Comments on: And you thought the original segway was lame&#8230;

Your conventional “wisdom” has created the modern mess of traffic congestion, smog and the huge Oil Trade Deficit.

Actually the current system works very well when you consider what we’ve come from. No system is perfect but if you think urban congestion with cars is bad, consider that at one time 90%+ of the population had no way to get around other than walking, limiting travel badly and when walking one had to avoid the horse manure (big cities had hundreds of tons of the stuff to dispose of) and the constant danger of being hit by one of the forms of mechanized public transit which included elevated tracks with steam engines that constantly blew out embers that set fire to things, not to mention the horrendous smoke and a few cable cars which did not have the ability to stop on command.

Our four thousand pound tanks mean that the worst thing to worry about is being stuck in traffic for a half hour on the way to work. That’s really not a huge problem when compared to a century or more ago.

Most people don’t need that feature, and if they do a Car Club or Car Rental maybe all they can afford anyway.

I don’t know about that. Citydwelers have more expensive living costs anyway and automobiles are unnecessary and cost a lot to find parking plus there are limited gas stations and it’s expensive in the city. The current cost of cars is pretty affordable though. Everyone I know who is over the age of 18 and lives outside a city has a car. Some are ten years old and have a few dings in them, but it’s not beyond the cost of even lower middle class individuals.

By: Warren Heath

Warren Heath — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:54:04 +0000

Your idea seems to be hinging on the concept that there will be independent right of ways for these vehicles so that they are not runover and knocked around by full sized cars and so that they have their own way around traffic jams.

Not quite. These vehicles are much more road friendly than bicycles or E-Bikes or Motorcycles. They could ride in traffic – and legally if you only use three wheels – otherwise they face a nightmare of expensive, archaic, crash-safety standards – air bags the whole works. I got a problem with that concept. It’s the equivalent of saying, for the young girl who was shoot & killed in a street gang crossfire in Toronto – its her fault for not wearing a bullet proof vest. The traffic safety problem – IS the steel tanks that are unnecessarily populated our roads. Bicyclists, E-Bikes, Trikes, E-Trikes and E-Quads deserve to be protected from them. Its not these vehicles that are causing $64 billion in traffic congestion costs, $164 billion in traffic accident costs in 2005 and 40,443 deaths and 2.7 million injuries in the U.S. in 2005 and about 30,000 deaths due to urban smog. Its your steel tanks that are causing an unsustainable reliance on foreign oil – in particular highly unreliable Middle Eastern Oil. Your Oil driven machine is going to grind to a halt – and we need to start looking at viable alternatives.

That being the case, there are a few issues with this. For one thing, where do you put new right of ways in a city?All the avaliable space is taken up by buildings and existing roads. You would be left with either tunneling under it or possibly doing some kind of suspended causway, which is an idea that has been around since at least the early 20th century world’s fairs and still is not materialized.

I don’t see a big problem there. First off these new vehicles are very compatible with evolutionary change of the transportation sector. Unlike your enormously expensive subways and LRT’s which most cities don’t have and can’t afford. Realize that the vehicles are not going to suddenly appear on the roads by the zillions. All that is needed is a recognition by City Planners of the coming revolution in personal transport – and gradually making modest changes to accommodate it. Dedicated Bicycle, E-bike routes are a good start. People do ride on those in recumbent Trikes, recumbent E-Trikes, and Recumbent E-Trikes with Wind Farings. Not much further to go to the enclosed E-Quad or Quadracycle like they are being designated in London. Certainly, there is no difficulty whatsoever, except the vehicle classification problem, for these vehicles to ride in most low traffic urban or suburban City streets. I wouldn’t like to take them on expressways or busy thruways, anymore than I would like to take an E-Bike or a Motorcycle. An example of these changes are in this article:

