Volvo Tests Flywheel Tech to Increase Fuel Economy

This should be more efficient than regenerative braking....Gotta' wonder how long the bearing lasts at 60K rpm though...Precision costs money...

If they are using it in race cars, it must be ok. I would like to know how they deal with the precessional forces from the flywheel when the vehicle tips from side to side. The flywheel is parallel with the wheels, which is good. It will not react when the vehicle goes up or down hills. When the vehicle turns or tips from side to side, the flywheel will precess, or will want to, and that will really load the bearings.

SE and Mike,

I'm sure you guys know a lot more about this sort of thing than I do.

I didn't have those exact questions, but I did try to find out the current status of Volvo's efforts. I didn't make an extensive search, but the links I inserted seemed about as current as I could find. If anyone finds an update on Volvo's implementation I'd be interested. I'll keep looking, too.

My question/thought when I saw this article was, "Is the interim answer on the transportation front going to be a combination of 10-20% (efficiency) technologies put together to make a substantial increase in gas mileage? How many, practically speaking are there? ( And interim, to me, means/assumes a real paradigm shift away from fossil fuels, which I doubt will happen in my lifetime.)

I'm attracted to the idea of human powered vehicles as part of the solution.