So the Karma's battery and ICE produce 501HP...

2816 Views 9 Replies 7 Participants Last post by kabalah70, Jan 7, 2012

SoCalGuy

Discussion Starter · Jan 6, 2012

I was perusing through some of the material on Fisker's "blog" (http://www.fiskerurl.com/2011/11/17/ever-electric-vehicle-with-extended-range/) and I noticed that the A123 battery produces 241HP of power and the ICE produces 260HP. Combined, when put in series, the system should be able to generate 501HP of power. I know the "Q-drive" electric motors each produce 201HP of power to total roughly 403HP, so I wonder what happens to that extra 100HP? Does it get used to charge the battery in Sport mode (is that why Sport mode 'freezes' your electric-only range)? Fantasizing for a bit, it would be cool if Fisker had an "Overdrive" button where it pumped out (for a limited period of time) that extra 100HP... I'd imagine 0-60 acceleration time could be improved 25% to 5.0s...

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ct-fiskerbuzz

· #2 · Jan 7, 2012

SoCalGuy said:
I was perusing through some of the material on Fisker's "blog" (http://www.fiskerurl.com/2011/11/17/ever-electric-vehicle-with-extended-range/) and I noticed that the A123 battery produces 241HP of power and the ICE produces 260HP. Combined, when put in series, the system should be able to generate 501HP of power. I know the "Q-drive" electric motors each produce 201HP of power to total roughly 403HP, so I wonder what happens to that extra 100HP? Does it get used to charge the battery in Sport mode (is that why Sport mode 'freezes' your electric-only range)? Fantasizing for a bit, it would be cool if Fisker had an "Overdrive" button where it pumped out (for a limited period of time) that extra 100HP... I'd imagine 0-60 acceleration time could be improved 25% to 5.0s...

Yes, the limit is based on the electric motors. I don't know enough about their design to tell whether they (and the inverters and so on) could take an overvoltage/overcurrent situation for short periods.

I'd like to see "sport" actually raise the electric range (maybe as an option, something you could tweak with the control panel, kind of like the climate control, you'd have "target for raising electric range", or maybe even two "targets": min and max hysterisis values, as it were).

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matrix

· #3 · Jan 7, 2012

ct-fiskerbuzz said:
I'd like to see "sport" actually raise the electric range (maybe as an option, something you could tweak with the control panel, kind of like the climate control, you'd have "target for raising electric range", or maybe even two "targets": min and max hysterisis values, as it were).

I thought Sport mode did raise the electric range if driven for a long enough period. So Sport mode only maintains the current electric range and won't raise it? :huh:

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karma1

· #4 · Jan 7, 2012

matrix said:
ct-fiskerbuzz said:

I'd like to see "sport" actually raise the electric range (maybe as an option, something you could tweak with the control panel, kind of like the climate control, you'd have "target for raising electric range", or maybe even two "targets": min and max hysterisis values, as it were).

Click to expand...

I thought Sport mode did raise the electric range if driven for a long enough period. So Sport mode only maintains the current electric range and won't raise it? :huh:

Why burn gas to raise it. No. Point in wasting the gas if you can plug in when you get home. Isn't that the point of the EVer?

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Deep Ocean

· #5 · Jan 7, 2012

When I drove the dealer demo 2 weeks ago, we left the lot with 13 miles of electric charge. I kept it in Sport mode the whole time. When we got back it had 16 miles of charge. So I'm thinking it raises the range. I saw it myself.

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matrix

· #6 · Jan 7, 2012

Deep Ocean said:
When I drove the dealer demo 2 weeks ago, we left the lot with 13 miles of electric charge. I kept it in Sport mode the whole time. When we got back it had 16 miles of charge. So I'm thinking it raises the range. I saw it myself.

Perfect!

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ct-fiskerbuzz

· #7 · Jan 7, 2012

Deep Ocean said:
When I drove the dealer demo 2 weeks ago, we left the lot with 13 miles of electric charge. I kept it in Sport mode the whole time. When we got back it had 16 miles of charge. So I'm thinking it raises the range. I saw it myself.

I also saw the value climb from some small single-digit value to a slightly larger single-digit value in my initial "around the parking lot" test drive. I think that's from—or mostly from—using the hill modes and regen braking though, rather than from just having the engine running.

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kabalah70

· #8 · Jan 7, 2012

There was an 'overboost' they called it that would allow a fully-charged battery and ICE in Sport mode to do 143 mph for 90 seconds.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Fisker-Karma,-A-Luxurious-Plug-In-Hybrid-Electric-Vehicle&id=6336748

Not sure if that still exists or not.

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Dutch

· #9 · Jan 7, 2012

SoCalGuy said:
I was perusing through some of the material on Fisker's "blog" (http://www.fiskerurl.com/2011/11/17/ever-electric-vehicle-with-extended-range/) and I noticed that the A123 battery produces 241HP of power and the ICE produces 260HP. Combined, when put in series, the system should be able to generate 501HP of power. I know the "Q-drive" electric motors each produce 201HP of power to total roughly 403HP, so I wonder what happens to that extra 100HP? Does it get used to charge the battery in Sport mode (is that why Sport mode 'freezes' your electric-only range)? Fantasizing for a bit, it would be cool if Fisker had an "Overdrive" button where it pumped out (for a limited period of time) that extra 100HP... I'd imagine 0-60 acceleration time could be improved 25% to 5.0s...

The 241 HP from the battery is what is available in Stealth Mode. I don't think one can simply add the 260 HP of the ICE to that for a total of 501 HP, because the ICE does not directly connect to the wheels. The ICE charges (through the generator) the battery, but also provides an extra charge to the two electric motors, bypassing the battery. I cannot imagine that this will translate in 260 extra HP for the electric motors, without any loss.

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kabalah70

· #10 · Jan 7, 2012

Rather than discussing it in terms of HP, I think it is more relevant to discuss the KW. I agree it does not matter the Hp of the Engine, but the 175KW of the generator it is mated to. Likewise, the battery output of 180KW and the motors input of 150KW each, and 30KW return for Hill 1 and 40KW return for Hill 2. Yes, the total KW input for generator and battery exceeds 300KW (by 55KW) but we must consider line loss, etc. Regardless, it was once capable of the overboost mentioned above with the current hardware. Only way to find out is to have some one try it.

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