Tim Streater wrote:
In article
,
harry wrote:

On Jan 2, 6:07 pm, Andy Champ wrote:
On 31/12/2011 11:26, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I don't know where you've been, but lots of conventional IC
engined cars
now use their alternator to store energy when slowing.

No they dont.

BMW call it "Efficient Dynamics". I suspect it makes F-all difference
though - just takes a little load off the engine while under load,
rather than storing it to accelerate with.

Andy

Well they would have to have somewhere to store this energy.

I seem to remember that BMW were working on an ICE that had few
mechanical parts, every thing was electric. Water pump, oil pump,
valves, cooling fan, steering, AC, fuel injection. They were using
heat from the exhaust with a thermopile to charge the battery,
therefore no alternator.
There was only a crankshaft, con rods valves and pistons. No camshaft.

Dunno what became of it.

I expect they turned the engine over once and broke the valve stems.
Then the BMW engineers turned to each other and said "Oh! *That's* what
the camshaft is for!".


:-)

The fact is mechanical drives use less power than electric ones by and
large.

And its usually easier to declutch something you dont need than simply
take the load off the alternator.