Random Thoughts of Chris Tilley

I got a very interesting email a couple of weeks ago regarding Hydraulic Hybrids. This reader sent me to Mother Earth News. There there is an archived article about a Hydraulic Hybrid that some 'advanced students at Minneapolis, Minnesota's Hennepin Vocational Technical Center' built back in 1978. No that is not a typo 1978. Check the article about for all the details. They were able to get 75 mpg nearly 30 years ago. The automotive x-prize goal of 100 mpg seems very doable now.

There are at least three companies entering Hydraulic Hybrids in the Automotive X-prize. Now that there is a track records for Hydraulic Hybrids I have a even more confidence in those entries. I can even see these beating the plug in electric hybrids.

It sounds like from the email and some of the other things that I read that these people got shafted in a number of different ways which would probably explain why we are not currently driving hydraulic hybrids. I am not going to go into those. It pisses me of but I am much more interested to see these current teams succeed and the technology brought into regular use.

Somebody is going to make this work and with the exposure of the x-prize we should start seeing them on the road. As I always say there is money to be made finding solutions to global warming.