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Video: Volvo Bringing KERS Hybrid System to the Streets?

June 2, 2011 by 15 Comments
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Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems, or KERS, are often referred to as flywheel hybrids and so far have only seen action on the racing circuit. But Volvo could bring a KERS system to street cars in a few short years.

Thus far only a handful of high-end car manufacturers, including Porsche and Ferrari, have played around with KERS systems. In racing cars, energy recovered from braking is used to spin a flywheel system, which at the press of a button can be used to provide an extra boost of power by dumping that rotational energy to the wheels via a special transmission.

Such a system makes sense on the race track, but Volvo claims that using a KERS system on a four-cylinder street engine can “make it feel like a six-cylinder” while improving fuel economy by 20% by allowing the engine to be deactivated during deceleration and acceleration. It also does away with expensive battery systems, bringing down the cost of this system and making it more applicable to a wider ranger of cars.

The more clever solutions we have to alternative fuels, the better, and the KERS-style hybrid system may also offer a bump in performance as well as saving fuel. Ain’t nothing wrong with that.

Source: Volvo via WorldCarFans

Chris DeMorro is a writer and gearhead who loves all things automotive, from hybrids to HEMIs. You can read about his slow descent into madness at Sublime Burnout or follow his non-nonsensical ramblings on Twitter @harshcougar.

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About Christopher DeMorro

Chris DeMorro is a writer and gearhead who loves all things automotive, from hybrids to HEMIs. You can follow his slow descent into madness and non-nonsensical ramblings on Twitter @harshcougar.

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  • http://Web DaveD

    Chris,

    I love to see any alternatives that get us off oil, or even reduce our usage. But I’m a little skeptical about this one and whether or not it’s a dead end that distracts attention away from battery or even supercap systems.

    • http://www.sublimeburnout.com Christopher DeMorro

      @ DaveD

      I’ve not yet had a chance to see a KERS system in action. That said, the idea has been around for many decades, and technology may (or may not) have finally evolved to the point where KERS technology is both affordable and effective.

      • http://Web DaveD

        @Chris,

        My first post wasn’t very clear:

        I absolutely think the time has come that KERS systems are worth the investment. I think they could add 5-6 mpg in city driving which most manufacturers would kill for right now. They could also add about a 100 hp “kick in the ass” during acceleration.

        What I would like to see is a focus on the systems that are already proven to work (electric vs flywheel) so that we can get manufacturing volumes up and prices down as quickly as possible. The flywheel systems also work but unless they have some unique advantage over battery systems, then why spread the limited resources and dilute the manufacturing volumes?

        Battery systems have the advantage that they can also be used for full EVs or even PHEVs where a flywheel is not going to store enough energy for anything other than the regen braking.

        So my question is why is Volvo spending money to develop the flywheel systems when there are so many options on the battery/electric side to choose from?

        If flywheels are much cheaper, then that is an advantage, but my experience is that they are fairly close.

        And for apples to apples, doing regen only, a 3200lb car going from 60mph to a full stop only requires about 130Wh of energy. That is about $50 worth of batteries so it’s not like it’s a cost prohibitive solution and all the other components are being produced in the millions by manufacturers.

        As I said, I am for anything that helps wean us from oil. But it seems that some avenues are dead ends and distract us from the paths that really do move us forward. I’m just questioning this particular path.

        Not really expecting you to answer this…more of a thinking out loud exercise here :-)

        • T Adkins

          Fly wheels are used in racing and in stationary power storage to balance out electricity loads. Fly wheels are cheap and they can out last batteries but and it is a big BUT they need to operate in a vacuum or near vacuum to work at their best. It is the maintaining of these vacuum that is the hard part. In a stationary application you are not subjecting the flywheel to bumps and turn like in a car spin also set up a gyroscopic effect fighting you in turns and tilts it is the same effect that keeps your bicycles and motor cycles up right while in motion. In race car you pretty much rebuild the car after every race so you have well paid well financed crew maintain the car.

          The other issue with a fly wheel is speed of spin or weight of wheel, if the wheel is bigger then it doesnt have to spin as fast to hold the energy but then you have a big heavy wheel taking up space, when they were looking to use these on buses they had the space and the weight was less of an issue. If you go with a smaller/lighter flywheel then you run into a materials problem to hold the energy you had to spin the flywheel up so fast it would destroy itself and send shattered pieces out at high speed, so we in recent years have come up with better and stronger materials and can now use lighter smaller wheels to do the bigger wheel job without the whole blowing up violently thing, yay science.

          So a flywheel [if properly maintained] should be smaller, cheaper, out last and out perform a battery system; but the system has just now gotten to the point where it should still work with people who cant always remember to check the tire pressure or get their oil changed regularly.

  • http://Web Aaron

    IT’s used like a video game turbo button in F1 racing.
    http://www.formula1.com/inside_f1/understanding_the_sport/8763.html

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