So, what you're saying, Stu, is that it's british! :-)
If Lucas was alive, he'd be rubbing his hands in anticipation...
I don't know what the complexities are with working this piece of
technology out--you might be right about it having to be replaced
periodically--just like todays alternators and drive belts.
What I thought was interesting (besides the name, of course) is that it
offers an incremental increase in fuel efficiency that could be applied
to new cars--which I think is a positive step towards oil independence.
As an example of a factory installed incremental improvement (assuming
the additional battery didn't add enough weight to wipe out the gains),
a car like my Toyota Echo could see a jump of nearly 2 mpg from that one
item alone. I'm being conservative here, but the numbers still look
pretty good.
While I have no idea what the cost-benefit ratio would be on that one
item, put a bunch of these incremental improvements (and an avalanche of
alliteration--grin) together and if it helps me buy a car that saves
money on fuel over, say, a 10 year ownership, that seems like a good
thing, since it leaves me money to buy gas for the Tiger.
Best Regards
David
stubrennan@comcast.net wrote:
>Replace a relatively cheap massed produced alternator and a couple belts, with
>half a turbocharger and a 80,000RPM alternator, that will get cooked to s**t
>every so often. Yeah, there's a big step forward.
>
>Stu
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