As much as our customers care about performance, safety and affordability in their new or used cars, the name of the game seems to be fuel economy here at Volvo of Burlingame. It's a no-brainer really, what with just about every automaker out there trying to stake their claim in the market by reducing their carbon footprint and saving you money at the pump. As you can imagine, Volvo's one of those automakers, and if the recent work on their kinetic energy recovery system (KERS) is any indication, we might have a game-changer on the horizon.
To give you a backdrop, the Swedish Energy Agency gave the brass at Volvo a hefty sum of money two years ago in order to work on a project that would provide drivers with fuel savings of up to 20%. What they ended up developing was a flywheel propulsion system that, when outfitted into a 2013 Volvo S60, actually provides drivers with fuel savings of up to 25%.
As to how it works, a combustion engine powers the front wheels while a KERS system powers the rear wheels. When the vehicle brakes, the combustion engine turns off as the KERS system gains rotational energy which is then used to get the vehicle moving again or keep it running at cruising velocity.
If this is all coming as news, that's probably because it's the first of its kind on the market.
"We are the first manufacturer that has applied flywheel technology to the rear axle of a car fitted with a combustion engine driving the front wheels," says Derek Crabb, Vice President of Powertrain Engineering at Volvo. "The next step after completing these successful tests is to evaluate how the technology can be implemented in our upcoming car models."1
As to when the flywheel engine will start turning up in our showroom, your guess is as good as ours. But until then, the gearheads in our car parts department would be more than happy to tell you about the fuel-efficient engines that currently power our lineup here in Burlingame, CA. It's the future today, folks.
Source: 1http://www.autoblog.com/2013/04/29/volvo-testing-f1-style-kers-system-cites-25-fuel-economy-bump/