Mercedes-Benz will unveil a new car battery this week. It uses about as much space as a conventional lead battery (meant only to start engines), but it packs a whopping 120 volts — about ten times the power of its more ordinary cousin — and it will be used, starting next year, in the luxury Mercedes S-Class line of hybrids.
The S-Class will be the world’s first series-production hybrid car with an electric motor powered by a lithium-ion battery. Daimler hopes to position itself on the cutting edge of hybrid technology, a field where European carmakers, for years, have lagged behind their Japanese competitors.
The hybrid concept uses both a fuel motor and an electric motor. The electric motor stores braking energy and releases it during acceleration. This technique improves fuel economy, especially in city traffic. The magnitude of the effect is determined mainly by the battery, which has to absorb and release energy as quickly as possible, since the braking and acceleration phases are transitory.
Read the rest of the article, The Green Mercedes – Powering a new class of hybrids.
[tags]luxury, eco-friendly, mercedes-benz, hybrid, battery, electric car[/tags]
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