6 ms·

Ford’s electric supercharger

16 points by yitchelle 14y ago

jacques_chester 14y ago
The most interesting part of this is that this design decouples the supercharger's speed from the engine's.
- lloeki 14y ago
  Indeed, as at first I thought it was just like Honda's IMA, which removes the starter entirely, and replaces the whole flywheel with an electric motor[0]. Here's a graph [1] showing the huge low-end torque boost of the CR-Z electric engine. It's clear that putting a regular turbo (like Ford is doing) would certainly help torque on higher revs. Toyota's HSD has two motor-generators, one to boost low end torque (MG2 or MG-T), and one higher up for speed (MG1 or MG-S). They do not operate in the same mode at the same time, one acting as a generator for the other that acts as a motor. As such it resembles the principle of a supercharger, in that it takes unused energy to apply it somewhere else on the drivetrain. Both motors do slip and they actually use that as a CSV transmission to replace the torque converter in a auto gearbox. Contrary to Ford's solution where the electric "supercharger" motor drives the driveline, there is no actual uninterrupted physical connection between the engine and the wheels. While we're doing a round up of hybrid technologies, Peugeot insisted on creating a hybrid diesel engine and could not overcome reliability problems when designing an engine similar to IMA, so they went back to the drawing board and simply made the two systems independent yet synchronized: the electric motors drive the rear wheels while the IC engine drives the front as usual. [0] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Honda_Insight_IMA.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Honda_Ins... [1] http://www.automobile-sportive.com/guide/honda/crz/crz-graph.jpg http://www.automobile-sportive.com/guide/honda/crz/crz-graph... (power in orange and torque in red, bold line is with electric and thin without)
ars 14y ago
"grams of CO2 per km" is a very strange way to rate an engine. It makes sense for a complete car. But just an engine by itself? Without specifying the speed of the car, weight of the car, aerodynamic shape, type of fuel?
- savramescu 14y ago
  I guess if you only have the engine to work on you don't have full data so you're comparing what you can.
- lloeki 14y ago
  They have a model to estimate various features of the car or they take it live from real cars, and deduce the resulting opposing force at speeds to counter-apply on the engine when bolted on a test bench.
ars 14y ago
95 grams of CO2 while burning gasoline will get you .4 kWh. If you drive 120 KM/h then you can a most generate 46.8KWh of energy during that hour. (.4 KWh for each km.) Divide by an hour, and that gets you 46.8KW of power. And that is assuming perfect usage of every bit of energy in gasoline which is of course impossible. So how in the world do they develop "110kW while emitting just 90-95 grams of CO2 per km". It's completely impossible to produce that much power. You would have to drive at 282 KM/h in order to do that. Unless I have a math error. Or whoever wrote up that story completely got their facts wrong. (When checking my math be careful not to mix up power and energy. And I hope I didn't mix them :)
- snippyhollow 14y ago
  I don't think you're pumping 46.8KW continuously when driving at 120KM/h, so you're not getting 46.8KWh of energy... The targeted 110KW is for when you're accelerating (a lot, or going really fast and having a lot of air resistance, or tracting something huge). While not still exactly there (110KW / 95g CO2/km), it seems possible, look at Citroen's engines (and CO2/km ratings) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_C3#Engines_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_C3#Engines_2 or the engine of the Smart (fortwo) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_3B2_engine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_3B2_engine
  - ars 14y ago
    > I don't think you're pumping 46.8KW continuously when driving at 120KM/h Certainly. But then you are not really developing "110kW while emitting just 90-95 grams of CO2 per km" are you? Unless that's some sort of PR speak for an engine with a maximum power of 110kW that emits 90-95 grams of CO2 per km during a normal drive (but that's not a function of the engine). But if so, that's a rather misleading way to say it, since that's the car not the engine.
    - maxerickson 14y ago
      The following paragraph clarifies the CO2 emissions figures. I think it is fair to call the text terse, but there is plenty enough context to avoid being mislead.
Mordor 14y ago
Hopefully with fewer rare earth metals too :)
lostlogin 14y ago
Gawd, you were thinking a a higher level than me. I was remembering gluing a CPU fan to a 2 stroke scooter and being impressed how much better it made it (it went from extremely underpowered to very underpowered). I probably ruined the motor, but it sure was fun.
adrianN 14y ago
I've never driven a car with more than 60HP and they did everything cars are supposed to do, including accelerating quickly enough to safely enter the autobahn. Can someone please explain to me why people need 150HP engines unless they're pulling a trailer?
- sukuriant 14y ago
  You need more than 150HP if you're pulling a trailer. You actually need more torque than anything. That said, more than 60HP gives you acceleration when you need to do that to avoid an accident (sometimes acceleration is better than deceleration). Other times include passing in difficult situations. 0-60 in 7-9 seconds is far, far less than 0-60 in 12 or 15. You can do a lot more with that. Also, I live in a very mountainous part of the world (Washington), and I fear that a 60hp sedan that can actually hold 4 or 5 adults would have a great deal of difficulty climbing some of the hills in Seattle; and if not in Seattle, than over in the mountains where I like to snowboard. In short, the extra power can provide you with extra options so you can be safer; and is sometimes required in the more ... aggressive hills that can be found in some parts of the world. And yes, you can claim that you can climb the hills in Seattle, but wearing your engine at 6000rpms just so that you can have all 60 of your alleged horses (actual horses degrade over time) damages the engine; whereas for my car to have 60 horses (Saturn Ion), it's probably something like 3500 rpm.... muuuch better on the engine so it lasts longer, fewer repair costs, etc.
  - adrianN 14y ago
    The 60HP cars that I've driven have their maximum output at 4200rpm which is something like 100km/h in fourth gear. That worked for all the mountains that I encountered, but I admit that I haven't been in the very mountainous parts of the world. I wonder whether there are any statistics about accidents prevented by quick acceleration. Somehow I have the feeling that the average driver won't be able to make use of their cars abilities in these split-second decisions. With regard to overtaking in difficult situations, my driving instructor taught me not to do that. If you can't safely overtake you'll have to wait a bit until you can. But I see how a more powerful engines would make more situations safe for overtaking.

