Six (Or Seven) Ways To Power A Vehicle By Wind
by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 08.15.08
1. Hybrid-Electric Vehicles Powered By Wind Turbines
The Swedes and the Danes are (among others) big fans of the idea of replacing a part of their transport fuel use with wind power. There's an ambitious goal to erect 6,000 new turbines in Sweden by 2020, while the Danes already get 20 percent of their electricity from wind. Pilot programs are testing how charging stations could work in urban and more far-flung settings to create an infrastructure that flows wind (mostly at night when demand is lower) from the grid to to hybrid-electric cars.2. Ventomobile Is A 'Wind-Powered Land Yacht'
In the meantime, there are plenty of developers working on ways to use wind even more directly to get vehicles going. A race along a Dutch seawall near the windy North Sea fishing village of Huisduinen next week will pit against each other six inventive prototypes that all directly sail into the wind for locomotion. At TreeHugger we covered one of the wind-driven entries into the 2008 Race Aeolus, the Ventomobile, designed by Alexander Miller and a group from Stuttgart University.
3. ECN's Impulse Uses Sustainable Materials
Though all six of the wind-powered vehicles competing at Aeolus 2008 are vying for fastest vehicle in the 3.5 kilometer race, another criteria for designers was to create prototypes that use sustainable materials. The Impulse, from the Dutch Energy Research Center was actually the first to apply to be in the race.
4. Headwind Tricycle Based On 40-Year-Old Dream
This 'headwind bicycle' or tricycle was designed in the head of a 10-year-old German boy long ago. Now more than 40 years later that boy, Gustav Winkler, is professor at the Fachhochschule Flensburg in Flensburg. Winkler and his team used the basics of his dream design, with the turbine up front, to build a vehicle that is streamlined and sits quite low to the ground but offers scant protection for its driver.
5. Wind God Drives This Go-Cart
Zefyros (named after the ancient Greek god of the west wind) was created by a Greek team working at the University of Patras and the National Technical University of Athens. Zefyros looks a lot like a wind-driven go-cart, but is designed, according to its makers, for both stability and safety, getting speeds of up to 35 kilometers per hour.
6. Vertical Axis Taps Wind For Baltic Thunder
Baltic Thunder is the only entry to th Aelous contest, from students at the University of Kiel and Christian Albrechts University, that uses a vertical axis Darrieus turbine for its "energy extracting" device. Vertical-axis turbines haven't made it into the wind mainstream. Baltic Thunder also careens along on three wheels.
7. Danish Design A Classic Racer
This hand-constructed windmobile is from the Technical University of Denmark, and looks like minus the turbine it could be straight from a kid's 60's racing car fantasies. While it might be near impossible to imagine any one of these entries as your next family car, their competition helps advertise wind's still huge potential to be part of all our clean energy goals, even in transportation. Via ::Wind Energy EventsRead more about wind's role in transport:
Using The Space Above Our Highways For Wind Power
Wind-Powered Cars Drive The Future
The Volitan: The Solar/Wind Powered Concept Sail-Vessel
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I can't believe there will be any energy left over to power automobiles after regular domestic service has drawn what it needs..
There is a lot of electric car charging capacity off peek when you would charge a EV.
Wind blows at night, which helps that.
I wonder how fast one of these could get up to in the 50+ mph winds in west texas?
This looks like a series of mobile guillotines.
You forgot sailboats...
"I wonder how fast one of these could get up to in the 50+ mph winds in west texas?"
traditional land yachts (with a sail) can typically achieve twice wind speed on a reach.
I'm wondering how much energy gets lost in the drive trains of these things?
how do these things work?
wow, these are really nice. I love the vertical axis design - I think it has the most potential and best maneuverability without the need to adjust the turbine.
Where do I sign up?