Jaguar’s lure eco-drivers with a range of hybrid vehicles concepts

Jaguar, the name synonymous to luxury till now will hence forth also be synonymous with eco-friendly. The auto-maker is gearing up to spice the world of green vehicles with three concepts. Based on Jaguar’s XJ luxury sedan, Limo Green is the first of the lot. It is supposed to use a series hybrid system, whose combustion engine never directly power the wheels. It works like this – the engine powers a generator, which in turn charges a battery, which powers an electric motor, which moves the vehicle. The Limo Green is estimated to zoom off from 0mph to 62mph in 7.1 seconds with well over 1,000 miles on a single tank of petrol.

Second in line is the hybrid Range Rover that can run exclusively on battery power for up to 12 miles. Based on Jaguar/Land Rover’s “range extended electric vehicle”, or REHEV platform, this powertrain can be “plugged” into a range of vehicles to turn them into hybrids. Lastly, Jaguar intends to draw the green curtain with a flywheel hybrid system that is entirely mechanical in nature. Whenever the vehicle decelerates or brakes, the system captures kinetic energy in a high-speed rotating flywheel, which later releases this energy, powering the vehicle as it accelerates. Not only is this system less expensive than either parallel or series hybrids, it also has few drawbacks such as battery life and battery disposal.
CO2 output by all three will be less than 120g/km, perhaps even dropping below the 100g/km. However these green concepts will take few years and many hundred millions to hit the production stage.
[Cnet]