CARazed

When I first wrote up the post on the XH-150 plug-in hybrid I didn’t quite get the most important part of the technology AFS Trinity has put into this 150 MPG conversion. In addition to the stock motor and additional batteries on board the XH-150 there are capacitors.

What’s a capacitor? It’s a little dude on a circuit board right? You know like a resistor and diode right? I looked it up because I couldn’t remember anything from the electrics 101 class I never took in college. A capacitor is commonly a tiny thing soldered onto a circuit board that stores electricity. They are commonly used for evening out electrical current and storing electricity for short periods of time, like to change a battery on an electric device. To a layman like me its basically a little battery that charges and discharges at will; and I bet if you cracked open any electrical device in your home you’d find one.

AFS Trinity has taken capacitors to the next level. They aren’t describing them as ultracapacitors yet but it sounds like they are working on that too. The capacitors in this plug-in hybrid conversion simple temporarily store electricity for immediate use, or theoretically for longer term storage in the on-board batteries.

When you stand back and think about it, this is a great idea. Batteries aren’t that fast to recharge so there must be a big efficiency gain with capacitors. For example I bet a system like this recaptures more electricity from regenerative breaking than a battery could.

For more see this article on Economist.com