the US is the Chevrolet Silverado pickup. Creation of a hybrid vehicle that would still allow towing and no loss in power of a two-and-a-half ton car would go a long way to retain customers growing increasingly antsy at $3.15/gal fuel costs. One could make the argument, of course, that a better solution would be to simply drive less, or purchase a smaller vehicle if the price of gas was an issue. Two problems with this argument: Firstly, there are people who absolutely require the use of a pickup or SUV and cannot afford to purchase, run, and maintain a second vehicle. Secondly, and more subtly, the simple fact remains that it is very difficult to get consumers to change their habits and lifestyle. People may want to have a large vehicle for status, comfort, a feeling of safety, or the comfort in knowing that if a situation arose in which they needed to tow something they would be perfectly able to do so. It is far easier to get consumers to pay an extra one-time cost to assuage the pain on their consciences and wallets than it is to get them to alter their lifestyles.
This, of course, is good news for GM, as profit margins on large vehicles vastly outweigh those on smaller ones. As far as hybrids are concerned, GM cannot afford to further segment their assembly lines to make radically different hybrid and traditional vehicles. With the compact two-mode system, however, the manufacturing process should remain close for hybrid and non-hybrid vehicles. BMW and Daimler-Chrysler stand to benefit as well, of course: the more affluent consumers who buy BMWs or Mercedes are currently being tempted -or pressured- into buying something a bit more eco-friendly.
With the superior highway mileage gains over Toyota’s system and the fact that two-mode uses primarily off-the-shelf parts –hopefully passing on the cost savings to the consumer- maybe GM can convince buyers to opt for the Silverado instead of the Prius. And the fact that their costs are split with BMW and Daimler-Chrysler, or the ability of the patented system to be easily sold to other automakers? Icing on the cake.
NY Times article (registration required):
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/automobiles/30AUTO.htm