any thought to having a prop spinning near you?

why not get one of those wheel hubs with an electric motor and use regenerative braking?  low power/drag for up keep, full power for braking.

You're talking about a full eveehicle
I'm talking about keeping stock gas powered rear end
and replacing front with ebrake for recharging bat.

old_rider wrote on 12/06/13 at 11:34:59:


No.....It is not going to happen....ever.

Whatever you hang in the airstream of the moving vehicle is going to take away more energy than it can produce.  To gain that little bit of extra energy from the "add on" device.....you are going to have to use more energy to power the air through it than you will get back.  Doesn't matter if it is a fan in the air stream, a generator rubbing on the tire or belt.....anything that makes energy has to get more energy supplied to it.  The only exception to this in a moving vehicle is regenerative braking.....where instead of scrubbing off speed by using friction and heat you can use the electric motor as a generator to use up the extra speed and convert it to power to be returned to the batteries.....and all the well designed electric and hybrid vehicles already do this.

I got it...  Just put a giant windshield on the bike...
The air resistence will slow your wife down, and require a lower gear... that will spin higher rpm's and generate more charge for a longer time to charge the battery...
Ta da!.... ...

Yup been lookin' into the electric ones, the cheapest are the silly sumo looking ones that last 50 miles and they are priced at 20k

The most promising one is the Mission R, 165mph top speed, 140 mile range and can charge in 1 hour to 95%. but the long distance one sells for 40k.

I hit youtube for a look see at self made ones and there is a fella making trikes that get about 160 miles on, but he doesn't state how fast he can recharge.

I am all about driving a couple hours and gasin' up and taking a 20 min break and hopping back on and hitting the road...rinse repeat and you can to 800 miles in a day.
With the mission R you might be able to go 800 miles but it would take 10 or 11 hours a day to do it because you would have to stop every 130 miles (2.4 hours) and recharge for an hour. But the price does not fit the bill, there is no way you can save enough money on gas to even think 40k would ever be made back it would take 10 years and by then you would have to buy a new battery pack (5-6k) and have your motor re-brushed.
I went from trying to keep a battery charged or from dying because of short trips to " ya know, i'd like to build an electric 3 wheeler that is affordable and gets good mileage". But i'd like to build a two wheeled one also...guess i'm going to have to learn how to build battery packs.