WIP Beta released Citybus Hybrid 8.1.0

This mod seems to overwrite the torque curve of any engine installed with the eCVT transmission. This is kind of annoying, because I would like to use engines other than the TCM in it. Could you stop it from overwriting the engine torque curve by default?

 

Also whilst holding wheeltorque steady is cool, it makes driving the thing really crazy.. everything is slow and sluggish at low speed, but then raising speed or accelerating from start it accelerates like a runaway train!

Also makes high speed control exceptionally difficult..

 

Arcanox updated Citybus Hybrid Drivetrain with a new update entry:

Better and Smoother Power Management

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

Perfect almost...

I'm still surprised with the performance of this bus, i do find that sometimes in engine mode it struggles to get the full 600hp that EV mode gets you, it will sort of hover around 500hp with engine..

in EV mode it gets to 60 faster than my car would unless i launched my car very hard.

 

Really? It usually takes it ~12-15 seconds to get to 60 for me in EV mode; my car can do it in half that.

The reason there's "more power" in EV mode than when the engine is on is because I over-rated MG1 for the engine power. It technically has the power to stall the engine under full throttle, so when the engine is off and it's propelling the vehicle with both motors, there's actually more total horsepower than with the engine running.

In the next version that I'm working on (obviously not released yet), I've reduced the total power that MG1 can use to help out in EV mode, and I'll probably tune the power ratings of the motors a bit so there isn't such an unrealistic unbalance of power in EV mode.

 

My car is a 1.3 ice car.. I could get to 60 in around 11s.. I think its crazy for a bus to get to 60 in 13s! But that is fine to have additional power there (fully loaded bus up a hill!) .. I do quite like how the torque is limited at low speeds, to not throw passengers to the ground!

Also I feel like when the battery is very dead, you should charge a lot faster than 50kw.. That'd take ages.. I'd rather have the engine working quite hard like in Park mode when going along, obviously if regen is called then engine goes to idle and doesn't charge, but filling in the gaps would be good.. Maintained hill climbs the battery can be drained reasonably easy, and between hills I want the engine going hard to get the battery up (so I have reserve power).

 

The MG1 should have the power to stall the ICE, if not, the ICE cannot output 100% rated torque or it'll runaway. The "unrealistic unbalance of power" is because of the MG1 become the output engine in EV mode. Just set the logic to use only the MG2 in EV mode.
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The eCVT in this mod behaves like an EV IRL. Constant torque at low speed and the torque only drops off at high speed. In an ICE the torque is nonlinear, at low RPM the ICE cannot create high enough suction to keep the manifold pressure low, thus when throttle% is the same, the higher the RPM the lower the torque% compared to full throttle torque. In an EV or HEV the torque% is always porportional to the throttle%

 

Charging at a higher power would result in quite strong acceleration torque without your foot on the throttle, and the regenerative brakes aren't strong enough to counteract that at lower speeds, so it has to be capped. I've improved it a bit in the latest code that is still in-progress, but it will never be able to get to the 170 kW charge-mode power while driving.

I mostly agree; I just think I overdid MG1 a little bit. I learned that the Prius Prime and Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid (which both use the same transaxle, just different sizes) will utilize MG1 in high-speed electric-only mode (when the battery is charged up) but I don't think it would engage at full power like the bus currently does.

 

This mod is really cool, but sadly it still seems to override the torque curve of any installed engine, which means it breaks any engine mods for the Wentward. Maybe add the hybrid engine tune as a separate modification for the engine, so it doesn't mess with engine mods.

 

I've fixed that in the latest codebase; it'll be included in the next version. I had forgotten that I put that torqueCurve override in the JBeam and didn't see your post about it until right after I posted version 4.0.

 

Could we make it so it'll work off any engine?

I think you could do with a 4cyl.. even say the 6cyl diesel ETK with a bigger battery (200-250hp should be ok) that would make for an interesting mod. (i don't mind helping / doing it if you dont mind )

 

Cool, good to hear. Being able to put different engines with the hybrid system makes it behave a lot differently. My 2-stroke diesels work really nicely with the hybrid system because they get to sit at their optimal load and RPM all the time, but I have to mess with the mod files to make the work properly.

 

In theory yes, but I'm not sure a 4-cylinder diesel automotive engine would be much use for a large bus

Remember that regenerative braking is nowhere near 100% efficient, so the battery would still discharge over the course of driving the bus and would need to be recharged at a faster rate than the engine could accomplish to drive an indefinite distance. Of course, a plug-in bus with a small range extender engine would certainly work (in real life) provided it could be charged quickly.

 

At low speeds im sure it'll be sufficient..

I will try using capkirks mod with adjustable turbos, see how low i can go with it still being usable.. Service use only no fun, and being easy on the accelerator to minimize electric boost. Eventually there will be slightly not enough power, and this will be perfect..

Also i feel like at bus stops it is good to put the handbrake and floor it in D, this gives you 120kw charging which is very good... With an actual bus load (instead of constant driving) i'm sure it'll be possible to say do JRI at reasonable speeds marching up hills as necessary with 200hp or thereabouts.. We only need to match the performance of a diesel and thus we can downsize the engine (since the peak power for diesels is a peak, not a continuous requirement..)

 

What do you mean by this? I have Jojona's Wentward parts and I used it to remove the turbo and the difference between with and without turbos is very noticeable, which means that takes into account the actual output of the ICE.

 

After some testing, it looks like a 7L turbodiesel set to 200 horsepower is enough to maintain a reasonable speed around WCUSA, although you need to stay in L, and you run your batteries dangerously low climbing any big hills. It takes about 250 HP to climb the big hills, so with 200 you can't really sustain it, but you can keep it up for a few minutes. You also have a max sustainable speed of around 50 mph, so not really highway friendly. With the stock 260 HP setting, you are just fine for the most part, and can do 25 mph uphill. With a normal Voith (schaller) transmission on the 260 HP setting, you can barely manage 15, so the hybrid system really helps use your power more effectively.

If you have a mod that puts any engine other than the Gavril TCM in the bus, it gets overridden and replaced with the Gavril TCM.

 

I found that the ICE won't start at very low speeds even with high throttle, which is good. How could I put this characteristic to the ETK Hybrid?

 

Oh, I see. I uh, haven't looked for any of these mods, though I must say, the new 6.0 Powerstroke clone would be a nice powerplant for the bus. Heck, the TTC's hybrids use a detuned 6.7 Cummins with only 260-280 hp.

 

That'd be due to the "evOnlyThrottleDetent" property on the "hybridArcanox" jbeam node. You could also increase "maxEvOnlyThrottle" and "maxEvOnlyPriorityPower" to achieve a similar effect. It'll work a little differently in the upcoming 4.1 version.

 

I found a bug. When the battery is very low, the bus will creep forward in reverse gear.