Porsche Is Also Looking Into Range-Extended EVs
Range-extended EVs are the awkward middle child between hybrids and full-on electrics. They roll around on electric motors, but there’s still a gasoline engine lurking in the background, acting as a generator when the battery needs a top-up. The idea is you get to cruise on electric power without sweating over where the next charging station is hiding.
But keeping a combustion engine onboard means you still get the usual suspects: noise and vibrations. Even if the engine isn’t hooked up to the wheels, it can still send a droning soundtrack straight into the cabin.
Porsche, never one to shy away from a technical puzzle, seems to have a workaround in mind. A patent that just surfaced shows a setup with both an electric motor and a combustion engine. The twist? Porsche wants to stick a two-cylinder boxer engine in the back as the range extender.
CarMoses
Using the Electric Motor as a Noise-Cancellation Device
The patent was first discovered by CarMoses. Here’s where things get clever: instead of just piling on more insulation or fancy engine mounts, Porsche wants to use the electric motor itself to fight back against the unwanted engine noise and vibrations.
Think of it like noise-canceling headphones, but for your car. The system listens for the engine’s racket and then tells the electric motor to make just the right counter-move, tackling both the noise and the shakes that sneak through the car’s bones.
The setup involves a sound sensor in the cabin and a movement sensor near the engine, both feeding data to a control unit that decides how the electric motor should fight back against the noise.
Porsche even wants to preload the system with data about engine RPM and other conditions, so it knows exactly how to respond. If that’s not enough, they might throw in a shaker or a speaker to help quiet things down even more.
Unlike regular noise-canceling setups, here the electric motor pulls double duty as part of the noise-fighting team. In some cases, that means you won’t even need a separate gadget just to handle the counter-noise.
German IPO
Could This Make Future Porsche Hybrids Quieter?
One possible application is a range-extended electric vehicle in which the combustion engine runs a generator instead of mechanically driving the wheels. Since the engine can operate at a relatively consistent speed, its noise characteristics could be easier for the system to anticipate and counteract.
That could mean less of the dreaded drone during long trips, when the gas engine has to keep chugging away to feed the battery. It also means a quieter, more refined cabin without loading up on extra soundproofing or complicated hardware. Letting the electric motor multitask could be a smart way to keep things simple.
For now, however, Porsche hasn’t announced a production vehicle featuring this technology. The patent also doesn’t establish whether the company intends to use the proposed arrangement in a future model or whether it is simply exploring the engineering possibilities.
As with other patent filings, the application and its publication do not guarantee that the technology will reach production. Automakers regularly patent ideas that may never make it beyond the development stage. All trademarks and brand names mentioned belong to their respective owners.
About the author
Jacob Oliva
Senior Editor, Autoblog