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I had a hybrid Fusion that I really liked
...
Great car with great mileage.

It's not the hybrid part of this that's dumb. Honestly, a short-hop (<9 miles) ferry like this is a great application of that. Straight mechanically coupled diesels are great if run at constant, optimal speed over great distances- i.e. trans-oceanic runs. But this ferry does short runs, with a lot of acceleration and deceleration, even outside of the inevitable maneuvering around traffic in Puget Sound. Plus, when it's at a dock it has to constantly push against it, which is murderously inefficient for a mechanical-transmission diesel.

Put simply, there's a reason even rail locomotives (which run at much more constant throttle than this ferry) have converted to diesel-electric "hybrid" power.

The problem here is the batteries- this thing is hauling around a gazillion pounds of useless deadweight for no advantage, because it can't charge them without using its diesels- it would obviously be more efficient just to run as a 'regular' hybrid, without the unnecessary efficiency losses of converting diesel to battery, then battery to propulsion, instead of just going diesel to electric propulsion (while running the diesel mains at their most efficient RPMs because the coupling to propulsion is already electric and RPM independent).

Pair that with the fact that they an eighth of a BILLION dollars on a system that can't actually be used for at least 4 more years- and that number is the likely wildly-optimistic number provided by Lefty politicians, A lá California high speed rail- and remember, batteries have a shelf life...

So to be quite explicit: what I'm mocking here isn't the diesel/electric hybrid system- that's an honest improvement, though very questionable given the cost compared to the cost of a new vessel with a much longer service life.

What I'm objecting to is the removal of half the ship's engine power in favor of a battery system that they literally cannot use without recharging it with the remaining two diesels- indefinitely at this point.

Would you have approved someone proposing you overhaul your hybrid Fusion with a battery bank that costs $30,000 and literally cannot be charged except by idling the gasoline engine?