Pedal Powered Car... Killing two (theoretical) birds with one stone
 

Hi everybody, long time reader, first time poster.

Being based out here in Australia, we are experiencing climate change, first hand. During this past week, we've had dust storms ravaging coastal cities. (like Sydney and Brisbane) We have also overtaken the USA as the fattest country on Earth, with 50%+ of us being overweight.

Of course, a solution for both the first and second problems is riding a bicycle, but unfortunately, with the weather being very temperamental, as well as footpaths being scarce, (in our city) it is quite hard to do so. Reading about the Canadian Buick, as well as the Green Hummer Project, I realised that building a pedal powered car would be easier than I would've thought.

My first issue is that I don't have a car yet, but many small cars, from makes such as Suzuki and Daihatsu fit the bill, and the second issue is whether I should run the pedals directly to the drivetrain, or run the pedals through an electric motor.

How much would each solution cost?

Thank you

About a dollar three-eighty I spose.

Oz is blessed with the Pedal Prix race series for pedal cars, as well as Greenspeed, the recumbent trike makers who have long wanted to build a full velomobile. The basic factor in such designs is that the average human puts out 1/10 HP. However, a bicycle rider can go twice as fast with good streamlining. To convert a motor car, you would be limited to approximately the speed you could push it, (although hills would give wide variations) unless you made it a hybrid. However, adding pedals to a much larger motor just gives you a mobile exercycle. This requires excellent ventilaton, which is detrimental to the streamlining, but the sun shade effect can sometimes allow a higher power output than on an open bike. If you use a pedal power meter to control the big motor, it makes you feel bionic, and promotes fitness instead of a feeling of futility. If you don't intend to add battery power, there's no good reason, economic or otherwise, not to adapt a standard bike chain drive, and it is almost always best even with another booster.

My concern would be range/hills. What happens when the person gets tired?
I have had the thought of a pedal powered hybrid, where some other power system gets the vehicle up to speed, then cuts out and pedaling maintains speed. This would be most beneficial on a highway though, not backroads or stop/go driving.

Velomobiles do accelerate slowly, but for a highway run, that is not much of a problem. A pedal-electric hybrid is most desirable for stop and go or hilly driving. With a bike in the city, you pedal and coast about half the time each. A velo coasts so well you wind up doing short, hard sprints and a lot of coasting, which feels miserable.
A commuting cyclist will not get tired, he maintains a comfortable effort and pace throughout the ride.
Footpaths are for pedestrians. Bike paths and lanes are often so badly designed and maintained that experienced cyclists prefer the regular roadway. Riding in traffic is a skill. A mirror mounted on your helmet is a great aid.

Imagine if this technology were applied to a multi-passenger vehicle?

eROCKIT | A new vehicle category: The Human-Hybrid-Motorcycle

Do a search on "Twike".

A multi-passenger vehicle? How this?
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...ff.enlarge.jpg

Seems like it is just an electric motorcycle. The only difference is that pedal acts as regen. And of course pedaling acts as the throttle, but that is more of a gimmick then anything, the throttle could be on the handlebars like a regular motorcycle.

If you keep the power boost turned down, so that you pedal as hard as you normally would, it makes you feel like Bionic Man, keeps the seat load comfortable, and gives you a gym-grade workout while actually saving time in traffic and parking. A hand throttle on a motorcycle with a 50MPH top speed, OTOH, feels like it is never enough.

Yea, I like the concept, it is just a weird niche market thing.
I know I'd take one. Or even better, I say cross the velocycle with the e-rocket thing and end up with a high speed, all weather commuter.

I once joked about installing a pedal generator in front of the passenger seat of a Prius so my friend Lauren Stanhouse could recharge the battery with her fat. She stores about 100 Prius batteries of energy as excess fat. (And Jean Ma over 1000, but she's really mean.)

The main problem is the slow rate of conversion of maybe 200w continuous maximum with a pedal generator. With nanotechnology fuel cells that can run from fat (Texas A&M is doing research on it), maybe a purely obesity-powered Prius can maintain a reasonable speed on the highway.

Obesity is responsible for three days of fuel usage every year. (I found that out through research for ENGL 104 class.) So the real irony is that in theory, the problem is the solution!

So I'm starting to like the idea of the hybrid, (human/electric) how much money should I set aside to do this? I've seen a "cheap EV project" on this site, and am thinking of using those parts, connected to the pedals of a cheap exercise bike, together with a resistance dial so I can choose the intensity of the workout (this is also a moving exercise machine), and maybe also using broomstick controls for the accelerator and brakes. Maybe these points are far too ambitious, but I could easily scale the whole thing back.

