Both partnerships protesting the Army's decision went with unconventional drive systems. Tim W, an industry insider, provided a useful description of the two systems in a commentary thread some days ago.
The Boeing and Northrop systems were quite different. As I understand it the Boeing vehicle had some sort of hybrid that they described as a parallel/series system. A parallel hybrid is like the Prius where there is a mechanical connection between the engine and wheels and the engine is aided or switched for an electric motor as needed. A series hybrid has an engine running a generator which charges batteries that power a basically electric vehicle. The Millenworks prototype that formed the basis of the Boeing JLTV had I think an engine mechanically running the rear wheels and an electric motor powering the front. This might explain the peculiar and contradictory parallel/series description.Can the Army shrug these off or is a delay in the JLTV program in the offing?
The Northrop/Oshkosh vehicle was not technically a hybrid but a much simpler diesel-electric as used for many years on trains. It is similar to the series hybrid but doesn't have significant batteries and has no silent running ability - the diesel would be constantly running, its generator supplying power directly to the electric motors.
(Sublime Bloviations/Haloscan)
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