Max

Recently I got into the major traffic jam. For about half an hour I was driving with the speed of about 3 km/h, slower than walking.

So here is my idea: like they make now hybrids of combustion engine and electric engine, - to make the similar hybrid of combustion engine and human powered vehicle.

In this case I could move my car with the help of human power by rotating with my hands some sort of levers, or pedals.

I would save a lot of fuel, and human power would be quite adequate for this low speed.

I put this idea into the pubic domain.

hotbike

I think you might be talking about a moped;
<https://www.mopedarmy.com>

A car would be kind of heavy to push on human power (muscles) but here are two sites:

<https://www.hybridcar.com>

<https://www.hybridcars.com>

Why didn't you just ride your bike and avoid the traffic jam by riding on the shoulder?

hotbike

I think you might be talking about a moped;
https://www.mopedarmy.com

A car would be kind of heavy to push on human power (muscles) but here are two sites:

https://www.hybridcar.com

https://www.hybridcars.com

Brian Ratliff

The energy requirement to move a car, even at low speed, is substantial. The average person is lucky to put out 200 watts of power using his muscular strength on a bicycle setup. Even a pro cyclist puts out only half a kilowatt (500 watts). An extremely underpowered car has a power plant of several 10's of kilowatts (the electric power plant of the Prius is about 50 kW; it is coupled with a 50 hp gas engine). Even an electric golf cart has a powerplant which puts out 2 to 3 kilowatts of power.

Have you ever tried to push a car at slow speed up even a very small slope? Regardless of how the mechanism is geared, this is how much power you'd have to apply. You can gear the mechanism down, to trade rotational speed for torque, but the speed you'd move the car will be well under 3 kph, especially uphill, even those uphills we consider "false flats" which look flat but are really a very shallow up hill.

To make this work, you'd have to limit the weight of the car to something like 100, maybe 200 lbs on the outside, the weight of a fully loaded touring bike. You'd have to use your legs, not your arms, as your leg muscles are much stronger than any muscle in the upper body. You'd might as well just use a touring bike to bike, and forget the engine, or use one of those electric assists.

Brian Ratliff

I should add that even a 50 hp gas engine (which is extremely small for a car - most cars have power plants of over 100 hp), required for traveling freeway speeds, is well over 100 lbs in weight.

LittleBigMan

Hey, Max. Good to hear from you again.

If there's anything I remember you for, it's creativity.

Max

Hi, I am alive and kicking. Good to hear from you too.

Brian says that it will not work, but I am not convinced. Sometimes one just need to move a car a meter or two. On aircrafts, on bombers during the 2nd War, one could control the landing geer manually.

I can push my car easily, I would like to have some foldable levers, so I could move it if the engine is down.

Brian Ratliff

RE bombers during WWII: I don't remember the movie, and of course, it was just a movie, but they showed two crew members cranking on that handle for a long time to get the gear down and locked. And, of course, gravity is assisting to lower the landing gear.

Like I said though, you can do it; you can move anything given enough leverage. You just won't move it very fast. Work is force times distance. You can decrease the force towards zero as long as you don't mind the distance going to infinity.

noisebeam

The idea of a low power backup for low speed is good - things like nearly stopped bumper to bumper traffic, parking lots, moving car in driveway, etc.

However the added complexity is probably not worth the benefit.

The direction the technology is going to to store excess power electrically and use this energy in part for low speed travel needs. I think given this trend, that using human power for this backup is even less likely to be practical - especially as this battery power can store more total and give more peak energy than the average human is capable of.

Al

Max

Electrical power comes at a cost. A battery is usually heavy, contains toxic materials, like acids, rare metals, etc.

And I do have an excessive energy, which is accumulated in my excessive weight. I would not mind to move the car here and there.

Especially if they start to use the aluminum alloys for the frame, which seems to be inevitable, as the cheap oil is running out.

Max

I read somewhere that men differ from women when discussing something.

Because boys used to break toys to see how the world works, and women have another task - to maintain peace in a social group.

Men always try to attack, to break the idea, to see why it will not work. Women try to empathize.

My point is - suppose the idea might work, and suppose that we got the task to implement it on the conceptual level. Where to start?

LittleBigMan

Maybe that's where some of the problems in the Advocacy & Safety forum are coming from.

noisebeam

Technically the challenge to add a pedal power input system to a car is not that difficult - made somewhat more difficult due to the need to integrate into existing parts vs. from a ground up design which would be easier to design but harder to prototype - So the proof of concept here is not so interesting a challenge.

The real challenges this would face is the human interface. Here is where you would need to put thought into it - how does one add pedal power input from drivers seat while also providing and not limiting all normal auto controls.

The work around is to put pedal system in any but drivers seat - but that misses the majority of auto use.

Figure out how you want the interface to integrate into a typical car first.

Al

yes

I'm pretty sure that this exists - albeit a very lightweight car. Someone posted it a while back. It was supposed to go around 50mph IIRC on battery and pedaling. You could just pedal if you wanted. Around $20,000 for something that was more bicycle than car, though.

Max

I would redesign the driver seat, even the whole cockpit. The airlines redesign the passenger seats all the time.

One would definitely need more space for pedals. Wait a minute... I did had the car with pedals when I was a child! I remember it very well. And could drive it rather quickly.

It was about 2 meters and a half long. Made from some a metal, probably thin steel. It had the round steering wheel. OK, it did not have the engine (+350 kg).

Max

No. I would not like to have an electrical car. I would like to have the normal full blown car with the combustion engine and the possibility to move it from inside with pedals or levers.

Why not electrical? Because there is no cheap way to store electricity. Not even a hope that it will ever be.

CrosseyedCrickt

Just cut a big hole in the floorboard and go Fred Flintstone style baby.

Max

It requires more than that. I think of sophisticated computer 3D design.

le brad

what about a hybrid bike and bike? like with pedals and handlebars.

Max

Good idea.

joejack951

If you redesigned the cockpit, make the accelerator and brake controls hand operated leaving your feet to do the pedalling. You'll need to think about the steering interface as a normal steering wheel setup does not leave much room for the motion of pedalling with ones legs. Seat design would be critical as well. Perhaps you'd want to adopt a recument type position in the driver's seat. My guess is that after you've thought out all of the major issues and designed the vehicle to be as light as possible such that your pedal power yields a reasonable power to weight ratio, you'll end up with a bicycle with a small gas engine on it.