Racing cars are packed with cutting-edge technology. But many of these are "under the hood" – we hardly get to know what all the fuss is about.
Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) is one of them. It takes kinetic energy produced during braking and converts it into electricity.
Yeah, we get the idea. But it can seem a little mystical to some of us, a bit like the above picture. After all, it's hard to get excited about something you can't see, right?
Thankfully, Toyota came up with an ingenious way to showcase just how much energy can be recovered from just braking alone.
TOYOTA BARISTA
So they open up a café. Wait, did I just say café??
Titled the "TOYOTA BARISTA", this café is going to prepare breakfast for 171 people.
The long lines of coffee makers, toasters and frying pans are not connected to a standard power supply. They don't need it. Because they have this:
Meet the Toyota TS040 Hybrid – Toyota Gazoo Racing's challenger for the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship.
Kazuki Nakajima, one of the drivers of the team, is our chef of the day. He will power all the kitchen utensils by taking this fierce-looking race car for a lap around Le Mans on a simulator.
Circuit de la Sarthe is a high-speed circuit, coupled with many slow-speed corners. This means that race cars like TS040 will go over 200 mph, but it has to slow down to around 65 mph quickly. That means a lot of braking.
Let's see how many breakfasts can be served with the energy recovered from a lap around Le Mans:
A whopping 6,000,000 Joules of energy can be recovered from braking, which is equivalent to the energy required to make 171.4 cups of coffee, 83.3 slices of toasts, or 57.7 fried eggs!! Pretty impressive! If you want them all to yourself, then that's like 2 months worth of breakfast! But I bet it's more fun if you share them with others.
Racing for the everyday
One of the challenges of motorsports is staying relevant, especially in a world that is increasingly becoming environmentally conscious. But because racing is highly competitive, it pushes talented engineers to the limit, resulting in advanced and innovative technology that may never have been born otherwise.
Toyota's High-Performance Hybrid System is a great example of what motorsports can come up with. I'm sure there will come a time when we'll be thanking those hard-working engineers when we have versions of energy-saving components like KERS in our family car.
Racing cars are packed with cutting-edge technology. But many of these are "under the hood" – we hardly get to know what all the fuss is about.
Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) is one of them. It takes kinetic energy produced during braking and converts it into electricity.
Yeah, we get the idea. But it can seem a little mystical to some of us, a bit like the above picture. After all, it's hard to get excited about something you can't see, right?
Thankfully, Toyota came up with an ingenious way to showcase just how much energy can be recovered from just braking alone.
TOYOTA BARISTA
So they open up a café. Wait, did I just say café??
Titled the "TOYOTA BARISTA", this café is going to prepare breakfast for 171 people.
The long lines of coffee makers, toasters and frying pans are not connected to a standard power supply. They don't need it. Because they have this:
Meet the Toyota TS040 Hybrid – Toyota Gazoo Racing's challenger for the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship.
Kazuki Nakajima, one of the drivers of the team, is our chef of the day. He will power all the kitchen utensils by taking this fierce-looking race car for a lap around Le Mans on a simulator.
Circuit de la Sarthe is a high-speed circuit, coupled with many slow-speed corners. This means that race cars like TS040 will go over 200 mph, but it has to slow down to around 65 mph quickly. That means a lot of braking.
Let's see how many breakfasts can be served with the energy recovered from a lap around Le Mans:
A whopping 6,000,000 Joules of energy can be recovered from braking, which is equivalent to the energy required to make 171.4 cups of coffee, 83.3 slices of toasts, or 57.7 fried eggs!! Pretty impressive! If you want them all to yourself, then that's like 2 months worth of breakfast! But I bet it's more fun if you share them with others.
Racing for the everyday
One of the challenges of motorsports is staying relevant, especially in a world that is increasingly becoming environmentally conscious. But because racing is highly competitive, it pushes talented engineers to the limit, resulting in advanced and innovative technology that may never have been born otherwise.
Toyota's High-Performance Hybrid System is a great example of what motorsports can come up with. I'm sure there will come a time when we'll be thanking those hard-working engineers when we have versions of energy-saving components like KERS in our family car.
TOYOTA BARISTA