Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
engineers are pushing the technological edge. Many of them are chasing
a new holy grail: the electric car.
A
ll four wheels have to stay on the ground at any one time.”
“
It is the only instruction Kevin Layden has for me as I get ready
to take his new electric car for a spin just outside of Detroit. Layden,
a twenty-six-year veteran of Ford, is most dei nitely a car guy. Stocky
with neat blond hair and wire-rimmed glasses, he's the kind of person
who regularly injects himself into conversation with new ideas, but in a
way that no one else seems to mind. Layden joined the company at er
get ing his degree in mechanical engineering at Ohio State; he started
of working on engines and eventually spent time in twenty countries
overseas. He became the company's top engineer in charge of electri-
i cation, an increasingly important position, and two weeks before my
visit the company released its i rst all-electric car. Visitors embraced
the peppy Ford Focus Electric enthusiastically, so much so that one of
them managed to tip it on its side on the closed track.
“It's a nondisruptive technology,” he explains. As best I can tell,
this is news to everyone who watches the industry. But Layden's case
makes sense: “We've got the infrastructure required to support plug-in
hybrids and bat ery electric vehicles. Fuel cells—we're going to have
to i gure out how to get hydrogen to people. . . . Natural gas, again, it's
disruptive.” Electricity, as he sees it, is fundamentally dif erent. h e
infrastructure—basically the electric grid—is already there. And there
is an evolutionary pathway in sight. Hybrid electric cars like the Toyota
Prius are already mainstream and are let ing engineers and developers
learn about and improve engines and bat eries. Next will come plug-in
hybrids, which combine twin gasoline and electric engines to propel
cars further on electricity while keeping gasoline around for longer
trips. h e i nal stage, already being rolled out in small numbers, is the
pure electric car.
It is the basic hybrid, though, that has really cracked the old skepti-
cism. h e Prius has barely been around for a decade, but the idea of a
hybrid car that uses twin gasoline and electric engines is a lot older. h e
i rst patent for a hybrid engine appeared in 1905, and at least one com-
mercial model was sold in that decade.
18
h
e basic concept of pairing
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