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Build Your Own Solar-Powered Scooter

Posted by michael on from the soapbox-racer dept.

An anonymous reader writes "CBC is reporting that the Biomod company in Montreal has released plans for building your own solar scooter for only $1600 (in Canadian funds, no less!) Hopefully the engineering community will take an interest, and add brakes to the blueprints..."

2 of 181 comments (clear)

  1. Scooter? by Thunderstruck · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    I'll stick with the 1979 Ironhead Harley, it conveys me from place to place in style, and re-seals the driveway when I get home!

    (That means it leaks oil)

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    Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
  2. Slightly OT. by evilviper · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Since the conversations about this scooter are going nowhere, I'd like to change the subject.

    I was looking into electric cars not long ago, and all I found were vehicles that could go maybe 30 miles on a charge. I wonder if anyone can explain why this is.

    Fully electric cars like the EV1 can get over 100 miles per charge, and it's a quite large and heavy vehicle. But most importantly, it wasn't very high voltage... That small change would easily have increased it's range tremendously.

    Why is it that all the conversion kits, and home-built electric cars have terrible range? It doesn't take a genius to design a good setup. Are the parts just not available? Are good motors hard/impossible to find? Are high voltage, high current DC converters available?

    Why aren't there any good designs out there yet?

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