https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1113683_honda-shows-cb4-interceptor-concept-with-wind-powered-generatorThe 2017 honda cb4 concept had a really fantastic piece of technology installed into its nose cone.
That part was a wind turbine generator. Which was later revealed to have just enough wattage to keep the onboard electric systems happy.
It's a really clever idea. Honda is not alone in the patent world with this one. Students and would-be inventors have left a paper trail of various attempts to harvest the energy potential of the wind speed around cars and bikes. If it be to simply charge cell phones on the go, or increase the energy levels of existing automobiles.
One Australian bloke even went to far as to make a bike that carried deployable wind and solar generators to charge his electric choppers' batteries. He named the bike StrangeWorld. After the infamous character Doctor Strangelove.
The reference gives me a little twinge of pain. I personally went through a lot of grief for my own delusion of grandeur not that long ago.
Quit worrying and learn to love the bomb.
I digress.
The technology of energy generation has become a recent obsession of mine. Pondering the viability of hybrid systems and various electric traction motors. Digging through sales brochures and industry news simply looking towards a future of greener energy systems.
There are some missing links in the transition from the motors we all know and love. Into something like a dedicated off-grid electric vehicle.
For electric vehicles, the energy discharge potential of a lithium-ion battery is second to none. Electric traction motors love amperage.
Low voltage evm (ala zero electric motenergy spec) can pull 600a current at peak. Can reliably do so for two minutes - which is ample time for setting a land-speed record.
Steady cruising still draws around 200amps - lifepo4 batteries are happy to oblige that kind of current.
Common alternator stators, not so much.
Though there are exceptions. As i discovered, but those exceptions have their own mass scale and energy input demands. An alternator that competes with lithium energy has such a Herculean appearance. The idea of turning it from a bow-mounted wind turbine may be a futile exercise in surface area, windspeed vectoring, and torque enhancing gearing. And the trouble is keeping the rpm of a generator constant enough to not wreak havoc on the dependent circuitry!
Even with some really convoluted engineering, the lithium battery still outperforms the copper coil.
The front of a studebaker might lend itself to a turbine blade large enough for the task. Turning a generator with the kind of kilowatts to respectfuly move a chassis. However quite unlikely for a true electrization of the CB4 concept.
Regardless, hybrid systems still have a battery on board. There's the rub. The need for having to place the energy generated into a bank of cells. Cells that may or may not have been ethically or responsibly produced. *(cough cough, africa*)
That isn't to say the future of electric vehicles is a dud. Moving the discussion away from the CB4 concept for some exciting news. MIT, the US department of the Navy, and Mercedes-Benz have all invested into a sea-water ionic battery! Which is really something if you ask me. The public information on it shows a cube holding a series of coated aluminum plates, and some plumbing inlets for water to flow through. The USN looks forward to powering underwater drones with this device. While Mercedes anticipates putting it into whatever makes them money. It's relatively low environmental impact and 10,000 hour service cycle kinda gives me hope for the human race.
In the meantime, if that CB4 concept could get a tank full of Purdue Universitys' recycled plastic LPG, that would be pretty green too. Just have to incentivize big oil to retrofit their refineries and start taking collections from the trash men.
I hope you all are thinking positively of the future. The Motorsport world has been slowly incorporating electric racing into their schedule.
Sadly for me and my not-so-nefarious plans. The AMA doesn't have a class for the hybrids, yet. Nor can my wallet order the parts to start building for one.
All in its own time...
Thanks for reading.
