Wind powered car

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by ChazInMT

Uh, if I'm not mistaken, these greenbird speeds are achieved by a wing style sail on a beam reach, going across the wind. Not into it. How does this relate to a turbine stuck in the nose of a car?

Could be an illustration of lack of physics knowledge. After all, a naive person would think that a sailboat or landsailer is pushed around by the wind, and therefore can't possibly go faster than the wind. That's just "common sense", isn't it?

Now a person with a little knowledge of aerodynamics can see how the airfoil makes it possible to go faster than the wind, but still thinks "common sense" says it's not possible to go directly into the wind...

[bikeprof]

Wind power has been used for ever, now it is time to use it forever...

[aardvarcus]

This could work if there is real wind blowing. This would not work if you were expecting the vehicle's speed forward to be the only "wind" present.

[Tanso]

A wind powered car would be very difficult to achieve. Not impossible but...

[RedDevil]

These links contain many examples of vehicles that run well straight into the wind.
The common misconception amongst the sceptics is that it takes power to even stand still against the wind.
That is not true. It takes FORCE to stand still, not power. Power is the product of force and distance moved with that force. Standing still means no power is used.
The force however can make a turbine spin. The turbine does generate power (as its blades do move), allowing a mechanism to move the structure in any direction, also against the wind if needed.

I have witnessed the against the wind races in Den Helder on TV. Their initial failure due to lack of wind. Their success later on as the wind picked up.

Done a lot of sailing myself, including light-weight cats, wind surfing etc.. Speeds are fastest on cross winds going slightly against the wind, more so if the sailing vessel has a better sail/drag coefficient. When having to move with the wind, instead of sailing straight with the wind we went zigzagging slighty sideways to benefit from the side wind effect. This way we could move faster than the wind.

I have no problem envisioning aerodynamically optimized vehicles going faster than the wind against the same wind.
I cannot envision a vehicle going faster than the wind going straight with the wind however. I think it needs a tiny bit of sidewind just to clear the point where it moves at the same speed as the wind, just as I did in my sail boat. After that (when already going faster), yeah maybe; running the turbine straight ahead instead of backwards. But without side wind, no way to pass the same speed point.

An interesting feature of these vehicles is the built-in right of way. No sensible pedestirian, cyclist or biker would dare get in the way of these sweeping meat knives.
Nowadays collision safety tests include damage to pedestrians hit etc.
I wonder if the star scale expands into the negative regions; sure these contraptions could score 5 stars this way

[UFO]

Great post RedDevil. Meat knives, nice.

[Nerys]

I don't care how ludicrous it is that little blue car is adorable and I WANT ONE. :-)