Gruesome
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I think the poster said he had a failure in the HAZ, or even repeated failures.
Is a lightweight velomobile legally capable of 50mph feasible
- Thread starter Mike Bounds
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Chalo
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He also said he broke his neck a couple of times, so there's that.
Since by "neck" he means handlebar stem, I think the remedy would be to use a forged stem, chromoly stem, or just something beefier. I cant recall ever having broken one, but for sure I have bent a couple of them.
Gruesome
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I tracked our back-and-forth comments back to post 55, and I think dds's bike needs a new frame. Or a new bike.
In my youth I had a Golf Diesel on which I simply kept welding the exhaust whenever it broke. Cheaper than buying a new one. Of course the difference is a car runs just fine with a broken exhaust, only louder, whereas steering a bike with a broken handle bar stem takes some finesse...
A-DamW
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contador
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Home | Lit Motors
www.litmotors.com
ebike4healthandfitness
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there is this motorcycle. Not a velo though.Home | Lit Motors
The self balancing feature is pretty amazing:
contador
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Yes it is. The whole project is very cool.
It is very cool!
"Based on our estimates, the projected MSRP is $32,000 but is subject to change."
That's quite expensive! How many pre orders do they have?
The Toecutter
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Hand building something as labor intensive as a vehicle is going to make the price go up.
If a vehicle like this had the production volume of a Toyota midsized sedan and the economies of scale that go along with it, it would come in at under $10,000USD, possibly as low as $5,000USD.
Consider what that kind of cost cutting would do to the size of its potential market niche.
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Gruesome
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Why would it be cheaper than similarly sized existing motorcycles? It has more complicated steering, it needs the gyroscopes, and the outer cladding/body.
The Toecutter
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Being produced in a much greater volume to recoup the costs of engineering, factory space and tools is one way they could be cheaper than existing motorcycles. Mass produced cars have much thinner profit margins than motorcycles, but motorcycles use much less parts/materials than their sales price would suggest when compared with a car. Due to relatively low production volume when compared to most cars, motorcycles require fatter margins than most cars to be economically viable to sell at a profit. This is because motorcycles are of extremely limited appeal to the general population which limits the size of their market niche. You get wet in the rain, cold in the winter, and are at the mercy of other drivers for collision safety. Many motorcycles in the $10,000-20,000 range could be much closer to $5,000 if they saw a 10-fold increase in production, nd sometimes do get to that price point. And there are motorcycles that sell for well under $5,000.
An enclosed vehicle has a lot more going for it from the standpoint of practicality, comfort, and safety for any casual vehicle user than a motorcycle. This is why cars greatly outsell motorcycle. By these metrics of practicality, comfort, and safety, the C-1 is more akin to "car" than "motorcycle".
Yet at an MSRP approaching $50k, the average new car sold in the USA is an increasingly unsustainable value proposition. That paradigm is going to break at some point, causing lots of overdue misery and hardship to pile onto what is already there. Getting ahead of that curve is something worth doing. Yet for most people, cars are the best value proposition available, in spite of their cost. People mostly buy used cars instead of new cars as a way to get better value for their money.
If the price of purchase and operation for a vehicle like the C-1 is more "motorcycle" than "used car", it offers a unique and useful value proposition for people who are financially struggling and need to stretch their money. There is a lot of appeal in that. The practicality and comfort of a car(except built for one person, which most cars only have one person in them at any given time), but the cost of a motorcycle. That will make a lot of sense to a lot of people.
But at $32,000, the C-1 does not offer that sort of value proposition. It's a novelty for the upper-middle-class on up. The average used car sells for $29,000 in the USA. But the C1 is a great functioning proof of concept none the less. They probably spent a crapload of money designing it and are limited in how many they can produce due to their available tools/talent/space. Which in turn keeps per unit cost high, and potential sales volume low.
A good value proposition is why people buy used cars. They are on the market at an accessible price, but that is only so for a decreasing percentage of the US population. Note the average used car is almost as expensive as the C-1 to purchase, but unlike the C-1, that used car can seat 5 or more. The cost issue isn't just the high cost of a good running car, regardless of whether it's an expensive new car or a cheap used car, but the cost of operating it. Fuel, taxes, insurance, maintenance, all add up, and many working people cannot afford to keep a car and/or use it, even if someone gave it to them for free. Yet they need transportation.
They will find a way, but that usually means a bus system that is unreliable and costs them hours each day, if that's available at all where they live.