EVWorld – the Copenhagen Example
“…In Copenhagen, where 36 per cent of the population commutes to work by bike, cycling has developed such a style that they have even invented a verb for it — to Copenhagenize. Just look at the economics… They know that cycling for four hours a week — 10 kilometres a day, a typical Copenhagen bike ride — makes a person physically active. They know that if Copenhageners cycled 10 per cent more kilometres each year, their health system would save $12 million a year, and their economy would benefit from $32 million a year of production not lost to illness. They know that each additional kilometre of bike lane attracts 170,000 more cycle-kilometres a year, 19 per cent more bikes on that stretch of road, a 9 to 10 per cent drop in cars, accidents and injuries, $51,000 in saved health-care costs, and $134,000 in saved production costs. For every $1 they invest in the bike lane, they save $5. Knowing this, Copenhagen has set a goal that 50 per cent of all work trips should be by bicycle by 2015….”
“…What would such a future look like? Every major road would have a cycle lane, separated from traffic by a yellow rumble strip. Throughout the region, there would be a network of safe cycle routes where most traffic was not allowed, using a mixture of railway rights of way, back lanes, and quiet residential streets. At every major intersection, cyclists would be allowed to gather in front of the traffic, and given 30 seconds to advance with all lights on red, before cars were allowed to go…”

Expensive for one thing….Then the other thing is where to start. It’s a chicken-egg problem..What comes first? Mass adoption of said vehicles or building the infrastructure. Do you spend billions on building the infrastructure and hope that plans for people to use it work out? What if it doesn;t take off. In a few years you have empty tunnels and skyways because nobody bought into it…

City traffic is already being divided. There are dedicated Bus lanes, dedicated lanes for commuters with more than two passengers, truck routes and bicycle routes. The trend is to kick the steel tank passenger vehicles out of the downtown core – where they don’t belong. Just what point is there in filling up that high density real estate with unbelievably inefficient, automobiles. Utterly insane. They go average maybe 5 miles per hr, spewing toxic smog by the mega-ton. Downtown cores are being turned over to bicyclists, small e-vehicles, the PUMA, the Segway, the E-Bike, E-Trike or E-Quad, all good options. And of course delivery vehicles, traveling at low speed, no problem for E-Vehicles or Cyclists. And maybe free downtown core shuttle buses.

Or do you expect people to buy these vehicles before the infrastructure is ready?

What infrastructure? Except maybe would be expedient to put in receptacles widely for EV plugin. Already part of Obama’s PHEV plan. The electrification of transport in the cities is happening – and it will take over. If these vehicles are allowed on neighborhood streets, and bike routes they will be bought and used. Also the AWD’s are great off-road vehicles for quietly traveling on park trails.

Conventional wisdom still stands here:For commuting in urban areas, mass transit like subways and lightrail wins the day.

Your conventional “wisdom” has created the modern mess of traffic congestion, smog and the huge Oil Trade Deficit. For what, a system in which a pedal bike can beat a 120 mph, 4000 lb car, typically carrying one person, on even long commutes. That wins the day? Your subways and lightrail are enormously expensive, and most cities, especially small to medium sized, or in less wealthy nations can’t afford them. So you ride in on the subway, walk some distance to find a bus. Wait for bus. Maybe wait for 2nd bus – or third. Breath smog all the way. You want to buy a few things, a book, a pair of pants, some groceries – be prepared to carry it on your person everywhere – like even all day – and some stores don’t allow you to bring packsacks inside. Inefficient, Insane, Slow, Tedious and Expensive.

For longer distances and independent transportation, automobiles work out best.

Depends what you mean by longer distances. Between cities, yes, Within cities, no. Most people don’t need that feature, and if they do a Car Club or Car Rental maybe all they can afford anyway.

By: Gordon

Gordon — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:57:21 +0000

The Complete Streets Movement

The infrastructure is coming – for various reasons – and its going to be cheaper than any functional alternative.

I wouldn’t count on that. Your idea seems to be hinging on the concept that there will be independent right of ways for these vehicles so that they are not runover and knocked around by full sized cars and so that they have their own way around traffic jams. That being the case, there are a few issues with this. For one thing, where do you put new right of ways in a city? All the avaliable space is taken up by buildings and existing roads. You would be left with either tunneling under it or possibly doing some kind of suspended causway, which is an idea that has been around since at least the early 20th century world’s fairs and still is not materialized. Expensive for one thing.

