Peugeot 908 HDi FAP Hybrid

Peugeot Sport has presented its new race car, the 908 HDi FAP, at the final round of the 2008 Le Mans Series at Silverstone, this weekend. The 908 HDi FAP is equipped with a hybrid power plant featuring a kinetic energy recovery system.

The 908 HDi FAP’s “HY” technology allows a proportion of the kinetic energy produced under braking to be either recovered or stored. With this, the 908 HY efficiency could be improved where with the combination of the stored mechanical energy and the energy produced by the internal combustion engine, the performance could be enhanced with no increase in the amount of energy consumed. Apart from that, the stored mechanical energy could reduce the fuel consumption but still getting the same level of performance.

The hybrid 908 HDi FAP features three key elements as mentioned below.

• A 60 kW gear-driven electric motor-generator which takes the place of the conventional starter motor
• Batteries which permit recovered energy to be stored in 600 lithium-ion cells divided into 10 battery packs (six in the cockpit instead of the conventional battery and four on the left-hand side of the floor pan)
• An electronic power converter (located in the rear part of the front left wing) which controls the flow of energy between the batteries and the motor-generator.

From the press release, the Peugeot 908 HDi FAP HY can be powered in one of three ways as below:

• Electric mode only (e.g. in the pit-lane)
• Internal combustion engine only
• A combination of the two
• In the course of a lap of Le Mans, for example, the system will recuperate energy for between 20 and 30 seconds. This energy reserve can be used for:
• Either delivering extra power thanks to an additional boost of 60 kW (80 bhp) for approximately 20 seconds per lap, either automatically when re-accelerating or when the driver chooses to make use of it (‘push to pass’)
• Or to reduce fuel consumption for the equivalent level of performance thanks to the mechanical energy recovered (between three and five per cent).

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