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Old 07-14-2014, 11:15 PM   #17 (permalink)
jamesqf
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Quote:
Originally Posted by aerohead View Post
Could I ask where that information came from?
Which? The info about the Super Cub came from Wikipedia (and originally from memory). For the Insight, it came from calculations. Don't have exact figures to hand, but there is a long grade on a highway near here that descends a couple of thousand feet. The Insight will hold about 65 mph down that grade, with no throttle and only a bit of regen. From that, it's easy to compute approximately how much energy is generated by lowering the weight of the Insight that distance. Time the descent, divide (because power is energy/time) and convert to horsepower.

PS: Now that I think back on it, it was probably rather less than the 12-17 hp I calculated, since think I had the car in gear. Be interesting to try it again, with a GPS to track elevation change & time.
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