Back on topic, KERS is a pretty cool idea that I think is quite a ways away from being feasible in a car at a reasonable price point, and a really long way away from being something you can readily retro-fit.

I've done a bit of research into a staged supercap / li-ion arrangement that winds up pulling a lot more energy from braking, but you still run into issues getting that power back to the wheels. Electric motor technology has not progressed much in the last 50 years, and they're fairly heavy to add on to a gasoline vehicle.

KERS is likely to be hot stuff on every electric vehicle going forward, but it gets really hard to justify the weight of the extra motors over other options for adding power...not to mention programming a control system is a non-trivial task (for one-off applications).

The mechanical systems you are talking about are pretty neat, although I haven't really seen any that seem particularly streetable. There's usually a pretty steep dropoff in efficiency if the flywheel isn't operating at insane speeds, and the materials generally wind up being extremely expensive. I have seen some pretty cool applications on transit buses, and I know Volvo just got a big grant for development of one, but I still haven't seen much that looks like it would make sense on a sporty street car.

And on top of the weight car manufactures are going to have a difficult time passing environmental standards because of the production of electric parts. At the time electric cars are worse for the environment than gas cars, because of how they are manufactured.

jesus!!!
just read all....... what the hell have i started????

Anyhoo - there are companies who do 'conversions' with type of technology
US Hybrid designs and manufactures clean mobility and energy conservation integrated solutions.
Hybrid Conversions For a Green Fleet | XL Hybrids

These companies may be pitched toward the transport, people movers, and freight vehicles - but in my defense, this is where i essentially I would thought I would bounce the idea of KERS technology for our make of cars.

I personally would like to have forced induction - but I would rather stay in atmo configuration. If you have the money then - sky's the limit. Most forced induction builds to be made reliable and strong do cost a lot - keep in mind I am also talking about work on the engine internals as well.

I do think there is potential here - I would have thought the hardest part of having a system like this would be having the software to manage KERS whilst interacting with the cars main ECU - to make it all work smoothly.

Bottom line it could be done as we have car makers (eg Ferrari etc) already selling car with KERS systems built into their vehicles.

It may be a little way off in the future - but looking into it....the future may lie in KERS technology slowly becoming the choice over s/c or turbo'ing. Engines are now becoming highly effecient - businesses are applying it to fleet vehicles as we speak it would seem....

Forums are places to share ideas - from these ideas R&D work some times become a reality - you never know. Got to start somewhere.

So in closing - I will be careful in future not to post threads tooooooooo 'outhere' so as not to spark war and peace posts................. I'd be better off concentrating getting my info and pic builds of my Zed onto the forum.

It's not your fault, I let my guard down and allowed a troll to suck me in.

And your post was not out there at all. It's a bit premature to think about retro-fitting a sports car, especially as a DIY project, but still an interesting topic. If you have access to back issues of IEEE's Spectrum magazine, they have had some excellent articles on regen braking over the last ten years or so.

I would have to agree :tiphat:

And if there's no objection I'll consider this discussion closed.