While it is true that great progress has been made in the charging infrastructure for electric vehicles, it is still insufficient to meet the great demand for these low-emission cars.
Faced with the difficulties, major automotive manufacturers are working on preparing new technologies to increase the autonomy of the units from the point of view of the batteries and other aspects they have developed.
BMW is one of the brands that is making inroads in this type of innovations to lead the transition to electromobility. Through “regenerative braking”, a characteristic of electric vehicles that allows them to recover energy in the battery when decelerating, using the electric motor itself in reverse mode instead of the brake pads, the German company intends to revolutionize the market.
The manufacturer has just patented this system that could give it a significant competitive advantage in the future. The platform takes advantage of the continuous movement of an electric vehicle’s suspension to regenerate energy.
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Patent Details
The document filed in Germany explains how the structure works. The Bavarian firm’s engineers propose the integration into the suspension itself of a small generator, connected to an actuator whose appearance is similar to that of a conventional stabilizer bar.
In addition, the system was designed to capture only the energy of the rebound that occurs when gripping each pothole; this is so, apparently, to prevent certain shocks can ’cause damage to the mechanism.
Additionally, according to the patent, BMW engineers integrated a component that allows to increase the speed of the suspension movement.
In this way, the energy generated by the small generator increases. All this energy can then be stored either in the 12-volt battery that powers the basic electronics, or in the high-voltage battery that drives the vehicle itself.
For the moment, it is not known whether BMW intends to use this technology in the near future in any of its electric models, as it is currently only a patent.
