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."
Re:Will Porsche succeed where KERS failed? (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem with the KERS system is not entirely on the weight, but because of the rules. They could only use it for 7 or so seconds per lap as stipulated by the rules, since they don't want the KERS cars to outrun the normal cars without even putting up a fight.
Re:Porsche Hybrid (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope you realize that outside of NASCAR, most race driving is not constant high speed. It involves a great deal of braking and acceleration, when maneuvering through corners. This is why track cars have really, really good brakes, and being able to reclaim that kinetic energy lost is potentially an enormous benefit.
They haven't been popular to date because of the impact on vehicle dynamics, but it's just a matter of time until the engineering issues are solved.
Re:Will Porsche succeed where KERS failed? (Score:1, Insightful)
The system didn't fail, it was pulled because ONLY McLaren and Ferrari could afford it. Several races had positions decided simply because of their KERS power. Of course they realized if they all had it, there would be no gain...
Re:Porsche Hybrid (Score:3, Insightful)
Furthermore, they won't save a lot of gas when driving at constant and/or high speeds, such as highway or a race track.
Clearly you missed part of the summary: this is not a NASCAR race.
Re:Will Porsche succeed where KERS failed? (Score:4, Insightful)
The KERS cars performed poorly at the start of the season, but started catching up during the middle of the season, with McLaren having the fastest car at the end of the season. The double diffuser controversy also had a big hand in holding back the KERS cars at the start of the season.
Re:Counter-rotating flywheels would cancel it (Score:4, Insightful)
Two counter rotating flywheels will NOT cancel out each other! Only the reaction (precessional is the official term i think in english) forces are canceled out!
Let's say the three axis are x, y and z. Then when you have a single flywheel which is rotating about the x axis it will resist rotating along the other axis and while react with a force that is perpedular to the the rotation and the force. When adding a second counter rotating flywheel it will cause a reaction force opposite to that of the first flywheel so the reaction forces are canceled out. However the combination still resist rotating along any axis other then it's axis of rotation.
Re:What? (Score:2, Insightful)
Small addendum: some cars have enough power to spin any set of tires when the driver stomps his foot down. One point of skill for people who own such cars is to be able to launch your car from a halt as fast as you can without spinning the tires.