Bharat Forge Ltd. & KPIT Cummins have announced a joint venture 4th June 2010, at Delhi for providing ready to deploy Hybrid technology solution to be fitted in Indian automobiles. The system is known as REVOLO – Revolutionary Solution for converting any car from 800 CC to 3000 CC into a parallel hybrid without tampering with the transmission of the car.
The revolutionary technology is out of the box and involves mounting of the electric motor on the crank shaft of the engine which is an innovative move which saves a lot of cost and installation efforts. This also reduces the pain of removing the transmission and installing a new one. This revolutionary indigenous innovation makes this system 80% cheaper as compared to the after-market hybrid car kits available in the US markets which cost around $20,000 USD. Not only the cost factor, this makes the system a lot less complex and light in weight in context of the moving engine components which effectively enhances the fuel efficiency to twice as compared the the existing solutions which are available globally. This cost factor and efficiency factor combined make this solution 10 times more value for money compared to the counterparts.
Keeping the technicalities apart, for a layman, this is an aftermarket kit, which will be available for installation at the authorized service partners which will include certain components like :
- Electric Motor
- Electric Motor Controller
- Battery Pack
- Mechanical assembly & coupling
- Controller unit with intelligent software
- Battery Management system
This diagram shows the schematic representation of the system deployed in any conventional car. The biggest positive point about this kit is that it can be installed on all kind of card with or without MPFI / CRDI technology in them. The kits will be available as per the car’s engine capacity in various models which support cars ranging from 800CC to 3000CC.
One more interesting fact about this kit is that it will give an amazing power boost to the car in first gear because of high starting torque of an electric motor compared to moderate torque of a petrol engine at low engine speeds.
The key benefits of installing this kit are :
- Fuel Efficiency Improvements of over 40 % as tested by ARAI. In City driving conditions, it can be as high as about 80 % improvement.
- Green House Gases Emission Drops by over 30 %
- Providers additional boost in power.
- Improves driving pleasure.
- Increases engine life by reducing load on the engine.
- Can be fitted in 4 to 6 hours by trained technicians.
- No additional infrastructure needed by the govt.
Below chart shows the specifications of the engines tested with this kit and the test results.
The solution is a Full Parallel Plug-in Hybrid, which means that the engine and motor will always run simultaneously and give the required boost and fuel efficiency. Plug-in means that you can connect it to the normal electrical power supply at home and charge the batteries. This means a significant reduction in running cost because the batteries are not charged by burning petrol or diesel.
It uses regenerative braking system to further save energy and makes the system even more efficient. The in-built start stop feature makes engine running much more efficient in congested stop and go like situations.
REVOLO also has an intelligent driving pattern recognition which adjusts the management of battery for maximum efficiency. Revolo is battery agnostic, which means it can run with Lead Acid or Lithium Ion batteries without changing other components of the system. It uses valve regulated lead acid batteries which uses gel based technology which avoid leakage and does not require water top-ups of any kind. 11 global patents have been files so far for REVOLO and its a break-through innovation. The REVOLO is expected to be commercially available by end of year 2010 in the Indian markets. The Price of REVOLO will be between Rs. 65,000 and Rs. 1,50,000 for various car segments.
The Joint Venture is in talks with various automobile OEMs to retrofit the REVOLO system in the cars as an aftermarket solution. Speaking at the occasion, the Heavy Industries Minister said that he will ask the Finance Ministry to encourage the eco-friendly technologies by providing them some tax incentives on production of eco-friendly technology products.
Also read- Convert Any Car To A Hybrid Car And Increase Mileage
