Electric turbochargers to come in 2021
Electric turbochargers are finally coming to a production car near you. Garrett Motion is readying its first electric turbocharger for 2021, to be used on production vehicles. It will be the first real electric turbo to sit under the hood of a mainstream car or truck.
Electric turbochargers aren’t really all that new. Nor is Garrett the only industry player to consider electric forced induction.
In fact Audi was the first to introduce an electric compressor on a production vehicle, on its SQ7, where it was used to eliminate lag on the 4.0-litre sequentially turbocharged diesel V8.
Think of Audi’s unit more like an electric supercharger, running off electricity generated by the motor instead of a belt from the engine; it’s separate from the actual turbos.
Garrett’s is a true turbocharger, because it uses an electric motor in between the two halves of the turbo to compress air into the engine before the hot exhaust gases get to the unit. This eliminates the small amount of time it takes for the exhaust gas to get around the various pipes and into the turbocharger.
According to Garrett, the E-turbo can spool the engine to target torque in one second, compared to the 4.5 seconds of a conventional turbo. It can also work in reverse, so to speak. Because the electric motor is built into the turbo, at higher rpms, when the exhaust gases are flowing enough to turn the turbo by itself, the electric motor can use that energy to regenerate electric power for the batteries.