Something that no other electric car maker has done is address re-gen inefficiency due to hysteresis in the change from discharge to charge chemistry in LiPo's. It is just not possible to reach high levels of recapture in a 10 second braking cycle. The fix for this is to use a small bank of super-caps. The beer-can size Estonian super-caps would be good for concept testing. The interface with them and the batteries requires minimal circuitry. They would capture > 90% of the re-gen energy and dissipate it - bringing the vehicle off the line. Resulting overall range increase would be significant. Contact me if you have questions. 🤓
A bit of research I did suggests the regeneration efficiency is likely more about 65-85% (I saw one claim of 92.5%) making adding supercapacitors less of a benefit than if you assume regeneration is only 50%.
Excellent idea... and... there is crickets. Hmmm. This might be a gen2 idea and implementation if I were on the board. Maybe you lost them at: Hysteresis.
I could see the regen mode is programmed to bring online the super capacitors to capture. Then, the caps could supplement acceleration demands - like a turbo boost. Love it.
Cost vs complexity vs reward. Adding super caps isn't a bad idea, but the amount of energy you stand to capture, vs the cost and complexity of adding another chemistry/component to the programing and design probably just doesn't warrant, yet. Think of the programing to the can bus to engage and disengage pathways in the charging circuits. Possible, sure, likely better for race cars though than passenger cars.
Something that no other electric car maker has done is address re-gen inefficiency due to hysteresis in the change from discharge to charge chemistry in LiPo's. It is just not possible to reach high levels of recapture in a 10 second braking cycle. The fix for this is to use a small bank of super-caps. The beer-can size Estonian super-caps would be good for concept testing. The interface with them and the batteries requires minimal circuitry. They would capture > 90% of the re-gen energy and dissipate it - bringing the vehicle off the line. Resulting overall range increase would be significant. Contact me if you have questions. 🤓
I've seen this discussed over the years and have wondered why no one has ever moved forward with it...
A bit of research I did suggests the regeneration efficiency is likely more about 65-85% (I saw one claim of 92.5%) making adding supercapacitors less of a benefit than if you assume regeneration is only 50%.
I wonder what has higher energy density. Super Caps or Formula 1 KERS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy_recovery_system
Excellent idea... and... there is crickets. Hmmm. This might be a gen2 idea and implementation if I were on the board. Maybe you lost them at: Hysteresis.
I could see the regen mode is programmed to bring online the super capacitors to capture. Then, the caps could supplement acceleration demands - like a turbo boost. Love it.
Cost vs complexity vs reward. Adding super caps isn't a bad idea, but the amount of energy you stand to capture, vs the cost and complexity of adding another chemistry/component to the programing and design probably just doesn't warrant, yet. Think of the programing to the can bus to engage and disengage pathways in the charging circuits. Possible, sure, likely better for race cars though than passenger cars.
I suppose one could build a KERS using Caps or batteries as the spinning mass.