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you use 1-3% of you energy to go over bumps this system gives back 70% or .7-2.1% so if you were to go use the amount to energy to go 100 miles on a glass smooth road, you'd go 99-97 miles on a rougher road- with these shocks you'd go 99.7 - 99.1 miles minus any penalty for extra weight - a game changer? maybe for an off road vehicle.
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The AIM exchange is more like the Pink Sheet or over the counter stocks in the US, rather than the Nasdaq. Delisting is essentially a kiss of death for a stock. After a stock is delisted, sellers can't sell on the open market. New investors won't invest good money after bad.
PLM Flightlink, my favorite wheel motor company also entered "Adminstration" (read bankruptcy) just last week. http://www.hipadrive.com/ If a company goes bankrupt, anyone that has money on deposit becomes an unsecured creditor in line with all the rest. If there are any hard assets like buildings or equipment, creditors get pennies on the dollar. Otherwise, nothing.
As a Tufts engineering alum, I'm a bit surprised Tufts U is associating with this venture... if you can reclaim 70% of a 3% loss, that is about 2% as another poster already noted. A 2% gain is nice but not the 20% they are hyping. On the other hand, that 1-3% of energy used going to overcome bumps may be conservative. I'd have to collect some hard data, but I live in a semi-rural area and my impression from watching the the amp-hour counter on my Solectria is that the dirt roads take way more than 3% more power than the paved roads. If so, reclaiming 70% of the loss would be more of a game changer. But... I, like most, will generally drive the other way around and avoid most of the dirt roads. I doubt there are many customers who drive only on such roads.
The thing about the law of physics is that we only know part of it. Scientists who work with the laws of physics are always thinking of how to overcome the known limitations and occasionally there is an inspired moment that results in a breakthrough. It is the hope that such a breakthrough has been made by Eestor that fuels its supporters or should I say "want to be believers". The funny part about Zen is that considering how other stocks have been killed by this market, it's not doing to badly. With all the delays and lack of info, I would have expected it to be trading at 50 cents a share.
You guys got it! Perpetual motion. If only 1-3% of our energy is consumed by going over bumps, then only 1-3% is the most you could hope to recover in a perfect system. But there is no perfect system, so you'd be lucky to recover 1%.
If you put MORE shocks on the car, then then all have to share that 1-3% of the energy - it cannot be additive.
Way too much complication for not enough gain. Just drive 1 mph slower and you'll save more energy than this system could hope to recover.
The talk of adding additional units and multiplying the energy recaptured is ridiculous. If you are dampening the motion with the units, and using the motion to generate power, if you add units you decrease the available power supplied to each unit. This seems a little like snake oil. I would believe the 1%-3% improvement, any more requires more work by the motor. You cannot use a motor to life the frame to power a generator to run a motor. That simple. No web site, just a cell number to call if you want to donate money? I think I would sooner donate money to Enencom.
Gentlemen,
Please read the SAE paper and the patent associated with the development done by Tufts University and licensed by Electric Truck before you make ill-advised comments. It is what it is, there is no "Perpetual Motion Machine" involved here. Perhaps the best idea is to wrap you mind around the spring in a suspension system. It goes up and down as a mechanical device and has nothing whatsoever to do with the vehicle expensing motive power. For that matter, go jump up and down on the bumper-did it cost you an ounce of energy from the motor? No, of course not.
It isn't all that hard to comprehend once you have taken the time to read it and understand it. The comments here are written by individuals who have not had the time to think about it. Argonne National Labs and Tufts University did not investigate and research this technology based on perpetual motion theory, they developed an optimized design based on facts and tested it both on road and in the lab. Go take a look at the studies before you comment!
The SAE Paper number is 771018. Please feel free to contact me AFTER you have had the opportunity to read it.
Best,
Dave
Please read the SAE paper and the patent associated with the development done by Tufts University and licensed by Electric Truck before you make ill-advised comments.
I am trying to find that paper so that we CAN read it. Have any pointers?
It goes up and down as a mechanical device and has nothing whatsoever to do with the vehicle expensing motive power.
When my vehicle is not being prpelled by it's motor, it does NOT bounce up and down. Once energy is added to force it down the road, and over bumps, THEN it bounces around.
For that matter, go jump up and down on the bumper-did it cost you an ounce of energy from the motor? No, of course not.
This is one of the best demonstrations of your lack of scientific/physical sciences backtround. When I do your test here, there is no energy coming from the motor, of course. But the energy has just come from YOU jumping up an down on the car. And if you are bound by the same laws of thermodynamics as the rest of us - you will have expended more energy jumping up and down than you can recover from the shock/energy/recovery system.
Go take a look at the studies before you comment!
