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Ford’s electric supercharger
Bruce Newton
July 3, 2012 - 3:08PM
New technology could make 1.0-litre a cheaper alternative to Prius.
Ford is working on an electrically supercharged version of its award-winning new 1.0-litre turbo-petrol Ecoboost engine that could nearly match the emissions of Toyota’s Prius hybrid at a fraction of the technology cost.
The engine, which is a “skunkworks” project between the blue oval and drivetrain developer Ricardo, is designed to pump out at least 110kW while emitting just 90-95 grams of CO2 per km
The development is being driven by an EU requirement that car manufacturers hit an average CO2 emissions rate of 95 grams per km across their range of cars by 2020. That means cars sold in the calendar year, not just theoretically offered to the public.
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If the program is successful, it could mean the 1.0 becomes the basis of a whole engine range that varies in spec, performance and consumption but not in capacity, potentially ousting bigger engines from big-selling models such as the Focus.
The new 1.0-litre three-cylinder, which already averages as little as 109g CO2/km, is the most modern engine in the Ford line-up and was crowned 2012 international engine of the year.
Ford’s European gasoline engine development boss Andrew Fraser confirmed the move during a recent press drive of the Focus Ecoboost 1.0 in Germany.
“We costed it out and we reckoned the hardware would be something like 600 Euros or dollars on-cost over the price of this current (1.0) engine, so probably a tenth of the cost of a full hybrid driveline. And if a Prius is at 89 grams currently, then we reckon we can get within five or 10 grams of a Prius at a tenth of the cost. So that to us was quite a good cost-benefit balance.”
A larger turbocharger provides the added power for the 1.0, while the electrical supercharger fills the torque hole at the bottom of the rev range created by turbo lag. A belt integrated starter generator regenerates enough electricity to mean the supercharger adds no charging load to the engine.
The electric supercharger has the unique appeal of being able to spin faster than the crankshaft, unlike a mechanical supercharger.
Because of a government grant the Hyboost development program, as it is known, gained some publicity in 2011. However, Fraser admitted Ricardo and Ford engineers continued to work on the project after it officially finished.
“We could see a realistic road map down to low 90 grams for a 150-160hp car when think the current 150PS (1.6-litre Ecoboost turbo-petrol) Focus is 139 grams, so this may be a 40-plus (gram) step in that range,” said Fraser.
“Both Ricardo and my team were sufficiently enthused with it that we are carrying on in a little bit of a skunkworks type of environment to just refine the car.
“It’s almost a classic evening and weekend project with Ricardo to just try and refine it into a fully viable demonstrator vehicle. It just didn’t have that level of polish where you would want to show it to a vice president and say ‘how about this as the next step’. They have quite a high expectation even for one-off demo cars.”
