Reply #2: Comparing diesel locomotives to hybrid cars is wrong

[jmowreader]

The two use completely different technologies.

A diesel locomotive uses electric traction motors because it makes life simpler for the designer, the engineer and the mechanics to do business this way. Your car has between three and six forward gears. If you had one gear, there would be three possible choices:

* you'd have a city gear and the car would run at redline in the country. Not good.
* you'd have a country gear and lug the engine around town. Also not good.
* or you'd still have a country gear, but you'd drive around town at 60mph. Definitely not good!

But if you had an electric motor, a motor you could run at any RPM you wanted, you wouldn't need a multiple-gear transmission. You could just drive around. Go to a golf course and rent a golf cart to see what I mean--most if not all rental golf carts are electric, and you just get in and drive.

On a locomotive, you just get in and drive. You don't shift gears because there aren't any, and the engines they run in those trains can run at their optimum speed all the time.

A hybrid car is different--it still has a transmission, it still has a conventional drivetrain.