Then the other thing is where to start. It’s a chicken-egg problem. What comes first? Mass adoption of said vehicles or building the infrastructure. Do you spend billions on building the infrastructure and hope that plans for people to use it work out? What if it doesn;t take off. In a few years you have empty tunnels and skyways because nobody bought into it. Or do you expect people to buy these vehicles before the infrastructure is ready?

Conventional wisdom still stands here: For commuting in urban areas, mass transit like subways and lightrail wins the day. For longer distances and independent transportation, automobiles work out best. For occasions when independent lightweight transit within cities and short distances is wanted: scooters, bikes or even walking short distances.

Visit any city with a complete and well managed subway system like New York or Boston or London and you’ll quickly see why this kind of thing is not necessary.

By: Warren Heath

Warren Heath — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 07:38:49 +0000

DV82XL said:

Again the key words here are “properly designed”, and yes I know in theory EV’s with independent drives on each wheel can out preform a standard powertrain in most conditions, however I still think that in all likelihood, we will see electric drive on what we would now call compact and sub-compact cars before we see any wide adoption of ultralights.

By properly designed I mean use half a brain, and don’t forget the obvious. I’m no genius, but I have no trouble making the necessary adjustments for cold weather. You are right that the electric drive will predominately appear in compact & sub-compact cars first – since batteries have a much lower energy density than fossil fuels, the smaller, the lighter and the slower the vehicle, the better they are. What I do know is that an ultralight AWD BEV will be a hell of a lot more fun to drive than any of those run-of-the-mill EV’s or any ICE vehicle on the market. I don’t see why some of you folks are so against giving people options other than the boring ICE vehicle clone – and I don’t agree with the concept that the taxpayer should be funding streets strictly for the benefit of fuel guzzling, terrorist funding, economy destroying, smog belching, global warming enhancing, death and destruction causing steel tanks – masquerading as passenger vehicles. If other people don’t want to drive them, fine, but who knows once they see enough of them they may change their mind. However these type of vehicles are not well compatible with roads designed for steel tanks. Give us bicycle, e-bike, e-trike and ultralight BEV roads and they will be used. See:

DV82XL said:

Its all very well to invoke economic meltdown and fuel shortages and other doom-and-gloom reasons why things will change, but as long as there is the option of “regular’ sized cars, (as BEVs) microcars/ultralights are going to stay marginalized.

You need to take a look at the hard numbers for the amount of imported oil needed to fuel the transportation sector, and think maybe doom & gloom is coming. Obama’s big answer is the PHEV, but they are way expensive and for the amount of his subsidy you could make a vehicle like I am describing.

Jcarlton, BSME said:

I’m beginning to suspect that you do not own a car or have ever owned a car. Nor for that matter actually ever driven in an all weather environment. let alone spent 3 hours driving through a steadily worsening blizzard to go 25 miles. The problem with your BEV is that they don’t have excess heat energy to keep the batteries and the driver warm. Cooling batteries do not have the discharge they need at low temperatures, which raises the possibility of a driver or drivers, suck in a traffic jam someplace and freezing to death because they are stuck.

Get a life, I’ve driven in 45 below zero, both cars and E-Bikes – have you? I covered the heat problem if you had read what I said. A fuel fired heater is much more economical than idling an ICE vehicle and EV’s don’t use significant power when driving slowly or stopped in say a blizzard. And batteries warm up when load is drawn from them. No problem dude, been there, done that.

Jcarlton, BSME said:

Also, your BEV might do everything you claim in less than 3 inches of snow. More than that and you need mass to overcome the snow and provide adequate traction. and then there are the hills. For hills you need inertia and your vehicle just doesn’t have enough. You also need footrpint area on the road and the kind of lightweight tires you are describing just don’t have it. another issue is sensors in the road. In my experience anything in the road surface doesn’t last very long. Roads are a very hostile engineering environment. I’ve see many seemingly good ideas go bust on the road. Even simple and very robust stuff get wrecked. For instance highway depts put reflectors in the pavement to mark the lanes. In about 2 years or so those reflectors have all been smashed by road traffic and need to be replaced.

