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MIT Team Creates Shock That Recharges Your Car
An anonymous reader writes "If you had a GenShock, you may not mind those potholes in the road any longer because this new prototype shock actually harvests energy from bumps in the road to save on fuel. A team of students at MIT have invented a shock absorber that harnesses energy from small bumps in the road, generating electricity while it smooths the ride more effectively than conventional shocks. Senior Shakeel Avadhany and his teammates say they can produce up to a 10 percent improvement in overall vehicle fuel efficiency by using the regenerative shock absorbers. They also already have a lot of interest in their design, specifically the company that builds Humvees for the army are already planning to install them in its next version of the Humvee."
I hope you are being silly. The most efficient way to travel would be a perfectly smooth road, one that didn't suck energy out of the vehicle, in the form of a bump, in the first place.
To truly express the dilemma, you have to weigh the amount of energy used to maintain a smooth road versus the new found energy return from these shocks.
Recharging the batteries using movement of the shock absorbers is ingenious!
That they would smooth the ride more than conventional shock-absorbers is bullshit. You can get all kinds of traditional shock-absorbers. American ones for instance are typically softer than European which leads to poor handling and increased fuel consumptions. European ones are harder, and sports-models even harder yet, given the cars better handling at the expense of ride comfort.
If the new absorbers are smoother than traditional ones, it just means the car can't corner, and rides like a pimp car.
Which is why this makes sense for off-road vehicles, such as military hummers.
But I agree that poor road maintenance is not just a suck on fuel efficiency, but results in increased costs on the upkeep of vehicles as a whole. (and it takes energy to make and ship those new sway-bar struts that I had to have replaced because of hitting too many bumps)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Crappy highway conditions aside, you aren't pulling up to a stopsign/red light that often on the highway. THUS, the regenerative braking can't work.
bottom line, if we keep making little features that add up, we can make an extremely efficient vehicle. Braking and shock absorption have always been energy transfer mechanisms that have just turned energy into waste heat before, now, we can do something with that energy and that is amazing!