FHSPV System Testing Complete                                                                      July 2010

Flybrid Systems are pleased to report that full system testing on the Flybrid test rig is now complete for the Flywheel Hybrid System for Premium Vehicles (FHSPV) project hardware.

The FHSPV project is a collaboration between Jaguar Cars, Ford Motor Company, Flybrid Systems, Torotrak, Xtrac, Prodrive and Ricardo to develop a high-speed flywheel based hybrid system for demonstration in a Jaguar XF vehicle. This project is part funded by the UK Technology Strategy Board who were present last week along with the other project partners to witness the system running under fully automatic control.

The system has been testing on the newly commissioned Flybrid full load test rig that features an electric drive system capable of up to 200 kW power in both storage and recovery. When energy is being recovered from the flywheel it is returned to the mains elecricity grid avoiding the requirement for additional cooling and reducing CO2 emissions. The rig was designed and constructed in-house by Flybrid engineers who also built and programmed the control system which is capable of automatically following preprogrammed test cycles.

System testing has focused on perfecting functionality on the NEDC test cycle and has included all the available modes of system operation. Storage under braking, release under acceleration, engine charging of the flywheel, engine off driving of the vehicle and flywheel launch from stationary have all been tested.

The system testing has gone extremely well and the recorded efficiency is exactly in line with expectations. In fact during all of the testing efficiency of the Flybrid unit has been so high that no external cooling of the system has been necessary.

The first car system is due for delivery this week and it won't be long now before the vehicle is driving around the Jaguar test track at Gaydon. We can't wait to have a go!