I’ve driven E-bikes through a foot of fresh snow, dude, no problem there. Mass is your enemy not your friend. Four Crystalyte 5304 motors on 20” wheels provide over 400 lbs of thrust. The average person can only push 85 lbs. This on a vehicle that only weighs 360 lbs. Up hills – piece of piss. How about up the stairs, in the door, in the elevator right to the office – can be done. What sensors, a cable buried in the road would be sufficient, not a problem. Roads are a very friendly environment compared to typical industrial environments.

I’m just wondering what market you expect this is going to be for.

For people who want to get from point “A” to point “B” in the city, faster, cheaper and more fun than any ICE vehicle on the road. And this while being totally environmentally friendly.

Nobody is going to argue that electric vehicles don’t have advantages over ICE in many situations, and I think that battery electric cars will eventually be the norm, but not in “ultralight” cars.

The Aptera is an ultralight 2-1/2 passenger vehicle, designed for normal roads – not my cup of tea – but not bad – and others are being prepared for the market. Just why do you think heavy iron is such an advantage for a vehicle?

You have to consider for one thing that most people would rather own one vehicle that serves all their major purposes than many for different things.

I don’t agree. For Obama’s subsidy you could buy an ultralight commuter car for someone. If they can afford it, buy an SUV or truck for hauling cargo, going down the highway, or a lot of passengers. The fuel savings alone will pay for the small, compact, fun-to-drive ultralight BEV. Or else rent or use an Auto Share Club. We are running out of Oil, what do you think the Tar Sands will save the day?

An ultralight battery car with small capacity and limited speed, endurance and climate control is only going to be useful in a few narrow situations.

Most people I know travel to work and back every day with their own solitary little bodies and the statistics are something like average 1.2 persons per automobile. That’s a pretty common use. You want a 120 lb person to ride in 5000 lbs of heavy iron – does that make sense to you? Limited speed? – will get you from point A to point B in the city faster than any ICEV on the market. High maneuverability, zero turning radius, all wheel drive, light weight and small footprint are the key. Urban vehicles only average 20 mph when traveling, and that number is declining.

Anyone who lives in the suburbs or a rural area – it’s just plain out of the question.

Not true, great in the suburbs for short errands, and commutes of up to 40 km. Covers a lot of suburbs. Rural towns are small, and speed limits are low, a small car is a very economical addition to a pickup or SUV, for most trips in town.

In the city?Eh, maybe, but there’s limited infrastructure.

The infrastructure is coming – for various reasons – and its going to be cheaper than any functional alternative.

These have been around forever in various incarnations and they work well in some situations, but as general purpose transportation?

The world has changed, fuel economy, emissions, Oil dependence, Peak Oil are now important issues. I haven’t seen any E-Bikes around until the last few years – and what I’m describing is fundamentally E-Bike technology.

When it comes down to it an “ultralight” vehicle has a lot of limitations. For one thing, safety. You can use carbon fiber and titanium alloys and everything but when it comes down to it, less is less. You also don’t get very good traction in a light vehicle and to some degree inertia is your friend. Mass keeps you going straight. Try driving a very lightweight vehicle across a bridge with a strong crosswind. Believe me, you feel that wind.

Actually, much, much safer than your steel tank, when segregated from the same, on Bike/E-bike dedicated roads. Composites can absorb 13 times more energy in collision than steel. Traveling at lower speeds, much lower mass, of course means much less kinetic energy. I am confident that these vehicles could be built so that a head on collision between them at top speeds of 50-60 mph, they would simply bounce off of each other. The low center of gravity, due to the battery being in the floor under the driver, and the heavy wheel motors close to the ground, and no humungous engine sitting in front of the driver means a much more stable vehicle. The gyroscopic action on the wheel motors also improves stability. You could also use air shocks on all 4 wheels, since there is no axle, you could adjust the height of the vehicle according to terrain. In an accident blow the air out, and the vehicle will skid safely to a stop on the belly plate. I’ve road my E-Bike at 50 km per hr in strong crosswinds with a very bad drag coefficient and high center of gravity – no big deal.

