The Volvo ECC (Environmental Concept Car) was a concept car built by Volvo in 1992. It was a design exercise in using recycled material. It was powered by a hybrid electric and gas turbine engine. Much of the lines were reused in the Volvo S80.
The Volvo ECC was built on the Volvo 850 platform. In contrast to most production hybrids, which use a gasoline piston engine to provide additional acceleration and to recharge the battery storage, the Volvo ECC used a gas turbine engine to drive the generator for recharging. This type of engine has a higher thermodynamic efficiency than the conventional internal combustion engine with pistons. Also in Volvo’s design, the fuel is evaporated and mixed with air before ignition. This provides a very low NOx emission. The driver can also switch between gas turbine electric and hybrid by switches on the dashboard.
Looking suspiciously like the S80 launched in 1998, the environmental concept car (ECC) was first seen as far back as September 1992. The brief for this concept was to design a car which offered quality, safety, comfort and performance, but which would also be environmentally friendly. The car’s design would allow a drag coefficient of just 0.25, although in the end, the final result was a CD of 0.23 – quite remarkable for a four-door sedan. The ECC also needed to be identifiably a Volvo, so it had to draw on styling themes from previous cars built by the company the Amazon’s sides, the broad shoulders of the 144 and the V shape of the bonnets we’re all incorporated into the design.
Looking suspiciously like the S80 launched in 1998, the environmental concept car (ECC) was first seen as far back as September 1992. The brief for this concept was to design a car which offered quality, safety, comfort and performance, but which would also be environmentally friendly. The car’s design would allow a drag coefficient of just 0.25, although in the end, the final result was a CD of 0.23 – quite remarkable for a four-door sedan. The ECC also needed to be identifiably a Volvo, so it had to draw on styling themes from previous cars built by the company the Amazon’s sides, the broad shoulders of the 144 and the V shape of the bonnets we’re all incorporated into the design.
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