[u_chill]

Are there any other firms working on a similar concept in other countries? If not, I would rate this development as the next significant Indian achievement after the Nano. Second one out of Pune!

I assume Lead Acid batteries are used, which means further efficiency improvements will be possible with Li-ion batteries.

Rehaan, not sure which electric motors are used in this application. However I remember from a chat with the Reva guys that they use Kirloskar Motors:

Kirloskar Electric Co Ltd 3-Phase AC
52 Nm and 8000 RPM, gear ratio 9.4:1 reduction onto rear axle. Located under rear seats. Tim Nicklin's 2007 Reva G-Wiz AC

[witwiky]

Originally Posted by u_chill

I assume Lead Acid batteries are used, which means further efficiency improvements will be possible with Li-ion batteries.

This product is battery agnostic. You can choose to use either Lead Acid or Li-ion batteries. Depending on the batteries you choose, the cost will vary.

[kadanaJ]

Originally Posted by GTO

The single largest restrictor! Plug-in hybrid? Not everyone has a power socket available at their parking spot. I guess this is a very basic hybrid implementation, compared to the Prius (and other cars) that charge "on the go".

In major cities where most people live in apartment buildings, the amount of people who would have a power socket is almost negligible.
Also wouldn't this add quite a bit to your electricity bill, thereby negating a big chunk of your savings.

[pawan_pullarwar]

Originally Posted by Dr.Abhi

How can they use regenerative braking without replacing stock brakes with hub motors? Seems too good to be true, otherwise impressive and should be the innovation of the decade!

BMW uses dynamo as well to recharge the battery in their hybrid car. After pressing the breaks, dynamo will come into contact with the wheel and recharge the battery. So they might come up with the same idea here.

Originally Posted by kadanaJ

In major cities where most people live in apartment buildings, the amount of people who would have a power socket is almost negligible.
Also wouldn't this add quite a bit to your electricity bill, thereby negating a big chunk of your savings.

In my building there is no charging point, some of us in the building bought a long wired plug to use vaccum cleaner for car. Same thing can be uses here too.

[witwiky]

Originally Posted by pawan_pullarwar

In my building there is no charging point, some of us in the building bought a long wired plug to use vaccum cleaner for car. Same thing can be uses here too.

Originally Posted by kadanaJ

In major cities where most people live in apartment buildings, the amount of people who would have a power socket is almost negligible.
Also wouldn't this add quite a bit to your electricity bill, thereby negating a big chunk of your savings.

Originally Posted by dhanushs

In my place the aftermarket LPG kits were an instant hit for cars like 800,alto,santro, wagon R, matiz, esteem, baleno, swift etc..

Even though the LPG kits were highly unreliable, reduced pick up/power considerably and were priced at 25,000 (10-15% of an 800's on road price) the ONLY factor that made them sell like hot cakes was the improved cost efficiency.

As long as this hybrid technology does what it claims - practically, I guess people, atleast in my place, would definitely run for it, however crude/unreliable the technology is.

but then, I hope this works out well as it is one of the best things we could implement immediately/practically in INDIA to save oil.

Hi Pawan and Kadana,

As dhanushs rightly says that if there is an immediate fix to increase fuel economy of existing vehicles, Indians will be willing to try out various methods to achieve what they want. Also, lets not rule out the option that the dealers of this new product might just give you a facility where they would come to your home and fix a charging point in your parking plot. Thats what DTH providers and the broadband providers did - give convenience at the doorstep.

I hope you agree?

There are more benefits to this than just reducing FE:

1) Revolo is capable of reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions by over 30%.
2) It provides more pep & additional power to the vehicle (15-22 hp (11-16 kW) AC induction motor-generator) and offers torque assist, brake regeneration and engine stop-start.
3) It improves ride handling and driving pleasure.
4) Increases the life of the engine and reduces maintenance cost.

[srishiva]

They have re-generative braking which will power the batteries on the go. Additionally you can also re-charge the batteries by plugging in which will save you more money by using electric power more (the software should take care of that).

