Semcon Cooperating with Volvo Cars to Develop Plug-in Hybrid Technology
20 August 2009
Over the past year, Semcon, a global engineering services company, has been working with Volvo Cars’ development of 3 demo plug-in hybrids in a cooperation project between Volvo Cars, Vattenfall, ETC and Energimyndigheten (The Swedish Energy Agency). (Earlier post.)
Semcon has worked on converting a vehicle with a conventional combustion engine to a plug-in by adapting and installing an electric motor and battery, constructing an adapted transmission and designing and constructing the wiring, logger and control units.
Three prototype cars are being produced so that in the autumn of 2009 all information will be gathered about what requirements and demands drivers will place on this new technology, what the driving experience is like and how people will charge their cars.
The three Volvo V70 PHEV demonstration cars combine a front-wheel drive diesel engine with a rear-wheel drive electric motor, powered by an 11.3 kWh Li-ion battery pack, of which 8 kWh is usable. The car will support both residential charging (approx. five hours) as well as a 32A fast charge.
In total, six people with different specialist skills from Powertrain, electronics, project management and calculation have been involved in the work.
In an independent and resource-effective way, Semcon has designed the technical solutions demanded by the project and the cars have consequently been built at Volvo’s Concept plant in cooperation with Semcon.
—Anders Björnberg, responsible for the plug-in project at Volvo Cars
TH!NK TH!NK TH!NK
Norway was quite close to Sweden at one time and was even part of it once even with Denmark, but the pumping of oil out of the North Sea has caused Norway to separate a great distance from Sweden it seems. There is a full electric car in halted production in Norway a few were even sold prior to the major economic collapse. One version can allow a fuel cell and likely could be easily modified for very small engine generator for mostly advertizing purposes and the occasional slightly too long trip.
Somewhere still close by is the EFFPOWER company with cheap lead hybrid batteries. ..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | 20 August 2009 at 05:30 PM