When you want a potent engine or a sturdy gearbox for your fantasy supercar, Ricardo ought to be your first call. This U.K.-based engineering firm has roots reaching back much more than a century and branches that cover Europe, Russia, Asia, and the U.S. of A. Ricardo’s expertise can be discovered across the business. Among its recent projects is the HyBoost, a Ford Focus fitted with an electrically driven supercharger. Ricardo constructed this HyBoost with 2 objectives in thoughts: topping Toyota Prius fuel efficiency even though skirting the expense, bulk, and weight of the Prius’s 2 electric motor/generators and battery pack. The experiment is a timely one—every carmaker sees 2025’s 54.5-mpg CAFE requirement looming, and most need to have help meeting it. To develop the HyBoost, Ricardo replaced the original 1.6-liter 4-cylinder engine with a 1.-liter EcoBoost 3-cylinder and augmented that engine’s turbo with a Valeo electric supercharger. 2 years ago [“A Genuine Electric Charge,” January 2012], we speculated that BMW may possibly use an electric supercharger to sharpen throttle response at low engine speeds. Even though that has yet to come to fruition, Audi has one particular under the hood of its RS5 TDI concept car.
Primarily a turbo’s compressor mated to a DC electric motor, this supercharger can spin to 70,000 rpm in significantly less than .4 second, supplying 77 psi of enhance ahead of the HyBoost’s bigger exhaust-driven turbo wakes up. Ricardo met its aim of rising the Focus’s fuel efficiency from 39 mpg to 59 in European test cycles. A switch permits acceleration testing with or without the electric blower operating. We employed 4th-gear acceleration from 30 to 50 mph and from 50 to 70 mph to gauge the supercharger’s effectiveness. Goose the HyBoost’s throttle and there’s a shuffle beneath the hood accompanied by a modest enhance in forward surge as this device goes to work. The key word is “modest.” The supercharger trimmed the 9.-second 30-to-50-mph run by only .3 second. In the upper speed variety, there’s significantly less advantage due to the fact there’s sufficient exhaust flow above 2800 rpm to spin the turbo. Regardless of the HyBoost’s poor displaying on the test track, we’re enthusiastic about the Valeo supercharger due to the fact it runs cool and can be mounted nearly anyplace under the hood. Count on seeing this device on production models soon.
Hyaboosta: Ricardo’s mpg particular ditches the Focus’s 1.6-liter for a 1. and its 5-speed for a 6. It has an electric supercharger and a quit-begin method. The blower gets its juice not from a battery, but from 10 supercapacitors that capture power throughout deceleration. Other Stories You May Like
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