Last weekend saw the outing at Silverstone of Peugeot Sport's impressive 908 low emission racing car. As hybrid cars go this is a truly beautiful looking vehicle - but then I can't resist posting about a racing car every now and again, when I can.
The 908 HY's technology features a kinetic energy recovery system in its hybrid power plant, which enables a significant amount of the kinetic energy generated while braking to be either recovered or stored. This energy, otherwise lost in a non-hybrid car, is used to reduce fuel consumption of 3-5 per cent without loss of performance.
The Peugeot 908 is a racing demonstrator which can operate in either electric mode or with internal combustion engine only, or a combination of both. During the course of a race saved energy can be used to deliver extra power, or to reduce fuel consumption. This is achieved from a system comprising a 60kW gear-driven electric motor-generator (in place of the conventional starter motor), 10 battery packs housing 600 lithium-ion cells, and an electronic power converter to control the flow of energy from batteries to motor-generator.
Peugeot hope to use the 908 as part of an endurance racing programme (including such as the Le Mans series, the final round of which was held at Silverstone last weekend) both for serious competition and as a research and development tool benefiting its brand of production cars. Whether Peugeot will be allowed to use its groundbreaking technology in 2009 will depend on new regulations to be published by the Automobile Club de l'Quest. Let's hope this exciting car, and others like it, will be racing and helping boost the future motor production of low emission cars.
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