CPT is hoping that vehicle manufacturers will see its transient electric boosting as a more efficient alternative to the mechanical supercharging and/or twin turbo-charging systems currently used in micro hybrid vehicles.The company has commissioned AVL to build the demonstrator, which is currently undergoing final shake-down trials in Austria in readiness for evaluation by vehicle manufacturers. "Even with the higher transmission gearing adopted by manufacturers to reduce CO2 emissions and particularly at the lowest engine revs, the instant additional torque when the driver needs to accelerate these smaller power-trains from low engine speeds is already very beneficial at 12 volts," says CPT's engineering director and chief technical officer Guy Morris. "Electric supercharging at 48 volts extends that envelope of torque enhancement. It's an efficient way of using 7 kW of stored electrical power to deliver not less than six times that at the crankshaft. In other words adding a useful 42 kW boost for low speed overtaking and hill climbs. Depending on the turbocharged engine system optimization the boost could be as much as much as 70 kW or 10 times the instantaneous power extracted from the batteries or super-capacitors."