16 points by yitchelle 14y ago

jacques_chester 14y ago

The most interesting part of this is that this design decouples the supercharger's speed from the engine's.

lloeki 14y ago
Indeed, as at first I thought it was just like Honda's IMA, which removes the starter entirely, and replaces the whole flywheel with an electric motor[0]. Here's a graph [1] showing the huge low-end torque boost of the CR-Z electric engine. It's clear that putting a regular turbo (like Ford is doing) would certainly help torque on higher revs. Toyota's HSD has two motor-generators, one to boost low end torque (MG2 or MG-T), and one higher up for speed (MG1 or MG-S). They do not operate in the same mode at the same time, one acting as a generator for the other that acts as a motor. As such it resembles the principle of a supercharger, in that it takes unused energy to apply it somewhere else on the drivetrain. Both motors do slip and they actually use that as a CSV transmission to replace the torque converter in a auto gearbox. Contrary to Ford's solution where the electric "supercharger" motor drives the driveline, there is no actual uninterrupted physical connection between the engine and the wheels. While we're doing a round up of hybrid technologies, Peugeot insisted on creating a hybrid diesel engine and could not overcome reliability problems when designing an engine similar to IMA, so they went back to the drawing board and simply made the two systems independent yet synchronized: the electric motors drive the rear wheels while the IC engine drives the front as usual. [0] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Honda_Insight_IMA.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Honda_Ins... [1] http://www.automobile-sportive.com/guide/honda/crz/crz-graph.jpg http://www.automobile-sportive.com/guide/honda/crz/crz-graph... (power in orange and torque in red, bold line is with electric and thin without)

ars 14y ago

"grams of CO2 per km" is a very strange way to rate an engine. It makes sense for a complete car. But just an engine by itself? Without specifying the speed of the car, weight of the car, aerodynamic shape, type of fuel?

savramescu 14y ago
I guess if you only have the engine to work on you don't have full data so you're comparing what you can.
lloeki 14y ago
They have a model to estimate various features of the car or they take it live from real cars, and deduce the resulting opposing force at speeds to counter-apply on the engine when bolted on a test bench.

