Volvo ReCharge Concept

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Volvo's ReCharge Concept

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• volvo
• hybrid
• recharge
• concept

[LodewijkWesterling]

Very interesting - but why wait till 2015???

We can deliver PHEV conversion sets for the Prius today, driving 55km on the battery and on average 50km per litre!

[bogdanp9]

I am a student at the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest. A group of teachers and students converted a Daewoo Matiz to electric. Each front wheel has it's own motor. They wrote some computer code to make the motors act like differentials ( according to the steering wheel's angle they would spin at different speeds ) and other things like this. I don't think this is very complicated. There must be other problems.

[crimson69666]

Exactly the same thing as the electric wheel engine developped by enginner Couture at IREQ about 15 years ago...Hydro-Quebec canned the project instead of providing a mere 30M$ to finish it and come out with a car...

[HogHunterNSon]

Not necessarily true. We built complete electric cars for Homeland Security using this technology over 4 years ago for Border Patrol vehicles. You would be surprised how little the weight difference is one you eliminate much of the mechanical drivetrain associated with gas engines. In our case, we were only 9.5 pounds more at each wheel. It all depends on the design. These magnetic, brushless motors are amazing and are virtually bulletproof.

[singer1924]

The technical problem is essentially that mass on wheels is bad for suspension efficiency. It is hard to make these motors lightweight without losing other qualities. Five years to find a provider and develop the technology is very short. I don't know how long Toyota took to develop the Prius but this will involve developing high-tech materials for the in-wheel motors. If e.g. Toyota was able to produce such motors today, I would bet Volvo would buy them, just as they already buy their AW boxes.

[shentrock]

Thats Awesome!!!

[eurasia57]

I doubt distributing torque between the wheels

under all driving condition involves more than 500 lines of code. The 2015 release date is a suicide note, if it is deliberate or plain stupidity is unclear.

[walteriko]

SUPER COOL!!!

[sonix3x]

Where I can buy this car??

[FFF666GP]

True. This car does not have the fail-safe feature of drive-wheel interlock of transmission-differential-driv­eshaft vehicles (whether petrol, other electric or hybrid) Essentially, it has an independent drivetrain package at each wheel-each wheel could spin at vastly different rotational speeds. Volvo probably has a fail-safe mechanism/system to negate this. I imagine that it would have to be an independent montoring system, much like ESP, that can provide feedback to the central control unit.

[sixyears]

they still need to work on it. Since the car has the motors in the wheels it has full time all wheel drive. If the wheel at different speeds when driving the car could lose control. That is on problem. Also some parts need to be toughened up for regular street use.