There’s no way I’d want to take one up to highway speed, sitting near the ground in a light weight car where a significant proportion of the momentum was being carried by myu body.

I don’t see why not, sure as hell safer than in your steel tank. Ever see racing car driver’s crash at 200 mph protected by their Carbon Fiber cage – note Composites – Not Steel. People ride E-Bikes at 50 mph – a hell of a lot more scary than that. Also as I said I believe in limiting top speed to 50-60 mph in the city, since going faster is pointless and high speed eats up a lot more battery energy.

By: drbuzz0

drbuzz0 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 05:11:26 +0000

Make no mistake about, an ultralight BEV, with 4 wheel motors, properly designed, will blow away any ICE vehicle on the road today, in urban northern winter driving conditions. Superior in everyway – except of course for hauling cargo, or a bunch of passengers.

I’m just wondering what market you expect this is going to be for. Nobody is going to argue that electric vehicles don’t have advantages over ICE in many situations, and I think that battery electric cars will eventually be the norm, but not in “ultralight” cars.

You have to consider for one thing that most people would rather own one vehicle that serves all their major purposes than many for different things. An ultralight battery car with small capacity and limited speed, endurance and climate control is only going to be useful in a few narrow situations. Anyone who lives in the suburbs or a rural area – it’s just plain out of the question. In the city? Eh, maybe, but there’s limited infrastructure.

These have been around forever in various incarnations and they work well in some situations, but as general purpose transportation?

When it comes down to it an “ultralight” vehicle has a lot of limitations. For one thing, safety. You can use carbon fiber and titanium alloys and everything but when it comes down to it, less is less. You also don’t get very good traction in a light vehicle and to some degree inertia is your friend. Mass keeps you going straight. Try driving a very lightweight vehicle across a bridge with a strong crosswind. Believe me, you feel that wind.

A lightweight vehicle can theoretically stop faster, assuming it doesn’t flip over or go flying.

There’s no way I’d want to take one up to highway speed, sitting near the ground in a light weight car where a significant proportion of the momentum was being carried by myu body.

Jcarlton, BSME said:

another issue is sensors in the road. In my experience anything in the road surface doesn’t last very long. Roads are a very hostile engineering environment. I’ve see many seemingly good ideas go bust on the road. Even simple and very robust stuff get wrecked. For instance highway depts put reflectors in the pavement to mark the lanes. In about 2 years or so those reflectors have all been smashed by road traffic and need to be replaced.

I agree that self-guided vehicles have a lot of issues. I still think we’ll see them eventually. One of the big thing will be setting standards for how they can talk to eachother in a circumstance where vehicles are rolling down the highway in automated mode. They’ll need to signal one another to change lanes or something. They’ll need to work with systems in the road, potentially. If one company wants to use an RF system to guide the car and another wants to use infrared then it won’t work. The government, the car companies and everyone has to be on board o make it go all the way.

I think you’re right about the road sensors too. To make this happen we’re going to need systems so robust that they can fall back on just reading the lines in the lane and using optics and proximity sensors.

We’re going toward that. Slowely – very slowely – There is now active cruise control that can keep a car from getting to close to the one in front. There are lane change alerts for those who drift. They’re talking about automated lane-steering in the near future.

It’s all technically feisable and has been demonstrated, but it’s going to be a while before it all comes together in a vehicle.

