Olympic debut for Chery hybrid

As a part of the transport arrangements for the Beijing Olympics, a 50-unit fleet of hybrid vehicles co-developed with Ricardo is being provided by Chinese car manufacturer, the Chery Automobile Company Ltd. Known as the Olympics Green Messengers, these vehicles are some of China"s first hybrid vehicles and will go into full production in the months following the games. Two new vehicles, both based on its existing Chery A5 sedan model, were used for the hybrid production. The first is a stop-start hybrid based on a 12-volt Belt Starter-Generator (BSG) linked to 1.6 litre petrol engine, itself linked to a five-speed manual transmission. The second is a more comprehensive mild-hybrid based on the same baseline vehicle but instead equipped with a 1.3 litre petrol engine and a 12 kW crankshaft-mounted 151-volt Integrated Starter-Generator (ISG). These technologies have been configured to be capable of providing significant fuel savings through the use of advanced engine control and energy management strategies. In addition to developing these two new hybrid products, an important objective of the programme for Chery was technology transfer through integration of the joint programmes with its own engineering processes. For this reason, a dedicated on-site engineering office was established at the Ricardo Cambridge Technical Centre. Here, Chery engineers were able to work alongside colleagues from Ricardo as well as with selected component and sub-system suppliers, and could undertake key aspects of the project. The focus of the engineering programme and the efficiency of the development programme were such that the first prototype vehicle was run just ten months from programme start. The final fuel economy results are no less impressive: in tests over the Urban drive cycle, the BSG vehicle achieves approximately a seven per cent improvement in fuel consumption over the baseline product, and it is expected that the improvement will be greater than 10 per cent in real-world urban driving. For the more complex ISG car, the system provided a significant increase in performance over the equivalent baseline A5 vehicle fitted with a 1.3 litre engine. The peak power and torque of the ISG-equipped vehicle are comparable with that of a larger 1.6 litre engine. Chery reports that the final production calibration and testing of the vehicle systems are still taking place, but the fuel consumption improvement is expected to approach 15% compared to the 1.6 litre benchmark vehicle. In addition, the system enables engine restart within 200 milliseconds, thus allowing stop-start functionality to be included in the hybrid control strategy. The new BSG and ISG hybrid engine technology in the Chery A5 underscores the position of this fast-growing Chinese carmaker as one of China"s automotive technology leaders. These new hybrid cars have been engineered to European emissions requirements. They are due to enter full production shortly and will be available for both domestic Chinese and export markets.