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In
a small workshop next to the Deerfield Township Hall in
eastern Lenawee County, James A. O'Brien II and a handful of
staffers are working on what could be a revolutionary change
in transportation technology.
For
now, that revolution rests in the engine compartment of a
vintage 1968 Volkswagen Bug, painted screaming canary
yellow. The Bug's simple air-cooled engine has been removed,
and replaced with a 6.5-hp Briggs & Stratton engine from
a log splitter, along with a bunch of hydraulic cylinders
and lines.
Welcome
to the world of O'Brien and Hybra-Drive Systems LLC, which
is designing vehicles to run on hydraulic energy, where
small engines are in cars only to pressurize the hydraulic
fluid.
O'Brien,
an electrical engineer by education and a hybrid vehicle
engineer by training, with stops at Ford Motor Co. and
suppliers, founded in the company in November 2004. It's
located in Deerfield, a tiny village of 1,005 souls, because
O'Brien said light industrial space in the region that was
far away from railroad tracks wasn't easy to find near his
home in next-door Monroe County. (Why no railroad tracks?
Try making precision machined parts with a heavy train
hurtling by outside at 80 mph.)
The
company has been nurtured by Phil Tepley, a tech consultant
at the Michigan Small Business and Technology Development
Centers housed at Washtenaw Community College, since shortly
after its inception. Tepley introduced O'Brien to venture
capital and business consultants like Kurt Riegger of North
Coast Technology Investors LP and Sonali Vijayavargiya of
Augment Capital LLC. The company is also getting assistance
and advice from Ann Arbor Spark and Next Energy, and
Vijayavargiya said help is also expected from Automation
Alley.
What's
all the fuss about? Well, there's that VW Bug
proof-of-concept, which a tiny lawn mower-sized engine will
push along at 20 mph, even with the vehicle loaded down with
a driver and a certain chunky technology writer.
O'Brien
said a 20-hp motor would get the vehicle to freeway speeds
and provide electrical accessories -- which is less than
half the horsepower of the original Bug's modest engine.
That's
because hydraulic hybrids are inherently more efficient than
direct gasoline engines and gearboxes, O'Brien said. The
engine merely pressurizes the fluid, meaning the engine can
be run almost always at its maximum-power-and-efficiency RPM
sweet spot. It can even be switched off at low speeds when
it isn't needed, rather than running up and down the RPM
curve through areas of huge inefficiency, as happens in a
conventional auto engine.
Hydraulics
are also extremely easy to repair, especially given that
Hybra-Drive isn't doing anything exotic with them. His
hydraulic storage tanks, motors and associated couplings are
all off-the-shelf parts, running at standard fluid pressures
commonly used in widely accepted applications like truck
brakes. That makes them easy enough for teenage amateurs to
work on -- kind of like cars such as the Bug used to be.
"The
Beetle is literally built out of parts you could go buy
yourself," O'Brien said.
The
company is currently retrofitting a U.S. Army Humvee with a
hydraulic drive to be driven by a Humvee's standard
6.2-liter General Motors diesel engine. The Army isn't as
interested in efficiency as it is in improving soldier
safety.
And
Hybra-Drive has its first civilian contract too, a deal to
produce five prototype hydraulic-drive delivery trucks for
Arrow Uniform in Taylor. Fuel efficiency is more the goal
here.
O'Brien
said the company is seeking work creating hydraulic-drive
medium-duty trucks initially, and will outsource much of its
production.
The
company also has two patents applied for and several others
in the works. |
