Please. The latest generation hybrid locomotives use regenerative braking to store the "lost" energy in internal batteries. CN is developing a loco that somehow moves the energy storage outboard, or the generator, or something I'm unclear of but it seems to be a throwback to the days when locos had "tenders" they were more or less permanently attached to and which essentially stored the energy reserve.
This is also not unique to diesels in the US, the Acela Express (so far the US only high speed rail service) is powered from an overhead caternary and shunts much of the energy from braking back into the 16KV high tension leads for use by other electrics (much of the power on the NE corridor is electric).
And although perhaps more practical on big rigs, very, very few hybrid cars use "ground coupling" as a poster alluded to earlier. The prius, and most I have ever seen, use a transmission not at all unlike the prius, which uses a cvt and a power unit coupled into a common transmission system. There are ground coupled systems, but those are mostly retrofits or big rigs which have multiple drive axles anyway. In any case, the operation of a hybrid car is exactly analogous to a hybrid locomotive (or truck) in the regard that both waste far too much energy stopping, slowing, starting and idling and well designed hybrid operation minimizes these losses for either. A locomotive alone can't stop a mile long train, but it does need brakes and it can still recover the energy used from stopping and slowing itself. Additionally, because the train itself will move the loco forward whether that is desired at the moment or not, there's a substantial amount of regenerative energy there to be recovered. And a truck... well,
Wal-Mart finds the technology cost effective, and I'm sure they know a thing or two about saving on transportation costs.
Additionally, in the case of hybrid locomotives, the engine CAN be designed for most efficient operation at one speed (diesel electrics still use engine throttling and variable speed to determine the amount of energy provided by the alternator and, so the amount of energy sent to the traction motors). High power AC control circuits will make both cars and diesel locos more efficient over a wider operating range as they adopt short term, high output, energy storage methods.
And BTW, both use modular batteries. It is no more necessary to replace an entire battery in a loco than it is to replace an entire battery in a prius. The word
battery generically describes
a battery of cells and that is how modern hybrids are designed - in either case individual modules can be queried, report their condition, and be replaced as needed.
Anyone want to see a Nissan hybrid race a Challenger R/T?
Very close. And which one would you want to feed at the pump?