I think the possibility for a streamlined, low-profile, LWB-recumbent-bike sized version of this C-1 exists, which could offer a very similar functionality to a car, and for greatly cheaper materials costs and even less operating expense. An electric one, ala Cedric Lynch, would be the best value proposition possible, IMO:
Add this balancing technology and landing gear from the C-1 to it, but give it the aerodynamic streamlining of a Peregrin on a Birk:
...but with a bit more ground clearance and wheels/tires/suspension/steering/comfort akin to the C-1, and AC/heating/wipers/defrost like a car.
There are decently fast motorcycles in the $5,000 range, and an enclosed vehicle with similar material use and mass could cost something akin to such a fast motorcycle. Except with attention to design, this vehicle would end up much lighter and faster than said motorcycle without being appreciably more expensive to construct and ultimately purchase, but with greatly less expense required to own and operate thanks to efficiency improvements, while offering comfort more akin to that of a car. It would even be possible to make an elongated version capable of seating two.
For viability, it all comes down to production volume... as that drives down cost.
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contador
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This build, a fully enclosed scooter. The builder runs a velomobile factory in the Netherlands
The Toecutter
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With a small turbodiesel and some more wind tunnel sculpting, such a thing might get 4-digit MPG.
220 MPG is still impressive, in any case.
A-DamW
1 kW
Nice aero design:
Eta — Duke Electric Vehicles
Eta — Duke Electric Vehicles
ebike4healthandfitness
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One thing I wish endless-sphere was more friendly about is gasoline and diesel integrated with electric.
For example, let's take this idea of this turbo diesel you are mentioning. One thing that is common now is eTurbo. eTurbo means there is now an electric motor in between the impeller and the compressor of the Turbo. This motor (by acting as a brake) can also be used to generate electricity when the exhaust flow becomes too high. So on a long trip generation of electricity is constantly happening once the turbo compressor reaches its target speed.
But then what happens when there is no space left in the battery to store the electricity generated by the exhaust? That is where it gets interesting and the potential to do things that were once thought to be impractical now become practical. Things that could lead to a direct reduction of NOx among other things (i.e. reduction in the need for expensive exhaust gas after treatments like catalysts).
P.S. Usually Diesels also have VVT (variable vane technology) on the impeller side which allows them to tune the exhaust flow's effect on the compressor. When exhaust flow becomes too high the vanes open up to allow gas to more freely flow and reduce back pressure. This method is also a source of efficiency gain.
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Under 0.8 watts per mile! Wow!
And that's about the tiniest "car" I've ever seen. Not much bigger than the human it encases.
ebike4healthandfitness
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Well it is only going 15 mph.
I think aerovelo ETA at 258 watts for 100 km/h is more impressive.
The Toecutter
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A diesel-to-hydrogen-to-electric fuel cell stack as a system built to be compact enough to produce 1-2 horsepower continuous in a < 5 lb package, would be amazing, even if it had less efficiency than a diesel engine, simply because you eliminate the issue of hazardous emissions. An ethanol fuel cell would be even better due to how readily available ethanol is and since it can be made in a renewable manner. Such a small unit would maybe allow costs to be kept low enough for a velomobile-type vehicle, even if a scaled up version wouldn't be economical as a range extender for a common sedan, hatchback, sports car, or CUV/SUV/truck due to load requirements.
A gallon of fuel could basically allow you to hold 70+ mph all day long in a velomobile-type vehicle, and the liquid fuel would be much lighter than a battery pack. Plus you'd have the battery pack in addition, possibly being fed some solar power from the vehicle, as well.
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Gruesome
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Watt per mile does not make sense. Watt is a power (energy or work per time) unit. They state they achieved 797 miles per kiloWatthour, which is an energy unit. They were going 15 mph for that record.
800 miles per kWh is 1.25 Wh per mile; for comparison, I used about 6 Wh/mile on my road bike going about 20 mph with the BikeOn motor, and I had to pedal myself.
Regarding power (Watt), 15 mph * 1.25 Wh/mile is about 19 W, so they could have gotten that from a relatively small solar array.
They mention that they could circumnavigate Earth (40.000 km) on a single gallon of gasoline. A gallon of gasoline is about 33.7 kWh. You would need about 135 kg or 300 lbs of Li-Ion batteries (at 250 Wh/kg energy density) to store the equivalent energy.
ebike4healthandfitness
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Glad to see there are types of denatured ethanol compatible with fuel cells (See attachment).
