Re: Wind assisted electric vehicle, Electric assisted wind vehicle.

[Bill Passman <bpassman@quarrytech.com>]

I used to have a copy of the patent of the wind-assisted electric vehicle, 
you could look it up on the ibm patent site.  It was developed by a guy in 
Michigan in the late '70's. It is a 3 wheeler, with a rear mounted fixed, 
semicircular wing.  You would not tack it.  You would just need varying 
amounts of battery power to add to the varying (forward) lift you got from 
the sail at different angles of attack.  Going into the wind, the wing just 
adds drag, but for most round-about driving, you got a push (lift) from 
around 320 degrees of direction.

I have seen an electric race car that used short fixed wings designed for 
the World Solar Challenge.  Since that race is south to north, and the 
prevailing winds are west to east, there was an advantage to having fixed 
wings.  With straight wings, you could make them retractable when heading 
into the wind.

-Bill - prius (REVOLT)