The Hybrid Scooter

anthemaniac writes "Hybrid cars are all the rage. Now comes a hybrid scooter. It gets beyond ethanol and lots of batteries, though, running on a hydrogen fuel cell that charges a battery. During braking, energy is also harnessed. All this and speedy too, says inventor Crijn Bouman of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. For now, however, the prototype lacks one crucial component: the hydrogen fuel cell! It's coming, Bouman says. Yes, just like $5/gal gas..."

Comments

hahaha

[eobanb]

I don't think we should kid ourselves. $5/gal gasoline is coming. Sooner than most probably hope.

Personally, I think the sooner it arrives, the sooner my fellow Americans will quit buying SUVs.

Re:hahaha

[kfg]

Personally, I think the sooner it arrives, the sooner my fellow Americans will quit buying SUVs.

And the more I have to pay to fuel my . . .bicycle.

KFG

Hybrid?

[PaintyThePirate]

It seems to me that this is not actually a hybrid, since it has only one method of propulsion, an electric motor. Perhaps the designer got a little buzzword-happy

the check's in the mail...

[nerdsv650]

> It's coming, Bouman says. Yes, just like $5/gal gas..."

Anyone want to bet that California will see $5/gal gas within 12 months?

I'll see your hummer and raise you my Corola...

-michael

I have a hybrid scooter

[Anonymous Crowhead]

It use the latest in bio-energy too. Arguably one of the most efficent machines on the planet, it's called a bike.

best guess of a drowsy mind.

[tempest69]

The Hydrogen Fuel-Cell is able to both charge and provide power to the engine. The electronics are jacked if it doesnt work this way. My guess is that the H-power would go straight to the motor in a high drain situation, and in a lower drain the H power would work to keep the Li battery at a modest reserve. The regenerative braking couldnt recharge a fuel-cell, but would be great for the Li-battery.

My best guess is that the Li battery shouldnt need to be all that big (capacity wise), if your running a fuel cell then you already have a very efficient way of making electricity on demand, so there is less need to store the energy in the Li batteries. It could allow for quick bursts of speed, and a reasonable choice for regenerative braking.

Storm

Globalization at work.

[SpudB0y]

Remember all of those pictures of millions of Chinese riding their bikes to work? Now they are buying cars instead. Soon, many Americans will be wishing they could ride their bikes to work.

I'll really start worrying when I can't afford gas for my moped.

Re:Scooter?

[Moocowsia]

I'd say yes. Barring all emissions and fuel arguements, SUVs and trucks still aren't all that great vehicles. Right now I'm in the bush outside of Teslin, Yukon Territory, Canada, and were dependant on heavy duty or lifted trucks to move geological and drilling supplies around and these trucks (Silverado 2500HDs and such) are just getting at what they should be used for. In town (Whitehorse) they're horrible to drive, have huge blind spots, take forever to slow down, have very poor weight distribution, handle like complete junk and still manage to carry less than my dad's work van. A SUV or full size truck shouldn't be on the top of the list for people who aren't in desparate need to carry a few drums of diesel or require large amounts of ground clearence or an insane amount of towing capacity.

nobody's going to stop buying SUVs

[rsilvergun]

because when it comes right down to it, they're safer. Sadly, the reason they're safer is they destroy anyone or anything not in an equivalent vehicle. So, you're a professional earning $40k+/year, why not spend the extra $200/month so that when your lousy driving causes and accident you walk away with a scratch and the other (poorer) guy bites it? Wish I could say I was trolling, but about once or twice a year I read a story on fark or rotten or even my local paper about some drunk SUV driver killing a family because he ran a red, and he doesn't even see a chiropracter. I'm one of the have-nots, and I'm driving an old station wagon, so I'm more than a little concerned.

Re:nobody's going to stop buying SUVs

[Hektor_Troy]

Why not build a custom car, that simply "abuses" the high ground clearance on SUV's and the like? Something that simply slides under those types of cars and makes them airborne?

Since most of the kinetic energy from the other car will remain as forward momentum, your car "just" has to absorb a bit of energy, and you do have seat belts and airbags to make you even safer.

You end up with two nice effects:
1) SUV crashes, takes most of the brunt and hopefully explodes in a nice fireball.
2) SUV driver might end up severely injured or dead along with their passengers

Enough of those crashes, and people will start shunning the crappy SUV's

Re:nobody's going to stop buying SUVs

[monsted]

I'm reasonably certain that you'd be safer in most of the offerings from a certain swedish brand of cars recently bought by Ford than you'd ever be in an Escalade.

