Volvo ReCharge Concept

[Bob]

Volvo Cars is introducing the Volvo ReCharge Concept, a plug-in hybrid with individual electric wheel motors and batteries that can be recharged via a regular electrical outlet for maximum environmental benefit

Click here to read the full report

[pigapumbu]

Daily Mail covered this too...

Article here.

cheers

[RoyMacDonald]

This looks brilliant.....my big complaint about the Japanese hybrids has been that most of the time they are just petrol engined cars with no capacity for a separate recharge and the Goverment fuel figures are with a full charge from the start, which is why in road test they never live up to the promised mpg. although they are better than your average petrol car.

I hope Volvo can produce a 7 seater car with the same system as well, although I would like to see the generator being powered by a diesel engine. I don't think Volvo have a suitable one though, but maybe they could use the Toyota 1.4 D-4-D as they already use auto boxes from a Toyota subsiduary. Could even be set up to use SOV (straight vegetable oil) besides diesel.

[Velorum]

If a manufacturer designed a system that could be retro fitted to existing cars then I would have thought there would be additional environmental benefits in reducing the emissions caused by new car manufacture - even if performance wasnt quite on a par with a purpose designed vehicle.

My suspicion is that the main 'driver' here is about extracting as much money from our wallets as opposed to helping Madonna and the other celebs save the planet. Just watch those tax and other benefits evaporate if alternatively powered cars are bought in any great number.

I cant quite grasp why electro power is taking so long to develop, after all the Germans were producing efficient and powerful U boats at the end of the war (too late to see meaningful service) that used internal combustion engines in combination with batteries that were very advanced.

Just a thought.............

[Viper_7]

167g CO/KM ?! not exactly very clean!

Zero emissions when using the batteries - ermmm exactly how did the power get in the batteries and where did said power come from, and in the conversion from electrical to chemical energy you've lost about 40% of the power. Yes very efficient indeed - not!

The best systems are those than charge the batteries when braking, this should be the only method of charging them and only that way do you save energy and reduce emissions.

sorry, but not falling for these zero emission vehicles - at the exhaust pipe yes, but your just moving the emissions else where. Yes there's wind farms, but to create these uses more energy then they can actually produce in their lifetime.
Welcome to the Nuclear age - the only way to produce the power "cleanly"
until something goes wrong and we all die!

think it's time to walk....!


Vipes

[Velorum]

Ah, this is the answer me thinks.............

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon

5000 miles to the tank - now thats what I call fuel economy - all this and zero emissions!

(Some of the rays might discolour your Trilby though)

[RoyMacDonald]

Originally Posted by Viper_7

167g CO/KM ?! not exactly very clean!

Zero emissions when using the batteries - ermmm exactly how did the power get in the batteries and where did said power come from, and in the conversion from electrical to chemical energy you've lost about 40% of the power. Yes very efficient indeed - not!

The best systems are those than charge the batteries when braking, this should be the only method of charging them and only that way do you save energy and reduce emissions.

sorry, but not falling for these zero emission vehicles - at the exhaust pipe yes, but your just moving the emissions else where. Yes there's wind farms, but to create these uses more energy then they can actually produce in their lifetime.
Welcome to the Nuclear age - the only way to produce the power "cleanly"
until something goes wrong and we all die!

think it's time to walk....!


Vipes

I think the repayment time on a wind generator is a about 3 years for one for my house, why are the farms so different? There's solar and wave as well.

I'm puzzled by the quoted emissions as well. 124mpg doesn't equate to those emissions. I was wondering if it was a missprint and should be 67g CO/KM, which would be more in line with the mpg figure.

[RoyMacDonald]

The Concept does have braking regeneration. I found a lot more information on the Green Car Car Congress web site. They said this..... The full article is at....http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007...to-show-f.html It has attracted a huge response, mostly positive.

Volvo To Show Flex-Fuel Plug-In Hybrid Concept at Frankfurt
6 September 2007

The Volvo ReCharge Concept plug-in hybrid.
Volvo Cars will introduce the Volvo ReCharge Concept, a plug-in series hybrid with a grid-rechargeable 12 kWh lithium-polymer battery pack and individual electric wheel motors, at the Frankfurt Motor Show.

Based on the Volvo C30, the ReCharge supports a 100 km (62 mile) battery-powered range before the four-cylinder 1.6-liter flex-fuel engine kicks in to power the car and recharge the battery. When driving beyond the 100 km battery range, fuel consumption may vary from 0 to 5.5 liters per 100 km (43 mpg US at full liquid fuel consumption) depending on the distance driven using the engine.

For a 150 km (93 mile) drive starting with a full charge, the car will require less than 2.8 liters of fuel, giving the car an effective fuel economy of 1.9 l/100km (124 mpg US for that range).

The combustion engine starts up automatically when the battery pack reaches a 30% state of charge. The driver also has the option of controlling the four-cylinder Flexifuel engine manually via a button in the instrument panel. This allows the driver to start the engine earlier in order to maximize battery charge, for instance when out on the highway in order to save battery capacity for driving through the next town.

A certain proportion of electrical vehicles will be necessary to meet the CO2 emission demands of the future. Since the Volvo ReCharge Concept combines an excellent battery range with a backup combustion engine, it is a very interesting concept.

This plug-in hybrid car, when used as intended, should have about 66 percent lower emissions of carbon dioxide compared with the best hybrid cars available on the market today. Emissions may be even lower if most of the electricity in intended markets comes from CO2-friendly sources such as biogas, hydropower and nuclear power.

—Magnus Jonsson, Senior Vice President Research and Development at Volvo Cars
The central electrical components in the Volvo ReCharge Concept demonstrator—the engine-powered generator and the wheel motors—were developed together with British electromagnetic specialists PML Flightlink. (Earlier post.)

With an individual electric motor at each wheel, weight distribution as well as mechanical efficiency and traction are maximized. The friction in mechanical gears is eliminated. Since the car does not have the transmission found in ordinary cars, there is no need for a gear lever. Power to each wheel is controlled individually. The ReCharge accelerates from 0-100 km/h in 9 seconds with a top speed of 160 km/h.

To help maximize the environmental benefits, the Volvo ReCharge Concept has high-efficiency tires developed by Michelin that are specially designed to accommodate the wheelmotors.

The energy that is generated during braking is transmitted to the battery pack. When the system is ultimately developed, traditional wheel brakes will be completely replaced by electrical brakes with minimal energy wasted through friction.

To ensure reliable operation of the drivetrain and braking system, driver inputs are fed into a quadruple-redundant electronic control system.

A full recharge of the battery pack takes 3 hours. A one-hour quick charge should provide enough charge for a 50 km drive (31 miles), according to Volvo.

The ReCharge Concept was developed at the Volvo Monitoring and Concept Center (VMCC), the Volvo Car Corporation’s think-tank in Camarillo, California.