Flywheels to capture brake energy

Interesting idea. I've often wondered if there was some simple kinetic way of storing brake energy, rather than electric. I had been thinking more along the lines of a spring or similar, but it looks like Volvo is considering ways of accomplishing this with a flywheel.

From here:

Humor: Google Car's downfall

I've posted my love for the Google Car before...

Without further commentary:

From here.

Time to brush up on my trike-riding skills

I'd theoretically consider cycling to work from my home. 

However, there are a number of things that make me reluctant to do so:

• hills
• a longer commute than I feel comfortable cycling with
• rain

The Drymer trike seems to address these. It's a recumbent-style bike so there's better use of leg power, it has a battery to help with those long distances and pesky hills, and it has a canopy to keep you relatively dry despite the rain.
It's not available yet, but I can definately see myself considering one of these if it was...

Another milestone on the road to the availability of the efficient Cleeves Cycle engine

I've mentioned the opposed-piston opposed=cylinder engines before, from Eco Motors. Pinnacle Motors seems to be playing in this arena as well (although with a less impressive-looking engine). If Pinnacle is to believed, their design will yield 30-50% efficiency.
Well, recently they made the exciting announcement that they're making progress in commercialization (that's manufacturer-speak for "getting this bad boy into the Frustrated Commuter's car").

From their press release:

"The company is in the process of commercializing its technology through a joint development and licensing agreement with an Asian vehicle OEM. Production is slated to commence in Q1 2013. Further developments, including plans for expansion into the global automotive market, will be revealed later this year."

I'm not entirely sure what it means to get a" licensing agreement with an Asian vehicle OEM" -- If it's a dramatically different engine than the standards found in the suite of engines that a given manufacturer uses in their shipping cars, then isn't the bigger challenge going to be getting one of the recognizable labels (Kia, Honda, Ford, whatever) to commit to this new engine? Or am I naieve to think that the car manufacturers are the ones driving/demanding engine breakthroughs?

Next week is Telework Week

I came across Telework Exchange today, which is hosting Telework Week on Feb 14 - 18, 2011.
I wasn't familiar with the site, but it boasts an impressive collection of links to resources, articles, papers, etc. I don't have time right now to review all of the site content (which is considerable), but skimming it, I see that it's geared primarily to a US and Federal Government audience, which is interesting an interesting focus. Nevertheless, it has resources that would be helpful for non-US and business audiences as well.


In my job, I already telecommute several times a week, enjoying a variety of benefits:

• flexibility (working around kids' doctors appointments)
• multitasking (when on certain boring conference calls that require only a portion of my attention, I've been known to run a load of laundry while waiting for a relevant topic for me to come up).
• fewer interruptions (when going into the office, the "dropin chats" totally kill my day and my productivity).
• clothes savings (Yes, when I work from home, I've been known to slum it in a 12-year old T-shirt that I got at some tradeshow. Helps stretch the clothes budget a bit further.)
• no wasted time commuting
• no wasted fuel commuting
• no wear and tear on my car commuting.
• no time spent trying to find parking (the parking around my office building really sucks, and easily adds another 15 minutes to a given day).
• I get sick less (not going into the office to breath the germ-y air really helps keep me from getting all the bugs that are going around).

My employer reaps benefits from me, in that:

• I tend to work a portion of what would have been my commute time. So if I'm required to work 8 hours, and my commute is 2 hours (1 hour each way), if I telecommute, I'll work from home for 9 hours. Not required by the company, but I feel it's a reward to the company for being willing to let me work from home.
• when I interact with other employees (though Skype screen sharing, for example), our interactions are higher quality than if I was actually in the office with that employee sitting beside me.
• I don't look for another job. Frankly, my job hasn't been amazing lately, so anything they can do to keep me happy will keep my expertise in the company. If they took telecommuting away from me, I'm certain I'd leave in short order.

There are drawbacks to telecommuting, to be sure, both for the employee and the employer. I'll be reviewing this website more closely in the coming days to see what solutions I can find to this.

SARTRE in the wild (literally)

We reported earlier about the EU SARTRE project hitting its one-year anniversary.

Now, our friends at Translogic share a video of a recent road trial on some wilderness-looking highway (albeit, with a single car in the train, and at low speed). Nevertheless, it's not in a lab, and looks promising for the future.
I continue to watch this with great interest!

The EU SARTRE aka "the road train" is coming 'round the bend

The SARTRE project which "aims to develop, test and validate
technology for vehicles that can drive themselves in long road trains on motorways" is now a year into their 3-year investigation, and have released an interesting 8-minute video highlighting where they are so far.
I found it informative, interesting, and refreshing -- these are clearly smart people who are not naive about the challenges facing their project, and are considering the many human variables that can happen in real world traffic.