Until I can find that study, I can only base my comments on what I have heard from you. And I haven't yet heard one thing that I can hang my hat on. I have no doubt that energy can be recovered from the moving suspension. I have HUGE doubts that it can ever be significant. You cannot get something for nothing. Neither can Tufts and neither can ANL.
Be happy to. A google search turns up some preliminary papers. I'm still not sure where to find this "real" one.
I could see this product having applications it off road vehicles, military vehicles, electric mountain bikes, ATVs, electric motor cross bikes and the like- I just think that Dave over-hyped this product in regards to electric cars - if you travel mostly on the thruway regen braking isn't going to be a big factor if you travel mostly on smooth roads regen shocks aren't going to do a lot for you- of course you'll be less pissed off if kids sit on your hood and bounce.
It turns out that I had already found and read the paper in question - the preliminary report. Until we have on-road vehicle tests with the system, and we figure out how much energy (in kWh) and not power (in kW) can be recaptured, there's not much here to tell us what the system is truly capable of.
As I just told David in a private message - I love to think outside the box. But we are still constrained by the physical laws that govern this stuff. He is asking us to believe that we can get energy out of the system without considering any of the energy that goes into the system.
I'd love to eat crow on this. Reading the paper doesn't inspire me to get my fork out just yet.
Dear Dave have read the paper and I see this as the problem:
"Theestimates are summarized in Table 1, and suggest thatwith a set of optimized regenerative shock absorbers,the average vehicle on the average road driving at 45mph might be able to recover up to 70% of the powerthat is needed for such a vehicle to travel on a smoothroad at 45 mph; and, therefore, for an electrical vehiclewith regenerative brakes and with the regenerativeshock absorbers recharging the vehicle’s battery, theeffective “charge mileage” might be significantlyincreased"
shouds read "recover up to 70% of the greater energy needed driving on an average road as compared to driving on a smooth road" you don't get to recover the energy needed to travel down a smooth road you get to recover the difference in energy needed to drive a bumpy road as compared to a smooth road. I don't know what that energy difference is, I took the 1%-3% from you - if that is the correct figure then a car which would travel 100 miles on a smooth road would travel 99-97 miles on an average road and your shocks could recover 70% of that loss giving back .7- 2.1 miles back - now if the losses were 10%-30% a car which would travel 100 miles on a smooth road would travel 90-70 miles on an average road and your shocks could recover 7-21 miles back. I end with saying you can only recover something that was lost.
I agree with WilliamStockwell. Paper is alot of technical sounding formulas from Physics 101 with no real data from the road. Sure, you can generate energy from an up and down motion. What Mr. Holst-Grubbe is not understanding is that the motor is providing that energy plus the energy to move the car down the road. While you can reclaim a portion of that energy, you cannot create it from nowhere. The only thing left to debate is how much can you reclaim and how much is wasted by driving over bumps. I will join William in eating crow if this system extends ranges by more than 5%. Sorry, David, no sale here on the 40% to 'go drive around the block to fill up the tank' claims.
On the other hand you could put up a sail on your car when you park and if it was really windy you could get some energy as the wind rocked your car back and forth.
I think I can also help clear up all the confusion about the NiMH batteries- the politics, the secret deals- you can see it at the followiing youtube link;-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwNfsLwQBhM
It is a little sad that discussions of technology have to involve so much emotion traveling back and forth between people. I guess this is what happens when there is no clear data on the technology in question.
Perhaps going back to the basics would help. The energy needed to propel a car goes into two main areas.
1) Wind resistance (this is why Cd is so important)2) Rolling resistance (this is why light weight cars and low rolilng resistance tires are important)
Additionally, when going up hills, energy is needed there as well, but there is not much we can do about that to improve efficiency. The basic equations for automotive energy consumption are available in previous posts so I will not repeat them here.
So one interesting point is that road roughness is NOT a factor in these equations. This is presumably because the energy loss associated with road roughness is SMALL compared to other factors. This seems quite reasonable and explains why most people don't work on recovering energy from shock absorbers. The big energy losses are in wind resistance and rolling resistance and that is why much work has been done.
At higher speeds, say greater than 40 MPH, wind resistance typically accounts for more than 50% of the energy used. So at higher speeds, the shock absorber energy recovery system cannot possibly return much energy because most of the energy is not associated with the road, but is due to the air.
It seems reasonable that the energy recovered might be 1 to 3 % under some circumstances. This might be worth doing if the energy recovery system can be built inexpensively. However, this is unlikely to be some huge break-through like the 0.11 Cd in the Aptera. The Aptera Cd makes it three times more energy efficient. This is a real breakthrough.
LaterJohn C. Briggs