SUVs don't make you safe, it only makes you bigger and gives you more kinetic energy to get rid of. Sure, it'll trump a 1980s Ford Escort, but that's not because an SUV is safe, it's because the Escort is shitty. http://www.euroncap.com/ runs a good testing program and you might note that a Toyota Prius gets a better safety rating than a Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Re:nobody's going to stop buying SUVs

[HaydnH]

"because when it comes right down to it, they're safer. Sadly, the reason they're safer is they destroy anyone or anything not in an equivalent vehicle."

Actually there have been a lot of studies that have shown the opposite, for example have a look at the chart on page three of this pdf. You'll see that in this study the amount of deaths of the primary driver per million sold is higher in SUV's than large cars, midsize cars, minivans and imported luxury cars. Compact & subcompact are worse for the primary driver - obviously tin cans with a motor don't handle accidents well! Pickup trucks are the second worst and I'm suprised they're not more similar to SUV's. The worst is sports cars, possibly a combination of the historically bad handling of american sports cars and the fact that 150-200mph on a suburban road is usualy a bad idea!

Hydrogen economy

[c.r.o.c.o]

If before the war in Iraq the US would have taken even a small part of the money spent on it, the entire economy would have been well on its way to becoming hydrogen based. According to the US government itself, by 2010 $570 billion will have been spent on the "war on terror" (http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/051006/w100670.html). If one hydrogen refueling station were to cost $10 million each, each city on the continent could have at least one built by the government itself. Even adding the need for new electricity generation, it would still cost less than the "war on terror"

Then the dependence on foreign oil and its associated conflicts would have decreased significantly. And since the US is still the world's largest economy, this would have had a domino effect throughout the rest of the world, if only because of the economies of scale would be taken care of.

I know this is a naive way of looking at the issue, but it was still a missed opportunity. And it will keep happening untill there are no other alternatives. The oil companies are generating HUGE proffits due to high oil prices and our dependence on it. The domestic car manufacturers cannot afford the R&D costs associated to switching over to fuel cells. And the consumers themselves do not want change, and will continue driving V8 monsters for as long as they can afford it.

Re:SUV-bike collision?

[Y-Crate]

What happens when a vehicle with a drunk driver collides with your vehicle? SUV vs. car: people in car survive if they are properly restrained. SUV vs. bike, even with proper helmets: Don't even go there.

You can disagree with the site, but the sources are another matter entirely. It's something to think about next time you see a jacked-up SUV with a super reenforced "brush guard" steel bar running across the front grille blowing through another STOP sign.

link

While SUVs pose serious safety problems for their occupants, recent studies are showing that SUVs are greatly increasing the danger on our roads for drivers and passengers in other cars. Federal information shows that although light trucks account for one-third of all registered vehicles, traffic crashes between a light truck and any other vehicle now account for the majority of fatalities in vehicle-to-vehicle collisions. Of the 5,259 fatalities caused when light trucks struck cars in 1996, 81 percent of the fatally injured were occupants of the car.(9) In multiple-vehicle crashes, the occupants of the car are four times more likely to be killed than the occupants of the SUV.(10) In a side-impact collision with an SUV, car occupants are 27 times more likely to die.(11),

10. Traffic Safety Facts 1996: A Compilation of Motor Vehicle Crash Data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System and the General Estimates System. DOT HS 808 649, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Transportation; National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; National Center for Statistics and Analysis, December, 1997. Chapter 3. page 64. table 37.

11. The Insurance Institute For Highway Safety - Feb.98 study and Nauss , Donald. April 5 1998. "Detroit Circles the Trucks; The big three defend sport-utilities and other hot sellers against an assault by regulators and environmentalists." Los Angeles Times. SectionD: Page 1.

Re:Go electric

[JanneM]

Here in Shanghai and everywhere in China, you can buy for an electric bicycle or scooter for less than $200 US dollars after some bargaining.

They're everywhere in Japan as well, especially the "secondary motor" bicycle kind, where you still pedal and the motor gives you extra help for inclines or headwinds. They extend the range, you don't get sweaty, and they're very cheap to buy and run - the drive system doesn't actually need to be able to push the bike all by itself afer all, so the whole package is small and light.

Not even funny anymore

[rammer]

>Sweden already have it.

So does Finland and many other nations around the world.

I always found it rather amusing the way people in the US bitched about "high" fuel prices.
BOO HOO.

