Just Release It Already! BMW Previews Its Next M5 in Video of High-Speed Track Testing

June 1, 2011 at 4:16pm by Alexander Stoklosa

While BMW has already shown us its upcoming M5 über sedan in “concept” form at this year’s Shanghai auto show, the automaker continues to tease us with videos of prototype vehicles in various stages of development. Earlier vids included a 30-minute smorgasbord of M5 test mules romping in the Alps and a brief clip of an M5 roaring through a dark tunnel in a sort of polar-bear-blinking-in-a-snowstorm game, in which viewers could really only see the car’s lit headlights and, well, darkness. This new video, overlaid with a trance-inducing techno beat, shows a pair of M5s partaking in an afternoon of high-speed testing at the Nardo Ring in southern Italy. When we’re able to discern the cars’ exhaust notes, they sound about as good as you’d expect—they do, after all, pack 555-hp twin-turbocharged 4.4-liter V-8s, capable of revving to more than 7000 rpm.

The video clip also shows the M5 running at an indicated 308 km/h (that’s 191 mph!) in sixth gear, with the engine turning a few hundred rpm short of redline. The cars in the video are equipped with BMW’s seven-speed, dual-clutch transmission, so given that the M5 was able to hit 191 mph with one more gear to go, we wouldn’t be surprised to see the super sedan top 200 mph (for details on the 2012 M5, including that 200-mph top speed, check out this article. Besides confirming that indeed, the M5 is a fast four-door, the video entertains with a BMW test driver drinking coffee at hyperspeed, and, of course, the sheer visual pleasure of viewing two M5 arcing around a high-speed oval. Watch the vid yourself below.

Tags: BMW, BMW M, BMW M5, video |

View the original article here

Ram Begins Deliveries of 140 Plug-In Hybrid Pickups to Local Governments for Testing

May 31, 2011 at 3:15pm by Steve Siler

This week, Yuma, Arizona, became the first of 12 U.S. cities to receive a fleet of Ram pickups that have been equipped with plug-in hybrid electric powertrains. The trucks are part of a three-year, $100m demonstration program sponsored by Chrysler and the U.S. Department of Energy. Each one of the 10 trucks arriving in Yuma—like the 130 more to be distributed elsewhere— is equipped with Chrysler’s tried-and-true 5.7-liter Hemi V-8 under the hood and a liquid-cooled, 12.9-kWh battery pack tucked beneath the second row bench. In case of a local power outage, the powertrain is capable of a “reverse power flow” to keep the lights on—at least in City Hall.

The trucks also feature a two-mode transmission “based upon two-speed transmission technology that was readily available from a previous vehicle electrification project,” Chrysler’s press release said. (Reading between the lines, Chrysler has finally found something to do with a hunk of leftover transmissions from the ill-timed previous-gen Dodge Durango and Chrysler Aspen hybrids.) Also along for the ride are regenerative brakes, cylinder deactivation, and a 240-volt/30-amp four-prong power outlet and 120-volt/20-amp outlet power strip in the cargo bed to power tools, cell phones, and margarita blenders.

The municipalities earmarked for the plug-in pickups are scattered from coast to coast and from Arizona to North Dakota, for use in both cities and rural areas, in order to gather a wide range of usage data and to see where and in which circumstances big-battery technology does best. Needless to say, the usage data collected will be markedly different than that which Toyota is gleaning from its Prius plug-in hybrid program. But unlike the Prius plug-in, which goes into production in 2012, the Ram plug-in hybrid program is strictly experimental, as is an upcoming endeavor to build 25 Chrysler Town & Country plug-in hybrids, and there are no plans for a production version.

Tags: Dodge, Dodge Ram, plug-in hybrid, Ram, Ram 1500, Ram 1500 PHEV |

View the original article here

Volvo Testing KERS Kinetic Energy Recovery Flywheels for Its Lineup

May 26, 2011 at 4:13pm by Alexander Stoklosa

Volvo seems an unlikely carmaker to explore the use of kinetic-energy recovery flywheels in its pedestrian automobiles, but the traditionally safety-oriented company is indeed working to bring the Formula 1 tech to its cars. Volvo joins Porsche and its GT3 R hybrid racer in the utilization of a kinetic-energy recovery system (KERS) that uses the energy of a flywheel spun to high speed by recovered braking energy to aid a car’s engine during acceleration.

In Volvo’s system, the flywheel is mechanically coupled and decoupled from the rear axle using a continuously variable transmission. The CVT engages the flywheel as the car slows, spinning it to up to 60,000 rpm, then decouples the flywheel as the car comes to a halt, finally re-coupling the spinning flywheel to the rear wheels when the car accelerates from a stop. Volvo’s mechanical, motorless rear-axle-mounted setup is unique from Porsche’s approach to KERS, which relies on motor-generators to spin up the flywheel, recover its energy, and transfer that energy back to the car’s forward motion. (Read more about the system in the 911 GT3 R hybrid here.) Volvo claims that the flywheel’s accelerative boost not only aids fuel economy, but performance as well, with up to 80 additional horsepower available when the flywheel and engine join forces.

Because the flywheel doesn’t spin forever—the laws of physics cannot be beat, so it loses rotational inertia over time—the KERS system is most effective in stop-and-go driving, where each stop can spin the flywheel, which can then be used to get the car going again for a brief period of time. Volvo is aware of the situational limits of the KERS system, so it has worked to make the flywheel as efficient as possible. This means that the flywheel is made of carbon fiber, making it lighter—the 7.84-inch diameter flywheel weighs just 13 pounds—and increasing its rotational capacity. The flywheel spins in a vacuum to minimize friction losses. Volvo plans to begin testing its KERS setup in its cars in the second half of 2011, and is confident it can reduce fuel consumption by up to 20% while giving a four-cylinder engine the punch of a six. We just hope an F1-style, driver-operable “boost button” makes the cut, because a Volvo with a go-faster button would make us giddy at the incongruity of it all.

Tags: hybrid, Volvo |

View the original article here