Regenerative Braking

While the search for alternatives to the internal combustion engine continues at labs across the world, work hasn't stopped on those traditional powerplants. Auto parts supplier Ricardo, for example, had just announced its HyBoost project, which aims to reduce the CO2 emissions of a " cost-effective, ultra-efficient gasoline engine in a C-segment passenger car" by something like 30-40 percent. That's pretty impressive, and will take not only Ricardo's resources but also that of the co

Autospies says that they've gotten their hands on the first picture of "BMW regenerative brake technology in action on a USA model" (a 550i GT). Well, we're interested in the technology, but something about the Celsius temperature gauge and the kilometer label tells us that maybe this is a Eurospec dash. Whatever the case, one nifty feature of the way Sebastian Blanco

Ah, fire. One of humanity's oldest ways to generate energy. Technically, you could generate energy by burning brake pads, as seen in the picture above (thanks, Flickr!), but automotive engineers have managed to come up with a way to use brakes to generate energy without going up in flames. The technology is called regenerative braking and it's the subject of this week's Greenlings.

Scientists at Tufts University have patented a shock absorber that converts compressive energy into electricity, which can then be stored in a hybrid vehicle's batteries. Called the Power-Generating Shock Absorber (PGSA), actually an electromagnetic linear generator, it uses "magnet arrays, high magnetic permeability spaces, coil winding arrays," and a linear electric motor to capture the energy of its motion and use it to charge the batteries.

Click the MINI E for a high res gallery

Click above for high-res gallery of the 2009 Mercedes-Benz A-Class

According to suppliers quoted by Automotive News, soon after the MINI press conference concludes in Frankfurt, buyers will be able to get their iconic runabout complete with regenerative braking and start-stop features.

Tesla Motors has just updated their blog, this time with a post from Greg Solberg, who is Tesla Motors Firmware Engineer. The post is all about regenerative braking. Just like most of the other posts at the Tesla Motors blog, this one is quite informative and offers us all a glimpse into just what it takes to get a vehicle from the drawing board to customer hands on the road.

It would seem that BMW reads Autoblog. How else would you explain them, at least partially, answering our question about how a conventional automobile would utilize some of the hybrid demon-tweaks?