Wind Explorer Uses A “Portable” Wind Turbine, Giant Kite To Run

RIDES

How’d you like to clock 3,107 miles on your electric car while spending just $13 on electricity bills?  That’s exactly what the Wind Explorer, a wind-powered electric automobile, did during an 18-day run across the Australian continent.

Built by a German team led by Dirk Gion and Stefan Simmerer, the two-seater car set three world records for wind-powered cars during its unprecedented trip from Albany to Sydney.  Throughout the course of those 18 days, the wind-powered automobile became the first vehicle of its kind to cross an entire continent, apart from covering the most distance on land and traveling the farthest during a 36-hour window.

The Wind Explorer runs using two mechanisms: a battery-powered motor and a giant kite that literally propels it forward.  Charging the battery can be accomplished either by plugging to the mains or through a portable wind turbine (if you can call a 20-foot telescopic bamboo mast “portable”) that the vehicle travels with.  Do note that a separate vehicle carried the wind turbine during the run, which they needed to set up (30 minutes, according to the website) every time a recharge was in order.

Granted, this isn’t the kind of vehicle that proves a wind-powered car is a viable transport solution for the future.  Unless you’ll pass by many wind turbines that you can plug into, which isn’t all that likely.  Still, it’s a nice exercise in showing what’s possible for automobiles of the future.  Plus, a car pulled along by a giant kite sounds nothing but awesome.

[Wind Explorer]

Related Posts

4 Responses

  1. What an overwhelming sight it would be to witness a massive kite helping a car move along the road! Dirk Gion and Stefan Simmerer have actually given wings to their thoughts and created an unbelievable concept car, an electric car propelled by a portable wind turbine. It is certainly not easy to grab the underlying idea of the car, and I say this despite being a student of science (I admit I am not particularly good at it). What is happening is that the electric motor feeds on the charge of the battery and the motion is helped by the impetus provided by the giant kite. This is a really promising advancement of the whole idea of electric cars. It is great to note that mechanical engineers and energy tapping experts from across the globe are putting in their efforts towards expansion and complete exploration of the arena of clean fuel run cars.

  2. More than three thousand miles within three weeks sounds a gruelling task itself, and the dimensions get amplified to the extent of amazing when one is told that the cost of running the two seating vehicle is mere 13$. It shall please environmentalists no ends to note that an electric car succeeded in travelling a complete continent within 18 days, creating as many as three new world records. Apart from being acknowledged as the first in class vehicle to perform the feat of scaling a whole continent, the Wind Explorer electric car also managed to overshadow the previous record of maximum covered distance on land. It is an ingenious idea to think of a portable wind turbine, although it sounds a momentous task. Not many would buy the idea of a 20 foot high bamboo mast being portable, but as they say, ‘Rome was not built in a day!’ Hopefully, the Wind Explorer would be a giant leap towards ultra efficient electric cars, and supplementary energy support is definitely a valuable addition, courtesy the Wind Explorer.

  3. There is a long way ahead, considering the roadblocks faced by the Wind Explorer team. Having to recharge the batteries is a huge dampener, and having to erect a towering wind turbine every time makes the task almost Herculean! Single riding is out of the window right away. It seems that setting the portable wind turbine up takes some doing, considering the image showing two gentlemen trying to get the better of the bamboo pole. The kite part of the scheme is definitely the more presentable one. I would love to know a lot more about the mechanical contribution of the kite philosophy, and what future does it hold. Are we really looking at commercial electric cars with some airborne support modules?

  4. Hey, shouldn’t our governments think of giving incentives to car manufacturing giants for fuelling the research activity aimed at making electric cars a commercial reality? It is heartening to read about independent research and experiments regarding the same, but the truth is that the situation would be a lot better with some big guns’ participation.

Comments are closed.