The Subaru B5-TPH was a

concept Concepts are defined as abstract ideas. They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks of the concept behind principles, thoughts and beliefs. They play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied by s ...

shooting-brake Shooting brake (sometimes mis-identified as "shooting break") is a car body style which originated in the 1890s as a horse-drawn wagon used to transport shooting parties with their equipment and game. The first automotive shooting brakes were ...

coupe with a Turbo Parallel Hybrid (TPH) powertrain made by

Fuji Heavy Industries is a Japanese multinational corporation and conglomerate primarily involved in both terrestrial and aerospace transportation manufacturing. It is best known for its line of Subaru automobiles. Founded in 1953, the company was formerly named ( ...

(FHI), introduced at the 2005

Tokyo Motor Show The is a biennial auto show held in October–November at the Tokyo Big Sight, Tokyo, Japan for cars, motorcycles and commercial vehicles. Hosted by the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA), it is a recognized international show by ...

Design

The concept behind the B5-TPH was to design a car "for long-weekend etawaysfor couples." Contemporary news articles were generally supportive of the new design direction, which anonymous sources claimed would be used in a forthcoming

Impreza The is a compact car that has been manufactured by the Japanese automaker Subaru since 1992. It was introduced as a replacement for the Subaru Leone, Leone, with the predecessor's Subaru EA engine, EA series engines replaced by the new Subaru EJ ...

. Subaru stated the next Impreza would not be based on the B5-TPH's styling, and that they would launch a hybrid vehicle based on the B5-TPH powertrain in Japan by 2007.

Technical

The TPH drivetrain featured an electric motor-generator sandwiched between the gasoline motor, which used the

Miller cycle In engineering, the Miller cycle is a thermodynamic cycle used in a type of internal combustion engine. The Miller cycle was patented by Ralph Miller, an American engineer, dated Dec 24, 1957. The engine may be two- or four-stroke and may be r ...

, and the automatic transmission. The electric motor was intended to reduce turbo lag and boost fuel economy, with an estimated consumption of on the EPA combined city/highway cycle. The B5-TPH used manganese lithium-ion batteries. The gasoline engine had an output of at 6,000 RPM and of torque at 2,400 RPM. The electric motor had outputs of and of torque. The TPH system was developed with the intent of mass production. Subaru's prior concept hybrid, the B9 Scrambler, featured a Sequential Series Hybrid Electric Vehicle (SSHEV) powertrain. In the SSHEV design, the electric motor was used as the sole source of propulsion up to , switching over to the gasoline engine above those speeds. The newer TPH system was more cost-effective because it used a more compact electric motor and battery. The batteries were developed by NEC Lamilion Energy, Ltd., which had been co-founded in 2002 by

NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...

and FHI to develop a lithium-ion capacitor which promised better

energy density In physics, energy density is the amount of energy stored in a given system or region of space per unit volume. It is sometimes confused with energy per unit mass which is properly called specific energy or . Often only the ''useful'' or extract ...

and durability compared to normal

storage batteries A rechargeable battery, storage battery, or secondary cell (formally a type of energy accumulator), is a type of electrical battery which can be charged, discharged into a load, and recharged many times, as opposed to a disposable or prima ...

. NEC Lamilion was later absorbed into Automotive Energy Supply Corporation, who would go on to supply the lithium-ion battery pack for the

Nissan Leaf The , stylized as LEAF, is a compact five-door hatchback battery electric vehicle (BEV) manufactured by Nissan. It was introduced in Japan and the United States in December 2010, and its second generation was introduced in October 2017. The Lea ...

electric vehicle.

References

External links

* * B5-TPH Cars introduced in 2005 Coupés {{Modern-auto-stub