Home > CPT Electric Supercharger
Provides Extra Power for Frugal Cars, 22nd
September 2009
Controlled Power Technologies (CPT) has revealed their
production ready electric supercharger, or as CPT call
it - VTES (Variable Torque Enhancement System), which
the company claims can help reduce fuel consumption and
CO2 emissions when used in combination with smaller petrol
(gasoline) or diesel engines and taller gear ratios in
the transmission.
CPT belive that electric superchargers could help car
makers meet the latest EC directives to cut average CO2
emissions from new cars to 130 grams per kilometre by
2012 and to 95 grams per kilometre by 2020. There are
heavy fines for noncompliance. This means that by 2020
new cars will have to emit on average 40 per cent less
CO2 than they do today. An electric supercharger could
prove to be a valuable component for meeting these requirements.
Increasing the efficiency of the powertrain through extreme
downsizing is fast becoming a widely-recognised near term
solution for both petrol and diesel engines. Unfortunately,
downsizing the engine and increasing the gearing, while
hugely beneficial for fuel economy and carbon emissions,
tends to leave a massive torque deficit, particularly
at low engine revs. Finding cost-effective technology
to overcome this issue is a universal problem facing engine
developers.
An electric supercharger, unlike a conventional crankshaft
driven supercharger, operates independently of engine
speed. This means the technology is ideally suited to
maintaining vehicle performance and driveability especially
when mounted to a small displacement engine.
For example, when applied to a 1.2-litre turbocharged
engine, VTES delivers in excess of a 50 per cent increase
in torque at engine speeds below 3,000rpm, more than compensating
for insufficient power from the exhaust turbine. Significantly,
more than 90 per cent of the available torque is delivered
in less than a second. Compared with a 1.6-litre naturally
aspirated engine, the downsized engine with electric supercharger
reduces the 70-100kph (44-63mph) top gear acceleration
time from 18 to 11 seconds. |
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