This morning here in Tampere,Finland the price was 1.42 EUR/l for 95 octane (6.843 USD/gal for SI-unit impaired).
This about average for the whole of Finland.
Combine this with the fact that due to idiotic taxation Finland has the oldest cars in EU. (Not counting former soviet bloc).
And cold winters. And large distances. Then you will have some understanding of how much it sucks to have these fuel prices.

Stop complaining until your gasoline prices are as high as this.
Although when the US has $6 gas we will probably have to pay 12.

What is the price of fuel ethanol again?

Within the next year fuel ethanol will be cheaper than gasoline almost everywhere. If current trends continue.
They probably will not continue due to increased use of ethanol.

But within 5 years ethanol will the fuel of choice.
And until they can manufacture hydrogen fuel cells and hydrogen in sufficient quantities for sufficient prices I don't imagine that this will change. Maybe in the next 20 years. Maybe by then we will have fusion reactors. (Yeah right!!)

Re:Not even funny anymore

[AGMW]

I think what you are saying is that if the US wanted to try and move to a more eco-friendly transport infrastructure, they wouldn't want to start from here.

On my trips to the US I've been amazed to find that there aren't any pedestrian walkways (pavement to us UK chaps, and I think "sidewalk" is what you US fellows call them). Because of the ubiquitous car (and that perhaps because of the cheap petrol) there is no (useful) public transport, and because there is no public transport, everyone uses the car, so why build cycle lanes or sidewalks, or foot-bridges over highways.

It's a bit of a catch-22. The problem is that the petrol is going to run out at some point - the light at the end of the tunnel isn't some unobtanium that's gonna replace petrol, it's a runaway train hurtling towards us.

But it's not a vote winner. Do you want $2 on a gallon of gas to put towards finding an alternative? Hell No! No Gov, local or otherwise, is going to impose that tax because they won't get re-elected, and when the problem does hit they'll all be nicely retired from the fray, so why bother now - right?

What we need is some government with some backbone to impose the tax, to encourage (nay, fund!) the research. There'd be a bunch of bleating about it now, but in 20, 30, 50 years, it'll sure be nice to realise we're ahead of the curve rather than sitting in the dark in our houses that we can no longer afford to cool in the summer or heat in the winter.

But then I was always a "do my homework as soon as I got it" sort of person, rather than the "stay up late the night before" chap.

Re:Not even funny anymore

[ColaMan]

Australians are in a similar situation - fuel here is the equivalent of USD3.90/gal.
It's a 9 hour drive to the next largest population centre of 200,000 people. Forget rail/bus/air transport.

The most popular large sedans in Australia have 6 cylinder engines that get about 27-30mpg highway. V8's are becoming, well, not 'rare', but they're a lot less visible than they used to be. While there's plenty of large cars and 4WDs, but theres none so large as what I've seen in the states as 'common'. For example, there's one (1) F350 truck in my town of 25,000 people.

You're going to have to adapt. Your cars will shrink, they'll become more fuel-efficient and their total horsepower will reduce. But saying that, you'll still be driving them everywhere for a long time yet.

Scooters are already efficient...

[richardtallent]

My Vespa LX-150 gets around 60MPG. It's a city bike, and only 150cc, but plenty enough power for city traffic (cruises up to 55-60mph). I spend less than $5/month in gas.

Piaggio, makers of the Vespa, are actually working on two hybrid models, but the rumor is the under-seat storage will be reduced or eliminated for batteries, so I have no interest in upgrading.

Re:SUV-bike collision?

[JanneM]

If you're that worried about safety, take the train! :)

I live in Japan, so I do. I've never even bothered to have my licence converted into a Japanese one; trains, subways and bicycles take me wherever I need to go.

Of course, a Japanese train is always at risk of being attacked by Godzilla; I guess the only safe choice is to build my own MechaZilla which should widthstand the ravages of even the most determined bad actor in a rubber suit. ^_^

$5/gal gas

[nmg196]

$5/gal gas? Wow that's cheap!

Here in the UK, it's already the equivalent of $7 per US gallon (97p/litre) or more. You guys don't know how good you've got it.

Mind you, the average "yank tank" probably uses more than double the fuel of the average European car. I think our average engine size is still under 1.6 litres in the UK.

Re:SUV-bike collision?

[gatzke]

Thankfully we live in a capitalist society, where only one type of person drives a SUV:

Those that both WANT to drive them and can pay for them.

Let gas prices change the equilibrium and reduce the number on the road...