Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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The Model T2

the alternative electric car - affordable and economical for every working-person’s driveway!
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Imagine a car equipped with hub-mounted electric motors powered by an electrical generator, like a Honda(R) generator and regulated by an inverter system to maintain a constant power supply to the motors.

32v hub motors for electric bicycles and scooters are being manufactured and widely used already and small internal combustion powered generators are widely available. A rheostat for controlling the supply of electricity to the motors would provide throttle control and the motors are manufactured to “free-wheel” when no power is supplied so disc brakes could be used for braking. Using hub-mounted motors would allow room for the installation of a small internal combustion engine powered generator that would prove to be very fuel efficient and environmentally friendly while providing the needed energy to power the motors. These motors could be up to 120, 240 or even 480 volts and could easily propel and maintain a two passenger, lightweight vehicle to freeway cruising speeds. The excess electricity could charge a small 12v storage cell and the stored electricity could be used for power windows, doors, heating, a/c, CD player and all the amenities we have been accustomed to.

This vehicle will eliminate the inconvenience of recharging batteries, which is typical of conventional electric cars and eliminate the weight of their storage cells, which hinders their performance.

Please, if a major corporation adopts this idea for R & D, consider some compensation to the “Idea Man”. There’s a lot more ideas where this came from!

Maybe this idea’s halfbaked but…

Submission to Halfbakery.com documented 12/06/00

stormin, Dec 08 2000

(?) Hybrid Vehicles http://www.sciam.co...issue/1097wouk.html
Also good info from any decent search engine. [rmutt, Dec 08 2000]

By now baked to crusp, http://www.electric...able-generator.html
but still not taken the road by corporations [pashute, Jul 19 2011]

[link]






       Baked. Engines run at constant speeds are more efficient than constantly varying RPMs, so at least one group I'd read about <A long time ago, so I don't remember who, unfortunately> had put a small engine attached to a generator that ran at the most efficient possible speed for the engine.
StarChaser, Dec 08 2000
  

       This is used in trains. They call them diesel electrics.
Gimp, Dec 15 2000
  

       Not a dumb idea. Supercapacitors to catch excess above cruising needs for stoplights, regen brakes too. Could probably cut the engine size req'd, which cuts weight, reducing cruising power needs, so susp. can be lighter, and the engine again, generator again...wait...the effing car just DISAPPEARED! And now we're walking. Seriously, it's not dumb. No rheostats for speed control, though. What you want is called a pulse width modulator, which in effect turns the motor on and off hundreds of times a second: longer pulses for more power and speed.
elhigh, Jun 03 2005
  

       So here's the marketing and biz plan in 2011, to bootstrap this idea, without paying a dollar from your pocket:   

       No wait: I'll post this in a new idea: EV Truck bootstrap plan.
pashute, Jul 19 2011
  
      
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