Like the Google Car, I think this is supremely valuable to the end user, who can now spend her time doing work, reading, eating, etc.
Unlike the Google Car, this seems more achievable in the short term, since the judgement calls are being made by human drivers, not by pure software.

Have your smartphone adjust your seat for you!

My friends at motorauthority.com have a great article on a smartphone app from Faurecia which custom-adjusts your seat based on your real measurements, as taken from a camera photo.

I'm hoping that by the time my old POC car is ready to be replaced, this will be available in vehicles in my modest price range. I'm often adjusting my seat to get comfortable in traffic, and I'm not convinced I'm doing it correctly... This would take away a lot of guesswork, and it has some other great features to boot!

A better internal combustion engine?

I sit in traffic a lot, and am very interested in ways of commuting in a way that is more efficient in terms of time, and ecological footprint.


I came across this today, which is very interesting. These smart folks are working on an internal combustion engine which is more efficient, yields more power, and would allow "smart engines" where modules are turned off if idle and on when power is needed.

Not productized into a car yet, but looks promising. Might be a good stepping stone to non-fossil-fuel based cars.

Check them out at:
http://ecomotors.com/

Nissan Leaf electric car is coming soon!

 Key quotes and photos from our friends at digitaltrends.com:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/lifestyle/nissan-leaf-review/

There are no gears in an electric car. Therefore, there are no numbers to indicate gear level. Instead, you either shift into D for Drive, ECO (or Drive X2) to save battery power at the cost of acceleration, reverse or neutral.

... this sounds fine to me. Most of the time, I'm stuck in gridlock, and ECO is perfect. The occasional time the road opens up in front of me, or I need to accelerate past a semi, I think I'm smart enough to switch it to D mode.

Sitting behind the wheel, you’re given plenty of information about the vehicle’s state of charge and how far it will go on a charge. The touchscreen in the middle stack displays a host of energy consumption metrics: how much power the climate controls are using, how many extra miles you’ll get if you shut them off, how many miles you have left, how many kilowatts the electric motor is using or how much energy the regenerative brakes are recovering. This info is easy to interact with and use.

... the geek in me finds this very appealing. I love realtime data. :)

The Leaf is a radical departure just from the fact that it does not use gas. Sure, there are plenty of infrastructure issues to work out. ... In the end, the time is right for the Nissan Leaf. It’s a smart electric car that will, at long last, wean us from gasoline.

Hear, hear! Let me drive one!

3 reasons that the Google Car is brilliant for the frustrated commuter

Google is already a friend to the frustrated commuter, because they help me avoid traffic with Google Maps Traffic. 

Now, it has been revealed that they've been investigating computer-driven cars. Not an original idea, mind you, but it actually looks like it stands a credible chance of happening with our existing infrastructure (read: doesn't rely on magnets in the road).

Here's the official announcement from Google.

And here's an article that shows some of the how-to of the Google Car.
 
 

image courtesy of NYTimes.com

So, I'm totally in love with the idea. 
Here are 3 reasons that the Google Car is brilliant for the frustrated commuter.

1. Efficiency of traffic flow

Have I told you how much I hate being stuck traffic? When you think about it, "increased volume" should not equal "slowed speed", except at the "queue points" such as highway on-ramps. The reason traffic slows with volume has to do with the human psyche -- we get nervous and we naturally slow down when we're feeling claustrophobic when boxed in. Tapping the breaks or slightly slowing at one point in the highway translates to a full stop miles down the road behind the original incident, as the reaction to those brake lights cascades back through the traffic column with increasing force. A computer-driven car has none of these hang-ups. Traffic will continue to move smoothly when the cars in the traffic are driven by computers.

2. More "me time"

Ignoring the probable time-in-traffic savings in the previous point, there's another way that a Google-driven car would give me more "me" time: the ability to fully engage in something besides driving. I can imagine reading a book, working on a laptop, texting, watching a movie, practicing my drawing skills, taking a nap, etc.; all while sitting in my driver's seat as the computer drives my car to my destination with speed and efficiency. The possibilities are endless.

3. Safety

There are a lot of people who are not particularly good drivers (and I reluctantly have to include myself in that group). If a computer-driven car could make the mediocre drivers move through traffic in a better-than-mediocre way, I think that's useful. Plus, a lot of drivers drive distracted. All the activities I list in the previous bullet (reading, movies, texting, etc.) some drivers do already today. The Google car would simply take over the driving from the drivers that are already doing these things unsafely.

Bring it on Google! This frustrated commuter says, "it can't come quickly enough!" :D