Paradigm in Auto Industry

Ahh............no.

Where does the energy to wind the springs come from?

You can move a car on a energy storred in a coiled spring but the distance on one charge will be very very small.

The answer is therefore : No you can not run a car this way.

I had one when I was a small tyke. With one winding would travel maybe 30 feet. Full scale that equates to trip to the corner. You would have to get out and rewind it to get back. Wonder where they would put that big key. Not to aerodynamic left sticking out the side like that.

They have models with the key on the back. And then you could have the handles self-feathering to reduce the wind drag. Maybe we could use the steering wheel as the key?

Put a fan on the key and let it wind itself. This would make good use of the non-linear regenerative hydrodynamic principles regularly used by hybridized hydrogen energy management techniques when applied to reynolds numbers that have been optimized using six sigma relationships.

Wow that was fun writing that!!

Of course in principle it can work. But if you look up a table of "energy density" you'll find it's not a very practical method (lots of weight & volume not much energy stored). The same goes for compressed air. Lots of work continues on high speed flywheels.

The high energy density of petrol and oil is the reason they're so hard to replace in transportation. ffeJ.

Tata Motors in India has been developing an air powered car for a couple of years and the speeds and distances are interesting. More development and a few original thinkers and who knows? Adding the weight of safety stuff may kill it though, but who knows. Look at the original Miatas.

http://www.tatamotors.com/our_world/press_releases.php?ID=281&action=Pull

http://green.yahoo.com/blog/ecogeek/66/air-car-ready-for-mass-production.html

"How about a car running on only on energy stored in coiled springs?"

How about a car running on only on energy stored in twisted rubber bands as in model airplanes?

Yech!

I would post such a s..... idea anonymous too.

My mechanics teacher calculated that with a good spring having a reasonable weight for a car, you could just get the car to move out of the garage, a bit further if you don't garage it! Whichever method you use, springs, rubber, flywheels, hydrogen etc, you have to start off by doing some work before the car moves. Saves going to the gym, but could be time consuming.

Makes you think how much fuel could be saved if no one put their car in a garage. When do we ban garages, they require work and give off pollutants during manufacturing of the materials, especially cement, and the construction. Scraping the windscreen on cold mornings is good for the heart!

Your idea a little too late because a lot of toys used to work on that principle! However, as I have noticed they too drifted away from that driving force, maybe because of inefficiency.

This is the most hysterical idea I have ever seen posted on this forum. I hope you will stay anonymous about it!

Hmmm, I once thought of a bicycle that worked this way. My pedalling would charge the spring and I'd use the energy only for uphill movement. Never got off the old brain though.

Its good that you are trying to think outside the box. Some basic energy calculations to compare available spring energy (after its wound) to available energy in fuel or even energy to stop, start and move are not difficult. If you can't do them take a couple classes on "classical physics, mechanics". Then you can prove it to yourself what concepts to pursue.

Red Green built a car powered by the clock spring in the old town clock!

On a similar theme...

I remember waaaay back in the gas-crisis 70's (sweet merciful heaven I'm old!!!) there was a brief period of time when the race was on to create a workable car that operated off a big ol' flywheel. I think the idea was to plug the car into an outlet at night, gradually spin the thing up and (I suppose) use it to generate electricity for your commute. Like all "wave of the future!" stories there were pictures of various researchers smiling and pointing to unidentifiable bits of hardware under a hood.

I seem to recall the biggest problem was creating a flywheel that was strong enough not to fly apart during normal use and that would also be safe during a traffic accident.

Typical head-in-the-clouds scientests. Foolishly putting concerns like functionality and safety of the innocent above getting things done!

Not very practical when you consider the energy density.

Hitchhiking is probably the lowest energy cost, but is not without its thrills and perils.

Gas engines have an efficiency of about 20%. Electric propulsion for cars is just less than 70% when you factor the efficiency of generating electricity from gasoline, which is better than 70% for a gas turbine electric generator. If you use hydroelectric generators your efficiency goes up much higher.

Hydrogen powered cars are about 30% to 35% efficient.

Rickshaws - well you will have to look that up for yourself.

The good news is that you don't need to worry about skid marks on your driveway.

BOING...BOIng....BOing...Boing....boing...Gasp!

gniob...gnioB...gniOB...gnIOB....gNIOB...!psaG

Gasp!

Leonardo Da Vinci designed such a transportation machine on paper, but it didn't catch on. Apparently the spring powered device was most successful as a clock. Some ideas actually do not work well except for one purpose or machine. Coiled spring power was best utilized for clocks until batteries became a better power source. Since time is running out for burning stuff to power transportation machines, chemical reactions that produce electricity do seem to imply that clock power from springs is best replaced by batteries in transportation machines. Eventually there will be a battery powered car called The Clock, as now there is supposed to be The Volt.

It is good that the Volt has one motor, that is an electric motor.