Wayne Brown’s Prius Calculator

Kreuxotter Bicycle Trike Calculator

UVE’s EV Calculator, F.A. of 10 sq.ft., Cd of .26

Main point is that the Ultralight BEV (my FAV idea is a robust AWD off-road capable) used on a SANE City Transportation Network, that does not make dangerous, fuel guzzling, smoke belching steel tanks as the ONLY acceptable form of transport, but creates an alternate transportation network for Bicycles, Segways, E-Bikes, Motorbikes, Scooters, Trikes & E-Trikes and Ultralight Compact BEV’s, that is safely segregated from Heavy Iron, with a max speed of probably < 55 mph. In this context the ultralight BEV would become the Safest Vehicle on the road.

Heavy Iron is great for moving cargo, towing trailers, a family on a trip to the country but they are a deadly, smog producing, foreign oil absorbing, terrorist funding method of moving typically one person in a 3,000 lb vehicle around in the city at an average speed of 20 mph, in a vehicle built for 80-100 mph speeds.

Posted by: Warren Heath

at the above cited link I suggested what I hope could be actually developed and produced by someone out there, that would be just the Model-T sort of innovation we all need to get everything going well and soon.

The ideas is: ZEV now (or almost)

Essentially, the necessary tech and ideas have been there for several years now thx to NASA, DOE and others.

Now if only such a concept would actually get end round R&Ded and go into production.
Posted by: Robert D. Martin

My idea is the ultralight one passenger BEV for most commuter travel. The Volt’s 16 kwh battery pack would be enough for eight ultralight BEV’s and they would charge easily with standard 15a, 120 vac receptacles. Facing a coming Peak Oil crisis, standard size BEV’s or PHEV’s are going to use too many Batteries, that will be in short supply for a decade or more, and are going to cost too much for the majority of the population and will have zero application in poorer countries. All present efforts are achieving is creating a future where the vast majority of the population will be forced to E-Bike, Bicycle, motorcycle or take tedious, slow, inefficient public transit buses to work. The wealthier citizens, who can afford expensive PHEV’s, may not even bother plugging in, since these series hybrid drivetrains, are going to deliver 50-60 mpg anyways. Plugging in @ $6 per gallon and 30 mpday range, would only save about $4-5 per day, not much savings for someone who can afford a $40,000 vehicle.

I really think it is time to give up the notion that a city car is a highway car, and a commuter vehicle is for hauling cargo, passengers, trailers and traveling long distances on the highway. For the extra cost of fuel & maintenance of the ICE engine, a simple commuter vehicle could be sold. So who needs the ICE engine. Right now, to commute in the city we either have a choice of slow, inefficient, expensive mass transport, or humungous Steel Tanks, masquerading as personal transport, or the rather dangerous & seriously limited bicycle, e-bike or motorcycle. Seems to me there is a big gap here. The Complete Streets movement demands cities give up the notion that our City Roads are designed only for Steel Tanks to drive on.

Let’s Complete America’s Streets

How about an ultra lightweight, AWD, single seat BEV, made of light weight composites, like Kevlar, Spectra, or Carbon fiber. A 15-1/2 ft Kevlar canoe weighs 40 lbs, and has a MSRP of $2100 in volume of one, and takes some serious punishment. Use 4 wheel motors on 20” wheels, 4” wide tires. Even, powerful bicycle Hub motors like the Crystalyte brushless DC 5304’s would work well in this application. Use separate regen controllers for each wheel and a 2 kwh utilized LiFePO4 battery pack. Width would be about 30”, with the small battery pack between the seat & belly plate. Room for a half-dozen grocery bags behind the back seat. Ideally a small air compressor driving air shocks would allow the driver to adjust wheel height (note: No Drive Axle) to accommodate different terrain. Set low for paved roads. In an accident, blow the air out, dropping the belly plate to the road, resulting in a safe skid to a stop, rollovers being unlikely, due to the extremely low center of gravity of the vehicle.( The tendency of a vehicle to rollover is determined by the formula t/2h, t=track width, h=center of gravity. >1.2 implies rollover unlikely. In the 4wd BEV ATV, I'm describing, the value would be > 1.5). With the wheels weight (about 30 lbs each), causing a gyroscopic action, this will also make the narrow vehicle extremely resistant to rollover at speed. With composite construction, extreme lightweight and no engine, the vehicle could be designed to absorb the much reduced energy of a collision by deforming the vehicle structure. In fact, Composites can absorb 13 times more energy than steel in a collision. For heat, an onboard fuel powered heater (methanol is best), would keep the interior toasty warm @ even 30 below, using about 1 quart of fuel in 6 hrs. It is typically six times more efficient to use a fuel fired heater than to idle an engine to produce heat.

