Jaguar Land Rover Developing New Flywheel Hybrid Tech.

I'm glad all the automakers are going greener. Maybe not by much but it's a start. All thanks to Honda who first introduced it. It's too bad they came out with it in a bad time when the awareness level wasn't high. Toyota picked up on it at the perfect time.

— Agent63 (View Profile)

Posted on 7/6/2008 11:51:41 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1   

This is very interesting technology to add to a car. The flywheel’s rotational energy is directly proportional to its mass, so the heavier the flywheel is, the more energy it can store. I wonder what size mass (weight) Jag is talking about? Too much, and the car’s balance will be changed. I think there is also a gyroscopic effect caused by a flywheel (not good in a sports car), but if Formula One is looking at it (see the article link), then this is not an issue.

— hybridfarce (View Profile)

Posted on 7/7/2008 12:22:55 AM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1   

the "gyroscopic" forces can be delt with by allowing the flywheel assembly to rotate with respect to the car, with something like a shock absorber to damp the motion. Yes, there would still be some effect, but I'm sure it could be handled. Another problem would be the torque on the car from accelerating/decelerating the flywheel. Flywheels can store tremendous amounts of energy.

Speaking of tremendous amounts of energy... Think about what could happen with one of these if you got severely rear-ended after a panic-stop on the highway. Your flywheel just got spun up to say 60k rpms when it gets smacked by the colision and bam! Your flywheel becomes hundreds of projectiles moving as fast as bullets in all directions. Anyone within a quarter mile could be killed, including most likely everyone in your car.

There better be some impressive armor around those flywheels.

— holmstar (View Profile)

Posted on 7/7/2008 12:30:27 PM | reply to this comment | Votes: 1