An electric Supercharger that "works"...

[Christ]

Thomas Knight Turbo Electric Supercharger - Tech Review - Turbo Magazine

Anyone care to note some errors?

...drew 700 amps at 12V and 400 amps at 24V...

Ok, so that one could be covered by rounding numbers off...

[tjts1]

I've been reading up on electric ducted fans as used on a lot of the latest RC model airplanes and some of these things are putting out 3.5kg of thrust at 100a using tiny lithium ion batteries. I have no idea how this would translate into boost on an engine but the idea is intriguing. They usually use an extremely powerful brushless motor with a gearless axia fan spinning at close to 50k rpm instead the more traditional roots (supercharger) or centrifugal (turbo) fan.
EDF Schubeler DS-94-DIA HDT Fan - DS-94-DIA

[Old Tele man]

...two supercharger problems for cars: (a) VOLUME and (b) PRESSURE.

...unlike home air-compressors that work on "a little bit of air" getting squeezed LOTS of times to eventually buildup a usable VOL/PRESSURE combination, a car compressor needs LOTS of air volume NOW, not a couple minutes from now.

...some of the funny cars expend upwards of 800 hp just in rotating their superchargers at full-tilt. At that rate, you'll need HOOVER dams electrical power lines to power an "electric" supercharger for your car.

[Duffman]

I've seen an electrical supercharger on a drag car, it had a bank of lead acid batteries and needed to be recharged after every run. This is just not a practical idea for anything long term.

[Christ]

This particular setup uses 8400W of energy, which, counting losses, is over 12HP... what is it able to create?

And it's supposed to be a drop-in, basically, with only wiring necessary. This, of course, means that it operates within the range of the MAP/MAF sensor, and in most cases, doesn't actually produce atmospheric boost.

On a 100 HP engine, adding a finely tuned turbo kit that is designed as much for efficiency and street operation/longevity as it is for weekend racers, will net about 130HP... usually, a 30-40% HP increase. This includes adding more fuel to compensate for the boost, changing MAP sensor (if applicable) to something that will read boost and compensate for it, or adding any number of piggy-back devices that will compensate for the boost without PCM interference.

This "ESC" kit is supposed to not require any of that. Thusly, it's not making even the 12-ish HP that it's drawing. Let's be realistic?

[dcb]

When we say "works", we are not talking about improving (or maintaining) efficiency here I take it.

[Daox]

Originally Posted by dcb

When we say "works", we are not talking about improving (or maintaining) efficiency here I take it.

Not unless you can put a smaller engine into your vehicle.

[Old Mechanic]

Originally Posted by Daox

Not unless you can put a smaller engine into your vehicle.

Precisely, take a full sized truck, put a 2-2.5 liter diesel engine in it. Gear it for 12-1500 RPM at 60 MPH.

Let Gayle Banks work the engine for maximum power under boost, while retaining the best BSFC map for the normal operational range.

Now you can operate the vehicle at best BSFC and get much higher mileage than the present configurations.

The supercharger would operate a very small percentage of the time, and with the engine running at close to 40% thermal efficiency you could get 40 MPG out of the truck. Alternator loads would be greater depending on percentage of operating time in boost, but the alternator would be extracting energy from an engine at its highest BSFC point.

Best of both worlds, with no necessity for any additional components, except a larger battery and the supercharger itself.

regards
Mech

[dcb]

but...
When this is running it will be less efficient than a supercharger (losses in supercharger motor and in battery charging and in alternator and alternator belt, as opposed to just belt losses).

And supercharges are less efficient than turbochargers.

FYI, you can exercise a fair amount of control over a turbo too:
Turbocharger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

so with turbochargers so well established, and if you have to swap out the additional component known as the engine, then how is this remotely related to efficiency?

[tjts1]

So what we're saying is, this is a dead end. Turbos already do a better job.