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Perpetual Motion Delorean?
An anonymous reader writes "An electric-powered Delorean that can supposedly go "hundreds of miles" at speeds over 100MPH without stopping to recharge will be tested today beginning at 8am at the Nashville Superspeedway. They claim the vehicle uses 12 standard car batteries, so the invention appears to relate to recharging the batteries." I found a website offering current updates on the demonstration of this perpetual motion device: it appears they've suffered mechanical difficulties and cancelled the test.
"...can run coast to coast without ever relying on the battery being charged from an outside source."
and
"The very essence of the technology to be demonstrated is the capability to keep the batteries "topped up" at all times with the "on board" device invented by Carl B. Tilley."
and most importantly
" In fact, as the demonstration will prove, at the end of the allotted time period the battery bank will still register a FULL CHARGE condition!"
This is not a solar vehicle, people. This is a perpetual motion machine, and it's a sham.
There is more info on this on another website about zero point energy. It seems a little fantastic to me. Check it out, and search for "Carl B. Tilley" on google for other dubious resources. Zero Point Energy
...and watched the demo.
:-)
e mo .html (remove any spaces)
:-)
First, a little background. Tilley's "miracle" electric vehicle has been getting a lot of media coverage here in Nashville over the past week, and it's been a topic of conversation at work. One of my colleagues and I decided to check it out for ourselves, out of pure curiousity.
This is not the first time Mr. Tilley has been in the Nashville news. About a year and a half ago he got some publicity by claiming that he and another inventor had created a "free energy" machine, a la Tom Bearden, Dennis Lee, and Joe Newman. When people tried to follow up on his claims, he dropped out of sight. Now he had resurfaced with a claim that he was using this machine to power an electric car. What really made it interesting was that Bobby Allison was apparently promoting Tilley's claims, both on his own web site (http://www.bobbyallison.com), and by driving the car at the Superspeedway.
Being firm believers in the second law of thermodynamics, my co-workers and I expected one of three things to happen:
(1) Tilley would attempt to hide an internal combustion engine somewhere in the Delorean, and prevent people from examining it up close (unlikely, as people would hear the engine running). He might also hide extra batteries to extend the running time.
(2) The car would make very frequent pit stops in a screened area (so as to prevent the "secret" from being stolen, of course), during which the batteries would miraculously recharge themselves.
(3) The car would suffer an unfortunate "breakdown" well before the distance limit imposed by the maximum energy storage of the twelve lead-acid batteries in his vehicle.
As it turned out, #3 was the winner. In the middle of the 13th lap, the announcer suddenly announced that the vehicle had a bad rear wheel bearing. It looked to me as if the batteries were quickly reaching the end of their charge, as the car was running very slowly on that last lap. In the 12th lap, the car had zipped by fairly quickly, about 60 mph on the track, with no visible problems. Amazing how quickly a wheel bearing will go out on you, and how some people can diagnose it while the car is still moving.
Once the car had coasted into the pit, I left. I knew the demo was over, although some people in the crowd didn't (and apparently stuck around for hours afterwards!).
A few comments: my co-worker arrived earlier than me and got to see the car up close before the demo. According to him, two men with guns were standing guard and preventing anyone from looking UNDER the car. He took that as a sign that either extra batteries or an internal combustion engine must be visible from the underside.
I was in the stands with a crowd of about 50 to 60 people, maximum. Judging from the conversations around me, many of them were either investors or True Believers. I heard the usual claptrap about conspiracies, death threats by oil companies, etc., that get tossed around by the proponents of these scams.
What troubled me, of course, is that many of the investors looked like normal middle class folks, using their own savings and hoping to cash in on a world-shaking invention. They, and people like them, were the true targets of Mr. Tilley's exhibition.
As for Bobby Allison, he was there at the beginning and drove the first couple of laps, then apparently left. For his own sake, I hope he distances himself from Mr. Tilley as quickly as possible.
Finally, for those who are interested, I made a Quicktime movie of the car making the final lap (out of the pit, around part of the track, and back into the pit). You can see for yourself how slowly the car was going before the "breakdown".
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/wthwthwth/tilleyd
Someone please mirror this! I have no idea how much bandwidth Comcast will let me have, but I'm willing to bet I'll find out.