Retrofit hybrid drive

[SteveGTI]

Whilst driving home the other night I was behind a Harley. These bikes use a beefy belt to drive the rear wheel. It stuck me that if you used a similar belt and pulley wheel you could replace your alternator with a due purpose motor / alternator that would provide additional drive when on throttle and would charge the batteries like a normal alternator when off the throttle. You could then, if you could develop a device that fitted in the standard alternator location, retrofit hybrid technology to pretty much any car you wanted.

I did some googling and found such a device is in use in some hybrids already. It's called a BAS; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAS_Hybrid

I wonder who would be able to develop such a unit to retrofit to older vehicles and if it could effectively work. I know my car is at its least efficient when I'm moving away from a standstill or accelerating.

[frv]

Interesting! Don't know how effective it is or if it would be cost effective for older cars.

[SteveGTI]

I guess the key to it all working would be finding somewhere to develop a replacement part that went in place of your alternator. If that was good, it could work well. Apparently they're called "starter generators"...