Wind assisted electric vehicle, Electric assisted wind vehicle.

["Lawrence Rhodes" <bassoon@jps.net>]

Has anyone seen a wind racer mixed with electric components.  The lead in
the batteries would help keeping them flat.  I don't know if anyone has seen
a three wheel wind racer but they go fast.  A little impractical for roads
because of the sail and the problem of tacking up the 101 freeway. Wind
vehicles have to tack into the wind. Might tick off the SUV Drivers.   I did
see one system that might be used to make a wind vehicle go stright into the
wind.  A large propeller is used to transfer wind energy into a propeller
system. Now it didn't go as fast as the wind speed because of mechinical
losses but it would sail stright into the wind just about as fast as a
regular boat could tack up wind.  Now boats that go 10 miles per hour are
considered fast.  I don't know if someone has experimented with this but
it's not impossible that one could use wind power to power a vehicle in all
directions including against the wind.  Coupled with solar cells and
charging stations there might be possibilities of using wind power to
augment power.  Now this isn't using a wind powered generator to make energy
from your speed it is more like using it as a sail.  It would spin and
generate electricity but it would be aerodynamic.  If it works on a sail
boat why not on a light car. I don't know what the ratio would be but I have
lots of propellers from my model airplanes.  I could probably make a simple
version to see if it would work on land.  Lawrence Rhodes...Hummm I do
remember that the propeller was quite large......