INGOCAR from Valentin

The Valentin Technologies INGOCAR is not so much a hybrid vehicle concept as it is a completely unique power train concept. It's a hybrid, but it's not electric and it uses hydrostatic braking.

Specs:

• Type: Hydraulic Hybrid
• Class: 5-Seat Wagon
• Developer: Valentin Technologies
• Propulsion system: Hydraulic Dynamics
• Top Speed: 93mph+
• Vehicle range: 300+ miles
• Fuel(s): Gasoline / Diesel / Bio fuels
• Price: Unannounced
• Availability: Design Prototype Only

The Valentin INGOCAR concept is really a drive train concept more than it is an alt-fuel vehicle concept. The car's body design is very interesting due to its aerodynamic properties, but the underlying chassis and powertrain are the real innovations with this vehicle.

Under development for over fifteen years, the first proof-of-concept models tested successfully in 1986 and 87 and have continued forward. The inventor and team lead, Ingo Valentin, is in Elm Grove, Wisconsin and has assembled a team of Wisconsinites along with a mechanical engineer from the Netherlands and a fluid power systems professor in Indiana to perfect the INGOCAR.

The concept is breathtakingly simple, eliminating most of what makes today's gasoline and diesel automobiles so expensive to manufacture: framing, relatively large displacement engines (compared to the vehicle's overall size/volume), and the huge losses of energy that occur between the engine, the power train, the wheels, and the braking.

Instead, the car is built on a simple I-shaped tubular frame in which compressed hydraulic fluids are interchanged to create motion in hydro-propelled motors in each wheel. The motors can be reversed (by reversing valves), turning them into braking systems that recuperate 70-85% of the forward motion energy back into storage for later use in the car.

The internal combustion engine (ICE) that provides the power to compress the fluids for energy storage can run as needed (start-stop) at optimum RPMs at all times, thus being capable of up to 170mpg in the INGOCAR design. That 170mpg comes at no price for power, however, as the vehicle has a total of 670hp in potential with a 0-60mph speed of under 5 seconds.

Each wheel motor is smaller and lighter than its caliper brake counterpart (which it replaces) and considerably more efficient than nearly all motor/engine types they might be replacing on a similar car with total losses of only 30% - and the motors require no transmission, no electronic controller, no complex parts at all.

The I-shaped frame has a front latticework attached to cradle the ICE and a few other components (battery, etc.). Inside the tubes of the I-frame are bladders with one side filled with compressed nitrogen and the other side with hydraulic fluid. The bladder compresses and retracts according to the pressure given to the fluids, storing up to 1.8 microjoules (6,800 psi).

The tubular accumulators double as the framework for the car and because of that and their relatively high internal pressures, they are made of high-strength container walls made up of carbon fiber layers. They share a similar design with pressurized natural gas (PNG) and other high-pressure liquid/gas containers.

The 170mpg ICE the Valentin team prefers for this current rendition of the INGOCAR is a 2-stroke diesel using opposed free pistons, since no crankshaft or valve timing components are required, the engine is extremely simple, long-lasting, and efficient . The Valentin engineering team added a hydraulic-control mechanism to the engine to improve control and efficiency even further and allow for equal control over liquid as well as gaseous combustion fuels. Extremely low emissions are the result of all of this efficiency plus the addition of an exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) system.

The entire vehicle is all-wheel drive, requires very little fuel to travel long distances, and provides a stable, low-centered platform for the vehicle. The vehicle body could be interchanged almost at will, as the chassis is entirely self-contained.