ars 14y ago

95 grams of CO2 while burning gasoline will get you .4 kWh. If you drive 120 KM/h then you can a most generate 46.8KWh of energy during that hour. (.4 KWh for each km.) Divide by an hour, and that gets you 46.8KW of power. And that is assuming perfect usage of every bit of energy in gasoline which is of course impossible. So how in the world do they develop "110kW while emitting just 90-95 grams of CO2 per km". It's completely impossible to produce that much power. You would have to drive at 282 KM/h in order to do that. Unless I have a math error. Or whoever wrote up that story completely got their facts wrong. (When checking my math be careful not to mix up power and energy. And I hope I didn't mix them :)

snippyhollow 14y ago
I don't think you're pumping 46.8KW continuously when driving at 120KM/h, so you're not getting 46.8KWh of energy... The targeted 110KW is for when you're accelerating (a lot, or going really fast and having a lot of air resistance, or tracting something huge). While not still exactly there (110KW / 95g CO2/km), it seems possible, look at Citroen's engines (and CO2/km ratings) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_C3#Engines_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_C3#Engines_2 or the engine of the Smart (fortwo) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_3B2_engine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_3B2_engine
- ars 14y ago
  > I don't think you're pumping 46.8KW continuously when driving at 120KM/h Certainly. But then you are not really developing "110kW while emitting just 90-95 grams of CO2 per km" are you? Unless that's some sort of PR speak for an engine with a maximum power of 110kW that emits 90-95 grams of CO2 per km during a normal drive (but that's not a function of the engine). But if so, that's a rather misleading way to say it, since that's the car not the engine.
  - maxerickson 14y ago
    The following paragraph clarifies the CO2 emissions figures. I think it is fair to call the text terse, but there is plenty enough context to avoid being mislead.

Mordor 14y ago

Hopefully with fewer rare earth metals too :)

lostlogin 14y ago

Gawd, you were thinking a a higher level than me. I was remembering gluing a CPU fan to a 2 stroke scooter and being impressed how much better it made it (it went from extremely underpowered to very underpowered). I probably ruined the motor, but it sure was fun.

adrianN 14y ago

I've never driven a car with more than 60HP and they did everything cars are supposed to do, including accelerating quickly enough to safely enter the autobahn. Can someone please explain to me why people need 150HP engines unless they're pulling a trailer?

sukuriant 14y ago
You need more than 150HP if you're pulling a trailer. You actually need more torque than anything. That said, more than 60HP gives you acceleration when you need to do that to avoid an accident (sometimes acceleration is better than deceleration). Other times include passing in difficult situations. 0-60 in 7-9 seconds is far, far less than 0-60 in 12 or 15. You can do a lot more with that. Also, I live in a very mountainous part of the world (Washington), and I fear that a 60hp sedan that can actually hold 4 or 5 adults would have a great deal of difficulty climbing some of the hills in Seattle; and if not in Seattle, than over in the mountains where I like to snowboard. In short, the extra power can provide you with extra options so you can be safer; and is sometimes required in the more ... aggressive hills that can be found in some parts of the world. And yes, you can claim that you can climb the hills in Seattle, but wearing your engine at 6000rpms just so that you can have all 60 of your alleged horses (actual horses degrade over time) damages the engine; whereas for my car to have 60 horses (Saturn Ion), it's probably something like 3500 rpm.... muuuch better on the engine so it lasts longer, fewer repair costs, etc.
- adrianN 14y ago
  The 60HP cars that I've driven have their maximum output at 4200rpm which is something like 100km/h in fourth gear. That worked for all the mountains that I encountered, but I admit that I haven't been in the very mountainous parts of the world. I wonder whether there are any statistics about accidents prevented by quick acceleration. Somehow I have the feeling that the average driver won't be able to make use of their cars abilities in these split-second decisions. With regard to overtaking in difficult situations, my driving instructor taught me not to do that. If you can't safely overtake you'll have to wait a bit until you can. But I see how a more powerful engines would make more situations safe for overtaking.