Porsche Unveils 911 Hybrid With Flywheel Booster 197
MikeChino writes "Porsche has just unveiled its 911 GT3 R Hybrid, a 480 horsepower track vehicle ready to rock the 24-hour Nurburgring race this May. Porsche's latest supercar will use the same 911 production platform available to consumers today, with a few race-ready features including front-wheel hybrid drive and an innovative flywheel system that stores kinetic energy from braking and then uses it to provide a 160 horsepower burst of speed. The setup is sure to offer an advantage when powering out of turns and passing by other racers."
A little more info (but not much) (Score:5, Informative)
Will Porsche succeed where KERS failed? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:A little more info (but not much) (Score:4, Informative)
A rule change in the F1 league requires Kenetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) systems for all F1 cars in 2010 and is pretty much the main driver behind the technology. LeMans is also requiring hybrid systems, though they've banned anything with a flywheel. Williams developed the only flywheel KERS and AFAIK is the only team which developed any system in-house & without a partner in the auto industry.
Here's some better info explaining the technology:
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/02/11/videos-porsche-911-gt3-r-hybrid-uses-williams-f1-flywheel-kers/ [autoblog.com]
Re:Gyroscopic effect? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, I found another link with more info (and some interesting comments):
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2010/02/gt3r-20100211.html [greencarcongress.com]
It looks like the flywheel itself has an integrated magnet, so it's basically a generator. Clever, and means it doesn't need a mechanical connection, so gimbals would work.
Though it also looks like it does not in fact use gimbals... may just use some sort of spring suspension?
Re:Porsche Hybrid (Score:3, Informative)
> By the way, most of not all hybrids license technology from Toyota for their operation.
> Can't wait to see what faulty brakes or accidental acceleration on a Porsche 911 looks like.
Very unlike a Toyota, I think.
Note: This is a flywheel hybrid, not a battery hybrid.
Re:A little more info (but not much) (Score:4, Informative)
Except Ferrari and Mercedes of course: Neither of them is short of money, and aren't all that interested in passing their tech to the competition.
They could get an updated KERS without talking to the F1 teams themselves though: Magneti Marelli developed KERS systems for at least 3 teams last year.
Re:A little more info (but not much) (Score:5, Informative)
Mechanical Hybrids (Score:3, Informative)
... A few years ago I heard about Tom Kasmer's hydraulic transmission. He calls it the Hydristor [hydristor.com] (also: wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org]).
Basically, an invention like Kasmer's could be used to turn any car into a hybrid by replacing the transmission. Braking energy is stored in a hydraulic pressure system (the proper name escapes me at the moment).
While this system from Porsche is interesting, it is not revolutionary.
The next automotive revolution will be some form of retrofit.
Re: No KERS in F1 in 2010 (Score:2, Informative)
KERS was mostly a disaster in 2009 by allowing teams to use it, but not mandating it. At the end of the season, all teams agreed to abandon the technology. The BMW F1 team bet heavily on KERS and designed their car around it. After challenging for the championship in 2008, their 2009 campaign was so poor, they quit F1 altogether.
Re:Wow, they incorporated technology... (Score:3, Informative)
They're talking about a different flywheel you twit. All internal combustion engines including the one in your car (duh) have a flywheel on the main shaft. If they didn't then when you let the clutch out then there wouldn't be enough kinetic energy in the engine to compress the next cylinder and it would stall. You have a flywheel (for instance, a giant disc that your clutch will engage) to smooth out the RPMs and add some mass to the system.
What they're talking about is a giant flywheel that they spin up to store kinetic energy. Like a giant mechanical capacitor. Like something which, if you crashed and it was damaged while it was charged up it would make a very impressive shrapnel cloud.
Re:Gyroscopic effect? (Score:2, Informative)
KERS "killed" by regulations (Score:1, Informative)
FOTA limited the amount of energy that can be stored on KERSs to be tiny, thus render KERS useless. that led to the disaster.
Re:Gyroscopic effect? (Score:3, Informative)
It depends on the orientation of the axis of the flywheel. If you try to place the flywheel so that the axis is horizontal, you'll end up with needing to apply a lot of torque in order to turn the vehicle left-right, making it harder to turn. If you place the flywheel so that the axis is vertical, the amount of torque necessary to flip the vehicle would go up, probably making this a safety feature for SUVs, and would have very little effect on the torque needed to turn the vehicle left-right.
The rule with (single-axis) gyroscopes is that the only axis it isn't harder to rotate the whole gyroscope around is the one around which it's already spinning; any non-parallel axis is harder.
Re: No KERS in F1 in 2010 (Score:4, Informative)
Add to this that none of the teams that planned to use KERS designed a car with a double diffuser, an aerodinamical device allowed by a loophole in the rules initially exploited by only three teams. The double diffuser turned out to be far more important than the KERS for the performances of the car. Brawn GP got an expecially good implementation of the device and won 6 of the first 7 races. After that they coasted to win the championship as the other teams struggled to catch up. KERS teams got on par only on the last races of the season.
By the way, BMW abandoned KERS quite early in the season and it used it only on one of its cars.
Re:safety ? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Will Porsche succeed where KERS failed? (Score:1, Informative)
It wasn't a problem with the KERS itself, but the rules/restrictions placed on them. I'd imagine that once you have the system in the car, turning it up to higher levels of storage and output would add very little new bulk. Since they weren't required, they wanted KERS cars and non-KERS cars to be equal in performance. If you should, in theory, have very similar (or even a little better) lap times and less new gadgets to break, why bother spending the time and money to work on it?