James drives an experimental E-REV with a difference
A couple of weeks back I went up to Wellingborough to visit former Cosworth F1 engine builder Dick Langford and his partner Chris Delaney, who have come up with a very interesting solution to 'range-extending' an electric vehicle.
Delaney was always intrigued by the gas turbine Rover-BRM racing car, which competed in the Le Mans 24 Hours race in the 1960s [editor's note: Jaguar also tried this idea recently with the C-X75 concept], and with the rise in popularity of electric vehicles in recent years, he thought that a small turbine could be a reliable solution to generating electricity to extend the driving range.
“We built a hybrid electric car with plug-in option, regenerative braking and turbine range extender, to provide flexibility and overcome the anxiety associated with the use of 100% pure electric cars to find the next charging point,” said Delaney, sitting in the Langford offices, which are still used for tuning Cosworth race engines for customers. It’s a typical old school British engineering firm; lots of older, trusted employees in lab coats, but there’s some very innovative thinking going on here.
This concept car,” Delaney continues, “is called the 'Whisper'. It is fitted with a micro-turbine range extender and has many benefits including multi-fuel capability; I mean it can run on diesel, biodiesel, gas or methanol. The advantages are that it has low emissions – it’s Euro 5 and 6 compliant – and it has reliability, low maintenance, fuel efficiency and smooth operation.”
A turbine needs no oil, no radiator and maintenance is only required after every 8,000 hours of operation – if you used the car for two hours every single day, the turbine would need maintenance once every ten years. As a power unit to drive the wheels of a car its problems are throttle lag and fuel consumption, but these aren’t an issue when the turbine is very small and is only being used to recharge the battery.