The specs I get are:

Acceleration, 0-40 mph: 2.5 sec

Weight: 320 lbs

Top Speed: 60 mph

Energy Economy: 25 miles/kwh city driving profile

Battery: 2kwh of LiFePO4

Range: 50 miles

Charger: 1.5 kw @ 120 vac (standard 120vac plugin)

Charge Time: 37 miles range for 1 hr plugin

Turning radius: zero (by reversing left & right side wheel motors)

I would prefer the frame shape to be more like a Recumbent Trike, more stable and more aerodynamic. Like a Trike, use to handbars for steering, rather than a steering wheel. It may be suffice to just use a right wheels and left wheels speed differential for steering.

A few points to consider:

The typical city commute vehicle, carries usually one person, weighs more than 3000 lbs, top speed of over a 100 mph. This makes sense? Would it be acceptable if most riders of public transit carried 4 huge duffel bags with them? The average City driving speed (EPA city driving profile) is 21 mph. A major big boost for BEV's is lower top speed. High speed travel soaks up energy like a sponge, which doesn't bode well for BEV's. A major insanity of modern City Road Planning, is the use of high speed roads for City Travel. Doubling vehicle speed, means about double the vehicle spacing, which means SAME TRAFFIC FLOW. All high speed travel achieves is jam-ups at choke points, which in turn means vehicles end up traveling at their most inefficient speeds, i.e. very high speeds and very low speeds. Vehicles travel most efficiently (miles per energy consumed) at 20-30 mph. Having vehicles rush at 80 mph to a road with traffic flow of 5 mph is an absurd waste of energy, and actually slows traffic flow as well as wasting large quantities of fuel. In Traffic jams, along with being extremely frustrating to drivers, requires increased air conditioning or vehicle heating in cold climates and limits vehicle mobility so drivers are forced to take much slower left turns than off ramps or right turns, and even a minor accident or vehicle breakdown can block an entire lane of traffic for an hour or more. No wonder a pedal bike can quite commonly beat a 100 mph vehicle in a typical city commute.

And forget about City Planners building more roads to reduce traffic density, the infrastructure of Modern Cities has deteriorated so badly that trillions of dollars are needed just to bring them up to standard, never mind improve it.

$1.6 trillion needed to bring U.S. transportation infrastructure up to a FUNCTIONAL level

In cities, most efficient travel is obtained by vehicles going at a steady speed equal to or at most slightly greater than the average rate of traffic flow. Already governments are discussing reducing the speed limit to 55 mph, a quick way to save a lot of fuel. The Prius drivetrain gets 7.7 miles per kwh engine shaft energy @ 20 mph, 5.9 @ 40, 4.3 @ 60 & 3.2 @ 80 mph.

With the ultralight, small footprint BEV concept, you could have three times the traffic density of present day. Eliminate most bottlenecks and traffic jams. Would make roads entirely compatible with energy squandering, environmentally friendly bicycles, e-bikes, and mopeds. Road construction would be easier and cheaper with lightweight vehicles. Much less expensive elevated highways could be built, due to the much lower weight and kinetic energy of the vehicles. Highway vehicles used to carry passengers or cargo could be moved to designated truck routes, where travel time would be still less than current overcrowded city roads.

Note that traffic congestion cost the consumer in the U.S, $64 billion, and traffic accidents $164 billion in 2005. Have a collision between those Steel Tanks and there will be mayhem & destruction, which caused 40,443 deaths and 2.7 million injuries in the U.S. in 2005. And the mess created in these accidents can block already crowded roads for an hour or more. With the ultralight BEV, if broke down or damaged, grab it with one hand and drag it off the road.

The ultralight, AWD, small footprint BEV would be real fun to drive, much more so than the Aptera concept. Zero turning radius, park in the tightest spot, faster acceleration than anything on the road, drive over the grass leaving no damage to it, over the curb, on the sidewalk, up the stairs, and if so inclined, in the doorway, up the elevator and into the office. Drive over a frozen lake, where any 4x4 would get stuck because of their low torque and huge weight. Drive on hiking trails, no smoke, no smell, no noise. Drive in buildings and through the bush. It would be trivial to put 120 vac plugins at all parking spots like restaurants, office buildings, apartment buildings, shopping malls etc, as is already done in Northern Countries to supply heat for ICE engines in the cold. Unlike other concepts, a standard 120 vac receptacle would charge an ultralight BEV in sufficient time to allow for travel throughout a city.

The cost savings to governments would be immense: greatly reduced road construction & maintenance costs, reduced public transit, reduced accidents & injuries, greatly reduced smog induced illness & death, greatly reduced oil imports & consequent oil wars, cheaper agriculture & air travel due to much less petroleum demand, major reductions in emissions and greenhouse gases. As a matter of fact, the cost savings would be so great as to make it profitable for the government to give these vehicles to the consumer, as they could be manufactured in volume at probably less than $5000 (you could build one yourself with off-the-shelf, low volume, components for about $7,000) and would last a lifetime, with minor maintenance.

And to keep the automakers happy, they could still sell their Steel Tanks to consumers for highway travel, pulling loads or carrying passengers & cargo. No need for plugins for these applications, but the series hybrid (with a 5 kwh battery pack) would be ideal for performance and fuel economy.

Posted by: Warren Heath