Enhancement.

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

rohan00

New member
Joined
Jan 16, 2012
Messages
2
I think The Nissan Leaf is a great car (from reviews cause i cannot afford to buy another car at this time) but from those reviews I've learnt that people would really want the Nissan Leaf to be able to travel further distances.

This is when I came up with the idea of somehow installing dynamos in addition to the solar panel already installed (one on each wheel) so that the battery would be able to charge whilst the car is being driven. If this is possible it would decrease on the amount of times drivers charge their cars, save them on their bills (which would mean less electricity used in the home which in turn cuts down on the amount of petroleum used to provide that electricity) and enable them to driver much further with their cars without having to worry much about when their battery would die.
 
gbarry42 said:
Keep reading! The LEAF comes with this feature already.

Well, if you're talking about the ability for the car to regenerate electricity when your foot is off the gas, then yes, it has that. Similar to regenerative braking but you don't actually have to hit the brake.

But this won't buy you much extra range (although it does help somewhat).

But if the OP is suggesting that there should be a feature whereby the car can significantly extend its range by generating power from wheels rotating, then this essentially violates the laws of physics. It's a losing proposition as generating electricity from the rotating wheels will always slow you down and will return less than perfect efficiency.
 
lpickup said:
gbarry42 said:
Keep reading! The LEAF comes with this feature already.

Well, if you're talking about the ability for the car to regenerate electricity when your foot is off the gas, then yes, it has that. Similar to regenerative braking but you don't actually have to hit the brake.

But this won't buy you much extra range (although it does help somewhat).

But if the OP is suggesting that there should be a feature whereby the car can significantly extend its range by generating power from wheels rotating, then this essentially violates the laws of physics. It's a losing proposition as generating electricity from the rotating wheels will always slow you down and will return less than perfect efficiency.

Do u know what a dynamo is??
 
Definition:

1. A generator, especially one for producing direct current.
2. An extremely energetic and forceful person.

Now then, with that out of the way, what is going to provide the energy to drive it? Certainly not the Leaf itself as that is perpetual motion and impossible under the laws of physics...

rohan00 said:
Do u know what a dynamo is??
 
I just don't understand why it is so difficult to get people to grasp the concept that it takes more energy to turn a generator than you can get out of it. I had my friend Rob with me when we drove down to Delray Beach the other day for the Leaf meet, and even he suggested the idea while we drove in my Leaf. This is a 60-year-old guy who is quite intelligent, but I still don't know if I got through to him that the concept is flawed. :roll:
 
LakeLeaf said:
Our public school system is in even more trouble then we thought

I'm guessing that the OP is not a product of "our" public school system, unless you are using the term "our" to reflect the English speaking world in general. His use of the words "dynamo" and "whilst" point to a British education.

Full disclosure, I was born in England, and I cast no aspersions on my fellow countrymen. It appears that the lack of understanding of the impossibility of perpetual motion is widespread. :)
 
Perpetual motion, or at least a very close proximity is in theory possible in a zero gravity environment. It is not possible in this world, but may be outside of it although we have yet to find such a void (Unaffected by gravity).

Why anyone would reply in this thread makes me wonder, but here I am posting to it, so what does that say?

People that bring this concept up, should go make it happen. They will be rich beyond measuring.

Likely TomT is right.
 
TomT said:
I'm a little suspicious of the OP being a troll since he listed his Leaf acquisition date as 24 Aug 1993...

I'm guessing that could in fact be his birth date. In any case, it is the earliest LEAF acquisition date that I've seen, by quite a margin. :lol:
 
turbo2ltr said:
I'm holding out for the 2013 model to have a rooftop wind turbine range extender option.
Exactly! A RAT on the roof is far more efficient than wheel connected dynamos.

Bill
 
rohan00 said:
I think The Nissan Leaf is a great car (from reviews cause i cannot afford to buy another car at this time) but from those reviews I've learnt that people would really want the Nissan Leaf to be able to travel further distances.

This is when I came up with the idea of somehow installing dynamos in addition to the solar panel already installed (one on each wheel) so that the battery would be able to charge whilst the car is being driven. If this is possible it would decrease on the amount of times drivers charge their cars, save them on their bills (which would mean less electricity used in the home which in turn cuts down on the amount of petroleum used to provide that electricity) and enable them to driver much further with their cars without having to worry much about when their battery would die.

In this video you can see an example of what you're proposing. Two EV motors, one acting as a motor the other as a generator (dynamo). The motor is driving the generator and the resulting electricity is being fed back to the motor, etc...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m_iIbX0gmA[/youtube]

These are very efficient motors, but as you can see they still have to supply some grid (mains) power to keep the operation going. That power feed represents the net loss of power due to the inefficiencies of the motor and of the generator. They use this setup because they can test these 100kW motors without having to hook them up to a 100kW grid (mains) circuit. They just have to keep replenishing the relatively small efficiency loss.

As you can see, when on the road you're better off using the motor's propulsion to move the car, rather than using it to drive a generator(dynamo) because in the latter you are not getting back as much as you put in.

Regen is useful because sometimes you DO have to slow down and you might as well recapture some of that energy instead of converting it to heat with the brakes. But it doesn't make sense to divert power from propulsion into regen unless you do want to slow the car.

Hope this helps
 
To continue the joke ... I said:
The rats in the rooftop generator could take turns so they would not become exhausted, and even work in pairs when you needed to go up hills.

They could eat bird and bee droppings, keeping the car cleaner in the process. Occasionally, like fueling "Mr. Fusion", garbage, scraps of a hamburger, etc. could be added to give the rats a real feast!
 
TomT said:
Definition:

1. A generator, especially one for producing direct current.
2. An extremely energetic and forceful person.

Now then, with that out of the way, what is going to provide the energy to drive it? Certainly not the Leaf itself as that is perpetual motion and impossible under the laws of physics...

rohan00 said:
Do u know what a dynamo is??

I like the idea of a sail

:?

No - that's NOT what the Fontana dealer got from me.

;)
 
I get these emails at EVSE Upgrade all the time. I'm astonished that people don't understand why this won't work, but it seems like the more elaborate the steps the more believable it is, which, in fact, is actually quite the opposite.

This is considered over-unity, and violates the first and/or second law of thermodynamics, see this wikipedia article.

-Phil
 
Back
Top