Will electric drivetrains like that used in the Volt be useful on larger commercial vehicles?
A. No reason why not, although engine power and battery capacity will limit how useful they’d be. In fact, modern diesel electric trains and the US Army’s M1 Abrams tank already use gas turbine engines to generate electricity which is then used to power their all electric drivetrain. Although a turbine is very inefficient as a generator, they can generate huge amounts of electricity, and so these vehicles are powered this way because electric motors are much more responsive and potentially powerful than trying to directly connect the engine to the wheels, but the concept is the same. With newly maturing engine technologies, gas engines have the potential to be small enough yet powerful enough to be generators for even larger commercial vehicles.
