February 28, 2013 - For as long as we have had traffic – there have been people shouting about the annoyance of it. But now there are also people complaining about the damage it does to the environment. With your car sitting there running, but not moving, it is just wasting engine output, fuel, and creating noxious energies to pollute the sky. Roughly 30% of your engine output is lost through braking constantly in traffic. Add in the people with veins popping out their skulls, roaring at the traffic in front, honking the horn and booting down on the ignition. Only to do a hard break seconds later.
However, through breakout technology known as Regenerative Braking, you can start to save both money and the environment! Even the oh so charming road ragers we just discussed would be doing it a bit of a favour then, as this technology – very similar to an electric generator – helps cut down on the problems we create.
Though nothing ground-breaking – it’s not the new telephone! – Regenerative breaking works, albeit only in electric hybrids – has one huge change over a conventional car. Your normal combustion engine can only convert the fuel it burns into energy, to move it forward, there is no other way. Therefore, every time you apply the brakes to stop moving forward, you are using up valuable energy, wasting it in fact. However, with Regenerative breaking, you are doing the opposite – you are actually creating new energy.
The car actually stores up the energy and uses that every time it moves forward. Like a Battery Pack for your games console, it needs charging. This causes your vehicle to use the stored up energy to get you going again. However, as you slow down, the torque shuts itself down and the engine starts to generate energy, and uses the momentum you created to generate itself new energy.
This allows a vehicle to create energy as soon as it stops moving, this is as close as you can get to a car that is self sustaining. Just make sure you live in heavy traffic!
It’s like Solar Power, for your car!
