Frankfurt Preview: More details on the Volvo ReCharge
Click the image of the Volve ReCharge chassis for a high-res gallery
After the news of the Volvo ReCharge plug-in series hybrid came out a couple of days ago we got in touch with Volvo for some more information. The ReCharge that's being displayed in Frankfurt is a mock-up. However, there is a running prototype being built and the mock-up was used to work out packaging of all the components.
The ultimate plan is to use the wheel motors for all the braking. The initial test units though have mounting provisions made for hydraulic brakes. These will be used during initial testing as a safety backup. One limiting factor of using only regenerative braking is the ability of the battery to absorb the kinetic energy fast enough. Most current lithium batteries (except the nano- material batteries like those from Altairnano and A123) can't take a charge that fast which limits the ability to use regen.
The lithium polymer battery in the ReCharge only has a 12kWh capacity but a claimed 62 mile range. Based on that it must be able to absorb energy pretty quickly and use a lot of regen to get that range. Volvo plans on field testing the ReCharge as soon as possible to gain experience with the system.
Gallery: 2007 Volvo ReCharge concept
[Source: Volvo]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tim 1:20PM (9/09/2007)
I love a good horse race. wheel motors with 4wd sounds good, but I wonder how it will affect the final sales price.
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Paul Berg 1:32PM (9/09/2007)
Please...Volvo, and GM and Toyota. Set to be in production in 2015? What is this? The world is seeing all kinds of technical wonders...new diesel cars...new bio gas cars...those you can procuce today...but thees plugin hybrids and really clean cars...you guys in the car industry expect to wait up until 2020... What are you trying to do here? Suck out every bit of money out of every technology that is not really clean and then give us the clean elternatives? Dont you guys see why the world needs clean alternatives? The earth is slowly going under and it feels you car people are trying to make it suffer many more years to come...for money....please...pleas...the battery powered car has been around for over hunded years, so just give all of us a plug in hybrid, now !!!!
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AES 5:48PM (9/09/2007)
"The lithium polymer battery in the ReCharge only has a 12kWh capacity but a claimed 62 mile range. Based on that it must be able to absorb energy pretty quickly and use a lot of regen to get that range"
First off, the highway range for any car is usually calculated at a constant uninterrupted speed, so regen probably has nothing to do with it.
Secondly, if you're quantitatively comparing it to the Chevy Volt concept car which only has a 40 mile range on a 16kWh battery, keep in mind that the GM car only uses 8kWh to make that 40 miles - it never discharges the battery below 50%, as 100% depth of discharge is bad for any lithium ion chemistry. So theoretically, it could do 80, but in the long run you wouldn't want to.
If you do the math, both of these concepts get around 5 miles/kWh in EV mode (which is actually better than the Tesla at around 3.8).
As for the rest of the Volvo concept, I hope they include a diesel genset - there's a european C30 diesel that apparently gets over 50mpg, so just imagine what sort of efficiency a similar engine would deliver if properly turbo'd and set to run at peak efficiency.
One point of concern is the position of the battery pack - in a rear impact crash, the lithium polymers are going to go boom. So either they change the position, or invest in some safer chemistry (of which there are several on the market - A123 is not alone).
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grimmex 11:34PM (9/16/2007)
Sam said:
"The ultimate plan is to use the wheel motors for all the braking. The initial test units though have mounting provisions made for hydraulic brakes. These will be used during initial testing as a safety backup."
Well, I sure hope that those wheel motors don't do *all* the braking in the final release. Or you won't be able to park on any grade at all.
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