Bomb Technology May Benefit Cars

As auto makers--conventional and otherwise--position themselves to meet California’s 1998 deadline for zero-emission cars, American Flywheel Systems Inc. is to announce a deal today to acquire advanced technology from the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The technology was used in a high-speed carbon-fiber flywheel developed by the Tennessee laboratory in making centrifuges to isolate radioactive materials for nuclear weapons. It could significantly increase the capacity of the company’s batteries, which store energy in spinning flywheels, according to Edward W. Furia, chairman of the small Seattle-based firm.

In theory, vehicles with flywheel batteries could have several advantages over the current generation of electric-battery cars, including a much longer driving range. And the faster a flywheel goes, the more energy it can store. Furia says the new faster technology will help the company reach its goal of having an affordable electric car by 1998, when major car companies must introduce zero-emission cars in California showrooms.

American Flywheel also said it will add to its engineering team California auto designer Peter Brock, credited with the designs of the Corvette Stingray and the Ford Cobras of the 1960s, and Oak Ridge flywheel expert John Coyner.

In addition, Richard Darman--former director of the federal Office of Management and Budget and now an investment banker with the Washington-based Carlyle Group--will join a board of advisers that already includes Cabinet veterans Elliot L. Richardson and James R. Schlesinger.

Furia, previously an official of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, founded the company with Michael R. Deland, former chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and engineer Edward S. Zorzi.