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Freescale and McLaren Electronic Systems announced at Electronica that they are working together to develop a next generation kinetic energy recovery system (KERS).
Although aimed at motor-racing, the development should produce smaller, lighter and more efficient hybrid systems.
KERS recovers energy from the car during braking, stores it, and makes it available upon demand to accelerate. The stored kinetic energy is released using a boost button to deliver an extra burst of power for a short period e.g. when overtaking or going uphill.
Freescale has many initiatives going to produce more fuel-efficient cars. One is the start-stop system being used by Valeo which turns off the engine when the car is not moving and automatically switches it on when motion is needed. This makes substantial savings in fuel.
Freescale vp and general manager, Denis Griot, believes that the world wants hybrid cars.
"Beyond the hype and the fashion I believe the behaviour of customers is really changing. For instance SUV buyers are changing."
However, Griot concedes that enormous progress has to be made if hybrid cars are to become popular. "Electrification is a continuum but it happens with breakthroughs", he said.
"The challenge is that 1 kilogram of fully-charged battery will drive a mid-sized car for 2 kilometres, but 1 kilogram of petrol will give 20 kilometres in the same car."
Electrification of the powertrain can drastically increase energy conversion by four to five times, according to Griot. Currently 80 per cent of the energy converted into the mechanical drive is lost in heat.
Better batteries is the main problem but another huge problem is the charging time - it can take eight hours to charge a battery in a hybrid car, which is an awful long time to be waiting at a filling station.
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