The power jockey augments the weakened battery bank of a hybrid car by tapping power from the alternator to boost its terminal voltage.
Background of Invention
The Generation 1 Prius hybrid was first released in Japan in 1997. This was a Japan only release and fortunately for us that New Zealand was able to bring this model into the country as a grey import. These vehicles started appearing on New Zealand road around 2003 and by 2005 problems with the hybrid battery started to manifest. The cost of battery replacement was a shock as quotes ranged from $8000 to $12000 which meant that these vehicles are as good as being written off.
The Generation 2 Prius was offficially released into the global market is 2001. One local car dealer specialising in hybrid vehicles avoided the Generation 1 Prius and sold only the Generation 2 and Generation 3 Prius believing the manufacturers claim that their new battery packs used are much more reliable. This of course is not true as any battery pack will lose capacity with age.
We were involve in battery reconditioning and supplied our customers with reconditioned lead acid batteries for vehicle starting. In 2006 we were asked by one of our major customers to look at reconditioning the hybrid battery pack. Initially the process was to replace dead cells in the pack and hope that they work. The difficulty was in identifying the bad cells and replacing them with working ones. As these battery packs were relatively new success with this process was fairly good.
Developing a process for battery reconditioning
As the battery pack started getting older, the process of replacing cells was less successful and we experimented with clearing memory effects and other methods to equalised the battery pack. Cell equalisation was essential as the delta state of charge ie difference between the best and worst cell will put up the battery error.
We managed to obtain a scanner for the Generation 1 and 2 Prius which was not covered by the standard scanners. This helped us a great deal towards diagnosing and performing the cell equalisation functions. We were recognised as the experts in this field of hybrid battery reconditioning and many distraught owners sought us out to get their vehicle running again.
By 2009 we started getting many of the Generation 1 Prius back for rework under warranty. In some cases vehicles would come back every 3 months. This lead us to look for causes outside the battery. We discovered that a substantial amount of battery failure have their genesis in poor engine performance. This was traced to the Mass Air Flow meter and later to the Oxygen sensors as well. To protect our work we started insisting that our customers get their vehicle serviced correctly as well.
In 2010 the Generation 1 Prius battery was approaching 13 years old and return rate for rework under warranty was making our hybrid battery reconditioning service uneconomic. The problem was that these cells were getting very low in capacity and failed very quickly under load. We faced a dilemma. Unless we can find a way to solve this problem we had to give up our hybrid battery reconditioning service.
The Power Jockey
The only way to ensure that we get a good battery is to replace with a new battery. This was not feasible with the Generation 1 Prius as these battery packs are not available for sale. In lead acid batteries we can get extra battery life if we parallel another battery to it. This was not possible in the hybrid vehicle as the operating voltage was 320 volts and another reconditioned battery pack would take up too much space in the vehicle to be feasible. We then looked at the constraints that such a system must have.
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It had to prevent the sub packs of the battery from being stressed beyond their ability to handle the required load in normal and extreme driving conditions.
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It had to provide support to the hybrid battery pack when required. In other words it had to be “always available and working.”
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It had to deliver sufficient charge to perform these functions.
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It had to be robust and reliable.
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It had to be small and compact.
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It had to be easily assembled and installed.
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It had to be affordable.
8. Most of all it has to be working whenever the car is in use.
The last requirement was the most difficult as a battery pack would soon be discharge in use and the hybrid battery would then fail under load. This lead us to explore the possibility of taping the vehicle’s own auxiliary power as a power source. The drawback was of course the limited amount of power that can be obtained from this auxiliary source. Nevertheless we proceeded to look into ways of making this possible. We commissioned a local company to make our first prototype in early 2010. It was a bulky piece of equipment and we ran our own in house testings for a period of 3 months. The system seem to work and with some refinement we were managed to get some good results with weak battery packs.
This test up the Bombay hills with a weak battery pack gave us considerable encouragement that our system could work. In October of 2010 we filed for a provisional patent while we improved on the product. We decided to call our gadget the Power Jockey as just like a 50 Kg jockey controlling a 1000 Kg horse, the Power Jockey’s output was only 1Kw controlling a 33Kw hybrid battery output.
We introduce the Power Jockey to our customers in December 2010 and immediately started to pare down our backlog of vehicles for rework. We kept improving on the design and configuration of the Power Jockey. Today the power Jockey is a unit that sits inconspicuously in the boot of the car. We have different configuration for the Generation 1 Prius, Generation 2 Prius, Generation 3 Prius and the Estima Hybrid.
Power Jockey Patent
In October 2010 we filed for a provisional patent on the Power Jockey. At the same time we applied and gained acceptance into the Ministry of Trade and Enterprise Escalator program. This was a government funded program to assist inventors in commercialising their invention.
First stage of the program was a small grant paid to Everedge IP, an intellectual property development and marketing company to access if the Power Jockey have enough merits or commercial appeal to warrant more money towards developing a business plan.
To qualify for this next stage we had to supply scientific evidence and analysis on how the Power Jockey worked, and to conduct an IP search to determine if the Power Jockey was indeed unique. We had favorable reports from both this exercise and as a result we were awarded the grant toward preparing a business plan for presentation to a panel of experts to access if we should get a further grant to take the product to market.
We were awarded the final grant to prepare the Power Jockey for presentation to angel investors.
The Escalator program has been terminated and the ministry have moved towards a matching grant system. The Escalator program was invaluable in helping us through the patenting process. It help us to avoid the inevitable mistake of taking a product through the patent process and not have our t’s crossed and i’s dotted.
