If you’re asking what’s a Koenigsegg, let us explain. They built some of the fastest cars in the world, featuring some of the most cutting edge technology in the cars construction, safety, performance and overall packaging. Most importantly, it took the Guinness World Records for the most powerful production car (2002, 2004), and the Worlds Fastest Car title (2005) which was not broken since 1998.
Needless to say they make some of the most amazing cars on the planet. However the company founder Christian Von Koenigsegg is not just pleased about making merely fast, and striking cars. See most of the Koenigsegg tech is done in house. And when you spend over 2 decades building cars that are capable of over 400kph, you come up with some amazing innovations. Innovations that can help our regular cars be a whole lot more efficient and maybe cheaper to run too.
Freevalve Technology
Koenigsegg’s latest car, a 4 seat grand tourer named Gemera has an engine called the Tiny Friendly Giant or TFG. ITs a 2.0 liter twin turbo, 3 cylinder engine that puts out 600bhp and 600Nm of torque. That’s more power and torque than what an RM700,000 ringgit E53 AMG puts out. In fact it’s got more horsepower and torque from a Ferrari 458 Italia. One of the tech that helped them is their Freevalve technology.
Freevalve TechnologyFreevalve means there’s no camshafts, cam pulleys, and therefore timing belt or chains. Valves are driven by an electro hydraulic actuators sitting on the top of the engine block. That means you can control the valve timing and how they operate independently. We can be extremely technical about it but we are going to summarize the system as the ultimate version of VTEC, VVTI, VANOS, VarioCam, and CPS. And you do not have to worry about timing belt or chain maintenance.
More importantly, Koenigsegg says that thanks to this system the TFG engine consumes 15-20% less fuel than an equivalent engine. If a Perodua Myvi could use 15% less fuel using this system, that means if your monthly fuel usage is about RM300, you’d end up saving RM45 every month. And there wont be any form of maintenance for timing belts or chains. Now that’s engineering.
Koenigsegg Direct Drive – No Gearbox propulsion
Koenigsegg recently set the record for the fastest 0-400-0 kph time in the world. Their hyper-cruiser called the Regera managed to hit 400kph in 22.87 seconds and more shockingly, drop back to 0kph in 8.62 seconds. That means this car gets to 400kph and 0 again in 2048.46 meters, or just over 30 seconds. You’d struggle to book a Grab car in 30 seconds.
Part of the reason why it was so quick was the fact that it had no gearbox. Yes, the patented direct drive system does away with a conventional gearbox and links the engine directly to one gear and then to the wheels. the KDD ‘gearbox’ system works by using electric motors to drive the car from standstill to a certain speed, and then let the engine take over from there. This system is in place in both the Regera and the Gemera, and it weights no more than a conventional dual clutch gearbox. In fact the liquid cooled 800V battery these cars use weight no more than 75kg.
Think of this system as the ultimate CVT. You end up spending the most amount of fuel when you’re accelerating from standstill. Then you loose the remaining power of your engine via a wasteful gearbox, as the gears and all other moving components. Without having a gearbox you remove weight, loss of power and all the accompanying maintenance that goes with a gearbox (ATF Fluid, clutch pack replacement, mechatronic failure). This would be the ultimate super-CVT system, with none of the lag or juddering. Imagine having such a system in your next Civic Turbo.
Light Speed Transmission
Koenigsegg is determined to bring the “Fastest production car” title back to their base in Sweden and they intend to do it with their latest creation, the Jesko. Available in two trims, the Jesko Absolute (for high speed driving), and the track oriented special, the highlight of this car is a revolutionary 9 speed gearbox.
Think of it as a Super DSG gearbox. In a Double clutch Gearbox, there’s two clutch plates driving two sets of gears. One clutch would drive the odd gears, the other drives the even number gears. What Koenigsegg has done is use a combination of 6 moving gears and SEVEN wet clutches to simulate 9 forward ratios. So where the double clutch gearbox has to change the clutch and shift the gears, the LST just shifts the combination of clutches to ‘create’ the next ratio. And since there’s no need to move the gears physically, and the torque is being shared across 7 instead of 2 clutches, the LST is lighter and technically more robust than its 2 clutch equivalent.
This would make a very hardy yet responsive gearbox for performance cars of the future. Imagine this in the next GT86, or the upcoming Fiesta ST. You would get a far more responsive gearbox which can withstand a lot more power without being overly big or heavy. It is, after all designed for a car with 1600bhp and 1500Nm.
Koenigsegg inventions are not just bonkers to read about or experience if you’re lucky enough, its a proper engineering solution. Its baffling that such a small team from Sweden can come up with so many in house solutions for some of the most powerful, and fastest cars in the world.
Over the years we have seen tech’s from supercars and hypercars trickle down to production cars, like aluminium architechture, carbon chassis, turbocharging, computer controlled 4wd and a whole lot more. In fact the DSG gearbox was developed first for the Veyron. If these Koeningsegg techs trickle down to regular cars in a couple more years, our cars would achieve efficiency and responses that will make the current cars seem like complete dinosaurs. What are your thoughts on these inventions? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
