Ricardo

Williams F1 has increased its existing 40% shareholding in Williams Hybrid Power (WHP) to 78% on the back of some very favorable results on the racetrack in conjunction with Porsche and ever growing confidence that the company's magnetically loaded composite flywheel (MLC) technology will find wide application in hybrid passenger vehicles, hybrid buses, electric trains, diesel-electric ships and wind power generation. Read More

The driverless car of the future is getting closer every day, as more and more technologies come along that take critical jobs away from the driver and put them in the hands of lightning-fast, all-seeing computers. One of the latest and most ambitious of these systems has just been successfully demonstrated in the UK; the Sentience system is a kind of hyper-intelligent cruise control system designed specifically to minimize fuel consumption and emissions. It calculates the best route for you based on traffic, topography, curves, speed limits and a host of other information, and then actually takes over the throttle and brakes for you for the entire journey. It keeps you strictly within speed limits, slows down for corners, speed bumps and roundabouts, and it even knows when the lights ahead are about to turn red, so you don't waste petrol accelerating towards a stop point. Fuel savings in testing have been between 5% and 24% - a very significant figure - and Sentience is expected to be available on production cars, for a minimal cost, as soon as 2012. Incredible stuff. Read More

Automotive technology specialist Ricardo has revealed the development of technology that optimizes ethanol-fuelled engines to a level of performance that exceeds gasoline engine efficiency and approaches levels previously reached only by diesel engines. The technology, called Ethanol Boosted Direct Injection (EBDI), takes full advantage of ethanol’s best properties – higher octane and higher heat of vaporization – to create a renewable fuel scenario that is independent of the cost of oil. Read More

September 9, 2008 The once poor cousin of the gas-burning internal combustion engine, the diesel, is slowly but surely invading the world of motorsport. In recent years the all-conquering Audi team led the diesel assault on sports car racing and diesel now dominates these events. Now Mitsubishi will enter a new, turbodiesel 'Racing Lancer' in next year's relocated-to-South-America Dakar Rally. The new car has an aeronautic steel multi-tubular frame, honeycomb body floor and carbon fiber body powered by a 280PS 3-liter V6 diesel engine producing a prodigious 650Nm peak torque. The engine uses an innovative two-stage turbocharger with both a small and large diameter turbine, one on each side of engine, employed according to engine revolution and load. Read More

March 26, 2008 Ricardo and a consortium of automotive partners today announced the completion of an advanced prototype research programme based on the highly innovative 2/4SIGHT engine concept. This gasoline engine concept uses novel combustion, boosting, control and valve actuation technologies to enable automatic and seamless switching between two- and four-stroke operation, with the aim of delivering significant performance and fuel economy improvements through aggressive downsizing. Read More

Buying a hybrid is currently a pastime for early adopters and those who are prepared to pay to salve their environmental conscience . Do the return-on-investment (ROI) math and you’ll realize that the fuel savings never bridge the economic rationale gap because of the higher initial cost of hybrids. That appears about to change! Ultra-capacitor-based energy storage systems have long promised a breakthrough for the automotive industry and AFS Trinity’s announcement of the real world performance specs of its plug-in Extreme Hybrid (XH) technology is landmark. In just completed road tests, a 2007 Saturn VUE Green Line SUV fitted with an XH drive train, exceeded 150 mpg, and improved the zero to sixty time from 12.5 seconds, to 11.6 second running in electric-only mode – something it can do for 40 miles at a stretch. The punchline is that in hybrid mode, it runs 0-60 mph in 6.9 seconds, which is faster than a Porsche Cayenne. Whatsmore, based on driving 340 miles a week, the company’s consumer payback analysis suggests the technology will pay for itself in less than four years – this appears to be the first economically viable, commercially-available hybrid auto technology. Read More

January 15, 2007 One of the most brutal cars on the road will become even moreso next year when the Dodge Viper SRT10 will be packing 90 extra horsepower from its new 8.4-liter Viper V-10 engine, delivering an astounding 600 horsepower and 560 lb.-ft. of torque. The new 2008 Viper SRT10 will run from 0-60 mph in under four seconds, and deliver 0-100-0 mph performance in just over 12 seconds, braking in under 100 feet. Read More

December 8, 2006 Delegates at Berlin’s prestigious 5th International CTI-Symposium, “Innovative Automotive Transmissions”, were this week given the opportunity to be the first to experience Ricardo’s new Cross-axle Torque Vectoring demonstrator. Based on an Audi A6 4.2l V8 Quattro Avant, the vehicle is fitted with the very latest generation of Ricardo’s Torque Vectoring technology that enables moment-by-moment redistribution of drive-torque in response to driver demand, vehicle speed and road conditions. In doing so it enables the vehicle to follow more faithfully the driver's intended path, ultimately leading to a potentially safer, more enjoyable and rewarding driving experience. Read More

August 25, 2006 Last Friday (August 18) , the JCB DIESELMAX broke the Bonneville record speed for diesel engines, setting a time of 317 mph. On Tuesday (August 22), the vehicle broke the FIA international land speed record for a diesel vehicle with 328.767 mph (529.099 kph) and beat the existing record by more than 100 mph. Returning to the Bonneville Salt Flats with its FIA sealed engines on Wednesday, things went even better. Running soon after daybreak driver Andy Green recorded 365.779mph (588.664kph) on his first run and 335.695mph (540.248kph) on his return, giving an average of 350.092mph (563.418kph). It was the third speed record achieved by the JCB DIESELMAX in only six days, and demonstrates the power and reliability of its Ricardo-developed engines. There’s a fascinating rundown on the technical development of the engines in PDF format available here. Read More