By: Jcarlton, BSME

Jcarlton, BSME — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 02:20:34 +0000

Actually, I know a lot about the performance of these electric drive systems in cold weather. Certainly like any vehicle, it has to be designed to work effectively in the cold, take a Tesla which probably has not yet received cold weather testing and design adjustments, would undoubtedly give you a lot of problems in Northern Winter conditions. Batteries – definitely lead-acid are a bad idea in the cold, but who wants to use them in EV’s anymore? Li-ion and NiMH function very well in the cold, even at –45 degC (I’ve tried them). You do loose capacity of course, but they quickly warm up under load. An ultralight BEV, with 4 wheel motors, will have true all-wheel drive. Unlike even quadratrac 4×4’s, on ice all 4 wheels will give traction, and on corners, both inboard and outboard wheels will supply driving force. Regenerative braking is automatically anti-lock – there is no braking force when the wheel isn’t turning. The PM wheel motors and controllers work just fine in the cold, even at –45 degC (I’ve tried them). Whereas an ICE vehicle will not start below about –28 degC (unless plugged in), these vehicles will run just fine. No broken brake lines, power steering hoses, CV boots, frozen fuel lines, dead lead-acid batteries (run down and frozen in the cold), with expensive maintenance charges on all of those items – plus towing charges. Even a 4×4, if it hits ice, say on a corner, because of its huge weight, it will slide and because of its high center of gravity, may roll over as well. With 5000 lbs of Heavy Metal sliding across the road, death, mayhem and destruction can easily happen. The ultralight BEV, since it weighs so little, even if it does slide some it will quickly come to a stop. Due to their lightweight they will quite happily drive on snowmobile trails, walking trails, or frozen lakes, providing there isn’t deep soft snow. They will also push their way through a snow bank, and if they get hung up on the smooth, flat bottom, they are easy to drag or dig out of the snow (i.e. they are small, light and powerful). For cold, a one or two person cab would need about 1kw of heat to keep it warm and defrosted at –30 degC. That would be quite a drain on your battery pack, so I would recommend a small fuel fired heater. 1 litre of diesel will provide 8.5 hrs of heat @ 1 kw and 85% efficient heater. It is typically 6 times more efficient to use a fuel fired interior heater than to idle a vehicle for heat.

Make no mistake about, an ultralight BEV, with 4 wheel motors, properly designed, will blow away any ICE vehicle on the road today, in urban northern winter driving conditions. Superior in everyway – except of course for hauling cargo, or a bunch of passengers. Actually it is more difficult to design them for extreme heat conditions, where Air Conditioning would be an issue and the battery pack will likely have to be fan cooled.

As for the automated drive system option, I would agree it would bring up some serious issues in cold, icy or snowy conditions. Although I’m not talking about using guideways, only a buried communications/control cable. Probably you would want to shut off automatic operation in unfavorable conditions.

I’m beginning to suspect that you do not own a car or have ever owned a car. Nor for that matter actually ever driven in an all weather environment. let alone spent 3 hours driving through a steadily worsening blizzard to go 25 miles. The problem with your BEV is that they don’t have excess heat energy to keep the batteries and the driver warm. Cooling batteries do not have the discharge they need at low temperatures, which raises the possibility of a driver or drivers, suck in a traffic jam someplace and freezing to death because they are stuck. Also, your BEV might do everything you claim in less than 3 inches of snow. More than that and you need mass to overcome the snow and provide adequate traction. and then there are the hills. For hills you need inertia and your vehicle just doesn’t have enough. You also need footrpint area on the road and the kind of lightweight tires you are describing just don’t have it. another issue is sensors in the road. In my experience anything in the road surface doesn’t last very long. Roads are a very hostile engineering environment. I’ve see many seemingly good ideas go bust on the road. Even simple and very robust stuff get wrecked. For instance highway depts put reflectors in the pavement to mark the lanes. In about 2 years or so those reflectors have all been smashed by road traffic and need to be replaced. I’m not sure costly sensors would last long enough to be useful on general purpose roads. This has been an issue with self guided vehicles from the beginning. Look, lightweight and electric vehicles have been around since the dawn of the automobile. With the exception of semiconductor motor controls and the new batteries everything you describe has been around for decades, in some cases for over a century. So if a lightweight electric vehicle was a practical alternative chances are somebody would be using them. Yet nobody does. Not in China. Not in Japan. Not in Indonesia. Not in South America. Nowhere. That should tell you something.

By: DV82XL

DV82XL — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 01:24:25 +0000