While I haven't found the right donor car yet, I am thinking about using a Suzuki Mighty Boy (a tiny pick-up/ute/bakkie based on the '80s Suzuki Alto)

Thank you

PS, Could someone please help me find EV parts in Australia (particularly Canberra)

OK, I gave a bogus answer the first time because really, are you going to pedal around something that weighs in excess of 1000 lbs (instead of a 40 lb bike) just because of dust and weather?

In addition, it all depends on how resourceful you are. If the donor car and donor bicycle are rotting in your back yard already and you have a welder and other tools and can fab then the price could be close to zero; and if you have to buy and hire everything out the price could exceed $20,000.

And in addition to that, who's to say if I compiled a comprehensive list of what would likely be needed, that the prices I have access to are anywhere near the prices you have access to?

Is $0-$20,000 a helpful answer?

P.S. Just found pics of Mighty Boys- cute! Would you even fit in one? I probably wouldn't. :mad: However a Tempo hacked into a ute would look similar...

If you use batteries to accelerate, it won't feel that slow. And you'll be driving a car that can get infinite MPG and not use any electricity - isn't that a hypermiler's dream?

The main problem, of course, is getting a useful speed from pedal power alone. If it's possible to build a car using only pedal power that can keep up with a highly hypermiled (>120MPG) original Insight, it could be interesting to follow that hypermiled Insight and then claim infinite MPG at the same speed as the hypermiled Insight. Actually, if recharge times are excluded, it would be very easy. Just take an EV, drive it as usual, then recharge the batteries with pedal generators. Not sure if that'll count as "no electricity used" but it does count as "no grid electricity used".

Before we discuss money, do you have any performance goals in mind? If you just want to tinker, that can be quite cheap. If you want something that anyone else would buy, and have to learn as you go, you can burn through millions.

My main goal is to tinker, but I would need to learn how to use all the tools, I could just go to my local TAFE (community college) and do some courses there, they have courses on everything I would need to do (electrics, car restoration, welding, etc)
For performance, it would just be used for a 5-minute (each way) commute to work/the gym, therefore it wouldn't need to go too fast, but the reason I thought about the pedal/electric path afterwards, was that I would need to get to about 60-70km/h. (37-47mph)

By the way, when talking about the dust storms and weather, I was talking about climate change being a big issue, the weather is not the reason to build the car, the small difference that I make to the environment is one of the reasons.

First, search this site for "power Required" to pop up the thread with a handy calculator. You will probably find that you would have to spend an hour or so on a pedal generator to provide the power for the trip. If you can't do the math, that's the course to start with.

Yes, now I realise, if I could instantaneously make 4000 watts for the whole distance of the trip, it would be fine, but it probably wouldn't work. Another idea I thought of, was to use the electric motor like one of those motorised bicycles, as in, using the motor to assist the pedalling, maybe with a powerful motor, it would be fine, but I would still have to use grid energy.

By the way, another update, one of my colleagues is trying to sell one of her cars. She has a Ford Laser (Mazda 323) and a 1992 Daihatsu Charade. She's selling both for AU$300, (US$260) so the Charade would be a great alternative to the MB.

How fast do the "world record MPG" cars typically go? It might be possible to power one with pedal power, then claim infinite MPG for the same speed.

The Shell economy run getting the 5-figure MPGs are at 15 MPH. At 60, they might still get 4 figures. The streamlined bike record is 82 MPH.

Unfortunately, with modern agriculture, it takes about ten calories of fossil energy to put one calorie on your plate.

Slightly OT - isn't that the reason so many people are against grain-fed beef? I mean you're wasting tons of edible food just to make a few hundred lbs of edible food... I see a problem there.

Back On Topic - I see a few problems with me and a pedal-powered car - mainly, I'm lazy. Secondarily, I believe that my exercise comes from hard work, not pedaling, and Thirdly, I'm a redneck... we like to make things go without having to work.

I was raised on the notion that sweat was a symptom of not thinking well enough to avoid it. I was the least fit kid at school. Then, I re-discovered bicycling for the quick, cheap commuting, and my resting heart rate went to 52. I very seldom noticed any fatigue or other discomfort. I drive a car now, but notice that if I get my exercise from carpentry or gardening, I really feel it, but if I go for a ride, I burn more calories with no discomfort, while doing more good for my heart and lungs.