Obviously being able to use denatured ethanol is going to make refueling the fuel cell very easy as you can buy it at any hardware or home improvement store.
Now we just need to figure how to use the waste heat of a fuel cell in a productive fashion. There should be something easy enough to implement as there are all types of waste heat driven processes....there is even such a thing as "waste heat driven refrigeration" which is sometimes called "heat driven refrigeration".
Attachments
The Toecutter
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The 3-wheeled Eco Marathon Eta thing could get results half as good or better than half as good as the two-wheeled HPV Eta. That latter Eta also hit 89 mph at Battle Mountain.
Consider 0.0008 kWh/mile at 15 mph for the Eta 3-wheeled car. 15 mph is such a low speed that it means there is next to zero aero drag. 0.0008 kWh/mile implies an amount of power to overcome rolling friction of about 12W or so. This would be 50W of rolling friction at 62 mph. But aero drag of this thing is probably comparable to my Milan SL velomobile or better, which could do 62 mph on about 600W or a little less total load including rolling losses with all fairings installed and some commuter-oriented tires, and it has suspension. ~500W total to do 62 mph is certainly plausible for such a vehicle without much compromise, which is in the realm of possibility for the 3-wheled Eta.
That 3rd wheel makes it a much more practical vehicle to live with and use.
Gruesome
1 kW
The other way around: 800 miles/kWh or 0.8miles/Wh (or 0.0008 kilomiles/Wh, if you wish), which implies 19W to move at 15mph, not 12 (15/0.8, not multiplied by 0.8).
ebike4healthandfitness
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Something that surprised me about Milan SL is that it runs 406mm BSD 28mm wide tires on the front.
www.biketiresdirect.com
406mm BSD rims with 28mm wide tires means the tire diameter is only 18". These small diameter tires would allow two direct drive non geared hubmotors to be very efficient.
Here is 26" Grin All Axle with Kv of 12.11 vs. 18" Grin All Axle with Kv of 17.49 both at full throttle using 72v battery and Phaserunner:
(Notice the 18" tire motor makes more power at 15 mph to 68 mph while also being more efficient from 0 mph to 57 mph. Furthermore it doesn't let the 26" tire motor make more power at all other points.)
Same as simulation #1 but with grade changed to 15%:
Two Grin All Axle hubmotors each with a Kv of 17.49 working together on a 15% grade:
Schwalbe ONE 20" 406 Performance Road Tire (HS 462) [11653962]
The Schwalbe ONE 20 Performance Road Tire. The high performance ADDIX compound is extremely durable and reliable in every situation - even on wet winter roads.
406mm BSD rims with 28mm wide tires means the tire diameter is only 18". These small diameter tires would allow two direct drive non geared hubmotors to be very efficient.
Here is 26" Grin All Axle with Kv of 12.11 vs. 18" Grin All Axle with Kv of 17.49 both at full throttle using 72v battery and Phaserunner:
(Notice the 18" tire motor makes more power at 15 mph to 68 mph while also being more efficient from 0 mph to 57 mph. Furthermore it doesn't let the 26" tire motor make more power at all other points.)
Same as simulation #1 but with grade changed to 15%:
Two Grin All Axle hubmotors each with a Kv of 17.49 working together on a 15% grade:
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The Toecutter
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The Milan SL uses Sturmey Archer drum brakes. You'd have to re-engineer the entire front suspension assmbley, axle, and brake mount in order to make a system that could work with hub motors in the front wheels. Then you're going to have to solve any clearance issues that occur.Something that surprised me about Milan SL is that it runs 406mm BSD 28mm wide tires on the front.
Schwalbe ONE 20" 406 Performance Road Tire (HS 462) [11653962]
The Schwalbe ONE 20 Performance Road Tire. The high performance ADDIX compound is extremely durable and reliable in every situation - even on wet winter roads.
406mm BSD rims with 28mm wide tires means the tire diameter is only 18". These small diameter tires would allow two direct drive non geared hubmotors to be very efficient.
More trouble than it's worth, IMO.
ebike4healthandfitness
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The Begorett Angelina looks like an amazing design (with the crumple zones and aluminum cage able to resist 5 tons of force in any direction) at only 40 kg:
However, in the United States this would have to be registered as a NEV/LSV or motor vehicle as far I understand things. This because it has 4 wheels rather than 2 or 3.
