Race Cars to the Rescue
Race Cars to the Rescue
One does not usually associate energy efficiency with Formula One racecars, but they do go together. Many of the standard features in today’s cars were tested on race tracks (and before that by bootleggers doing their best to outrun the local gendarme.
Likewise, Formula One cars are helping in the development of two major innovations for increasing vehicle efficiency, the zeroshift gearbox and regenerative braking. In “F1 Soups up the Family Car,” Science Illustrated (September/October 2009, pages 50–53) describes how these two innovations are important in the high-performance arena and how the investments there may yield dividends for ordinary road vehicles.
For racers, the biggest advantage of the zeroshift transmission is that it gives quicker surer gear changes. For ordinary cars, reducing those freewheeling seconds between gears can reduce energy losses to the level of a conventional manual transmission, roughly a 12-percent savings (and it helps in road racing, but we never do that, really, I never had …). For you environmentalists, think of that as a 12-percent decrease in carbon footprint.
Another issue for racers, is that huge amounts of energy are wasted in heating brake pads and drums. Regenerative braking can capture some of that braking energy and resupply it to the wheels for increased acceleration after leaving a turn. For an ordinary road vehicle, that recovered energy can be an increase in efficiency, perhaps as much as 30 percent.
Regenerative braking (also called a kinetic energy recovery system or KERS) has been talked about at least since the first energy crisis in the 1970s. The Toyota Prius generates electric power with its regenerative braking to charge its battery.
The Formula One approach is a flywheel that can return the braking energy much more quickly than a battery. One of the companies supporting this innovation is Flybrid of England. Their turbine spins up to 65,000 revolutions per minute and captures roughly 10 percent of the braking torque. For the racers, the flywheel can increase car power by 10 percent. For an ordinary vehicle in city traffic, the saving could be 30 percent. The question of flywheel vs. battery (or maybe even ultracapacitor) is a question that history will decide. Yet history is more likely to get some form of these innovations if there are more options to choose from.
In both of these potential (yes potential; it’s not real until millions of units are sold) innovations, the racing circuit can pay the high costs of working at the beginning of the learning curve where costs are highest. Working prototypes that have been “tested under load” are much better than PowerPoint slides in selling the investment needed to build such items in mass production.
Of course, as always, the invisible hand of the market place has the last say. If the peak-oil school of correct about impending oil shortages and $200/barrel oil, these innovations will b rushed into the market. If new discoveries, drop oil down to the level of the $30s, these innovations will be research efforts only for many years to come.
One does not usually associate energy efficiency with Formula One racecars, but they do go together. Many of the standard features in today’s cars were tested on race tracks (and before that by bootleggers doing their best to outrun the local gendarme.
Likewise, Formula One cars are helping in the development of two major innovations for increasing vehicle efficiency, the zeroshift gearbox and regenerative braking. In “F1 Soups up the Family Car,” Science Illustrated (September/October 2009, pages 50–53) describes how these two innovations are important in the high-performance arena and how the investments there may yield dividends for ordinary road vehicles.
For racers, the biggest advantage of the zeroshift transmission is that it gives quicker surer gear changes. For ordinary cars, reducing those freewheeling seconds between gears can reduce energy losses to the level of a conventional manual transmission, roughly a 12-percent savings (and it helps in road racing, but we never do that, really, I never had …). For you environmentalists, think of that as a 12-percent decrease in carbon footprint.
Another issue for racers, is that huge amounts of energy are wasted in heating brake pads and drums. Regenerative braking can capture some of that braking energy and resupply it to the wheels for increased acceleration after leaving a turn. For an ordinary road vehicle, that recovered energy can be an increase in efficiency, perhaps as much as 30 percent.
Regenerative braking (also called a kinetic energy recovery system or KERS) has been talked about at least since the first energy crisis in the 1970s. The Toyota Prius generates electric power with its regenerative braking to charge its battery.
The Formula One approach is a flywheel that can return the braking energy much more quickly than a battery. One of the companies supporting this innovation is Flybrid of England. Their turbine spins up to 65,000 revolutions per minute and captures roughly 10 percent of the braking torque. For the racers, the flywheel can increase car power by 10 percent. For an ordinary vehicle in city traffic, the saving could be 30 percent. The question of flywheel vs. battery (or maybe even ultracapacitor) is a question that history will decide. Yet history is more likely to get some form of these innovations if there are more options to choose from.
In both of these potential (yes potential; it’s not real until millions of units are sold) innovations, the racing circuit can pay the high costs of working at the beginning of the learning curve where costs are highest. Working prototypes that have been “tested under load” are much better than PowerPoint slides in selling the investment needed to build such items in mass production.
Of course, as always, the invisible hand of the market place has the last say. If the peak-oil school of correct about impending oil shortages and $200/barrel oil, these innovations will b rushed into the market. If new discoveries, drop oil down to the level of the $30s, these innovations will be research efforts only for many years to come.
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