So its more than Prius. There are customizing companies which change Prius to plug-in hybrids.

[devansn]

If we consider only cost effectiveness and our main intension on using this hybrid technology is not about the reduced carbon footprint it claims to offer and the extra torque it may give, to achieve a break-even on the initial installation costs, it may take a few years.

For an annual usage of: 30000 Kms
Current Mileage of Car: 18 Kmpl
Improved Mileage with Revolo: 25 Kmpl (40% increase)
Difference In Liters of Petrol (Annual): 467 Ltr
Difference In Annual Expense (Approx): Rs. 23,000/-
Minimum Cost of Installation: Rs. 65,000/-

Similar was Prius pricing in US - to achieve a break-even, it will take at least a decade.

Just thinking lateral, more focus on improved public transport may save us more on fuel - at least people who drive / take rikshaws / taxis only because its inevitable would start using it.

[SS-Traveller]

One more article on the Revolo in today's Hindustan Times.

[witwiky]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

One more article on the Revolo in today's Hindustan Times.

Yes! the same article is in Mint as well. The article speaks highly of the innovation.

The Revolo kit for a Maruti 800 or its equivalent will be available at Rs 65,000-70,000.

MadeInIndia_KPITCummins.pdf

[SS-Traveller]

The Revolo sounds really good on paper, and the inventor probably deserves a Nobel Prize for the innovation, if it is successful. For the time being, I would personally like to wait and watch how it performs, before waxing eloquent about it.

[kkr2k2]

Any updates on this one??

Note: This thread is reflected in their website:
Revolo - Intelligent plug-in hybrid solution for automobiles

[dot]

Yes, it is in the news again. The after market kit concept is very innovative. Is there any precedence anywhere else? If not, kudos to KPIT Cummins and Bharat Forge. However I am skeptical about the break-in time. The reports say that the cost of the kit can be between 65k to 150k depending on engine size. Will the cost of savings be recovered even in 5 years? Yes we can make a calculation based on distance travelled per year. Some calculations are given in the news articles. But we are not really sure how much exactly efficiency will increase in real world conditions. This looks like the diesel vs petrol debate.

[dot]

In the last few days I have been collecting as much information possible on this technology from my friends and colleagues. It turns out that my wife and some office colleagues had actually listened to KPIT Cummins' talk at the recent ARAI conference (Wish I had gone there also). It is amazing to know the amount of technology they have developed in the last 3-4 years and the products they are planning to launch in India. Revolo is one, then there are these driver awareness products (lane change, drowsy-ness etc). In these couple of years they have filed many international patents. Apparently a bunch of young engineers are behind this achievement. Way to go guys.

Just an hour back on Fergusson College Road when I was about to enter the parked car, I was stopped by a girl who said that she is taking a survey for KPIT. Since I am so impressed by KPIT, I went for it. It was a long six page survey, mainly on understanding consumer's thoughts and perception on car features, mostly related to safety, gadgets and cost. The survey took 20 mins to complete! A bit long. However, I earnestly hope these folks do well in future.

[honeybee]

I went through the website. It also includes regenerative braking and other 'opportunistic' ways of charging the battery pack. The technology can work with lead acid as well as li-ion battery packs, so even if you fitted the lead acids today, you could easily upgrade to li-ion tomorrow. The typical payback is assumed to be 2 years.

FE increase was more than 35% in the ARAI tests, with increase within city driving conditions expected to be in the range of 60%. Also there's a start and stop button added for the city stop-n-go conditions.

Overall it sounds like a good option.

I have shot them an email to ask for more details. Let's see when/how they respond.

[sajo]

Are some biggies taking an interest in Revolo ?
Maybe, otherwise why would some international bestsellers come all the way from Japan/Europe on Jap/Euro plates for the purpose of testing ?
Its sufficient to say, people are sitting up and taking notice.


EDIT : Even though I am all for this product. I have also taken a survey wrt indicative costs and corresponding benefits last year. Lets just say, I did not rate it very highly then , when cost came into picture.