Twike

[Cowtown Cumuter]

Hi I am kind of new on the bike Forums. I currently use a regular bicycle to commute 5 miles to work and 5 miles back every day. I was thinking would it every be cool to have a car that pedals. That way I am out of the rain, snow and wind. Well here is a very cool invention...a Twike. It uses an electric motor and you pedal to create power for the motor (extend the charge). It is very cool but just as expensive as a Smart Car. The cool thing is it does not polute, keeps you fit and can carry a passenger, if they want to help pedal. Check out this link, this Twike is really a neat innovation. I think in a few years they will come down in price. By then my bicycle will be worn out and I will hopefully get a Twike.:)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWIKE

[Sir Lunch-a-lot]

Yeah... I remember seeing those a few years ago online. Dang, I still want one. Actually, last time I looked, they cost more than a smart car.

A few months ago, they did an article on Twikes on "Daily Planet' on Discovery Channel. I think that they worked out, based on the battery energy consumption, that the equivalent milage it gets was something like 600mpg... I might have the figure wrong, but it was ludicrously high.

[cerewa]

if you don't mind a single-passenger vehicle, there are velomobiles, too.

The twike weighs about 542 pounds, whereas I think an electric-assist velomobile is likely to weigh about 120 pounds, a huge difference. At 120lbs you're talking about something that has a vaguely bike-like feel, but at 542 pounds the weight is more like an ultralight car.

Apparently the twike costs $25,000 or so, whereas the more inexpensive velomobiles could be outfitted with a good electric motor and still cost only $6000 even if you don't want to do any of the assembly yourself.

[StephenH]

I remember reading a while back that a regular electric car produces about 80% of the pollution of a gasoline car. The reason being that much of our power comes from burning coal, so you essentially wind up with a coal-burning vehicle instead of gasoline powered.

I don't know about the twike's electric usage. If it is car size and goes at car speeds, it would be about the same. If it's smaller or slower, you'd expect electric usage to be less as well. If it goes at normal car speeds, you probably can't do enough pedaling to make a dent in the electric usage- that's just more or less a feel-good gimmick. Like putting solar panels on a Hummer.

[geebee]

The pedalling in the Twike can add 10% to its range according to reports.

The power usage causing an increase in pollution is supposedly wrong as in the US they run the power station at normal level of a night and waste the generation capacity to avoid powering them down, can't remeber the figures but they were that a huge percentage of all cars could be recharged over night without effect.
Also a large scale generation plant is a lot less polluting than an equivilant number of portable plants ie. car engines.
Where I live the majority of generation is Hydro so no pollution.