Re: OT - If there were about 15% more vegetarians, there would be enough food for everyone, even though vegetarians live 5 years longer. Ranches are replacing forest at a frightening pace.

One way to reduce that is to grow our food closer to where we live.
The Vertical Farm Project - Agriculture for the 21st Century and Beyond | www.verticalfarm.com

I used to love riding bikes... then I moved to the country, where the nearest store is a 3 mile trek, and that's the most expensive store you can go to (even if you count the extra fuel to go another 7 miles to a city.) As a result, I got my license, and never looked back, until recently. I'm looking into building a decent recumbent reverse trike with a motor that qualifies in PA as a "motorized bicycle" by law (obviously, not by definition, since bicycle implies two wheels). This will get me decent speed pedaling the short trips, and if I need to go more than a few miles, I'll kick in the motor and get 100 MPG getting there, and probably more using P&G and other HM tactics. I'd ideally love to get a 2 cycle diesel engine and use it, so that I could brew my own fuel, but I'm not sure how well that will work out.

I'm not a vegetarian, I'm a cheap-ivore.

I enjoy meat, but I don't enjoy paying the outrageous grocery store prices for it. As a result, I usually buy my meat from dairy farmers and the like that are thinning their herds, or I get grass-fed beef/pork locally. Recently, I haven't been doing this, but it's more for the fact that I get groceries for a family of 5 who eat like food is a given, not a gift. (That's putting it politely.)

Cows contribute to global warming, probably moreso than cars in many cases.

Digging up this thread from the grave : the eRockit is for sale now !

eROCKIT - Leistungsdaten und Merkmale

Some 12,500 euro will get you one.
(Or a small car and a lot of fuel .)
At least it's priced better than the original 30.000 euro estimate.

Cool! Found this video link online:
erockit -human-hybrid-motorcycle

This is along the same concept as the eRockit bike.

web site - HumanCar® Inc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXUJj...eature=related

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I'm not saying try this at home, but it does show what can be done with junk and what you might have in the shed already........ :eek:

Crazy DIY Bike Runs with Electric Drill and Car Batteries | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World

That is too funny!

But I remember a poor Afghan who could not walk, and had lost his job built an electric car out of junk parts so he could get mobile again. I've been trying to find the news story about it with the car in action. I'll post it as soon as I can find it.

And this is worth having a look at too.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RferXHcG7x8&NR=1

Take a look at his webpage too.

And this is very exciting too,,,,,,,,,

http://ev-liberty.com/photos.htm

I would never buy one at the price, but I'm sure most home tinkerer types could build themselves something like it for waaaay cheaper.

That little pedal car is cool...:)

Check out his blog also.

High mileage trikes and more

I really like the way this guy thinks. :thumbup:

Thanks...

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Something to watch out for if it happens to go through your area.

These things are fast. fast

Check out this guys pedal car...:thumbup:

DIY Genius Creates Peddle-Powered Porsche Roadster | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j03LK...eature=related

He's very talented, to say the least...

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"Peddle power"- sounds like a motivational slogan for an ad agency. :rolleyes:

That pedal car is great!

Interestingly, there may be some legal problems in the states however as they frown on four wheels w/pedal power for some reason (some regional variance)... two, no problem. Three? Yer good to go. Four? Nope - yer an evil lawbreaker.

Why? I've no idea lol

I've looked at a variety human powered vehicles over the last 30 years. For a velomobile I would suggest an aluminum tub tadpole with ABS body panels and at least a rear suspension. Figure costs up to $4,000 USD for a small electric motor system and light weight components such as disk brakes. A tandem set up with some cargo room would be ideal. For a single person I'd go with a full fairing bicycle with a suspension and aero bars. I like a bike I can load on a bus, car rack, or train if needed. If your pedal car is wider than a meter and cruising speed does not keep up with motor traffic then you may become a traffic hazard.

No no, it's the tin tops and their drivers who are the traffic hazard, - and the eco-hazard, and the bio-hazard, and the waste of space hazard........:p;)

True enough, but it wouldn't be so difficult to modify the design to revise the velomobile quad into tadpole trike if necessary. I have a feeling that the regulations may be similar here in New Zealand with regard to the 3 or 4 wheel question on a pedal powered machine. With my own experiments into alternative transport I've just tended to go ahead and build something and if I get stopped by local police I have another think about it. So far they have just smiled and waved at me when they see me.