Does anyone know where I can find a certain electric car that can be recharged by pedaling?

Question

On the discovery channel, they showed an electric car that can be recharged by pedaling (like a bicycle). This vehicle seemed to be a better alternative to ethanol. Instead of turning corn into ethanol, people should eat the corn and then pedal to power their vehicle. Also it would help to stop obesity, a growing problem in North America.

Answer 1

What you're talking about is called a velomobile

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

Here's the North American Velomobilist website, which has a link to where you can obtain a VM.

http://www.velomobiles.net/

They're generally quite expensive and difficult to find in North America.

Answer 2

The amount of power a human can produce continuously is around 1/10 to 1/3 horsepower (depending on how good of shape you are in).  Cars and motorcycles require much more horsepower in order to run with any decent performance.  So, even if the conversion of energy was perfect, you would be spending a ton of hours pedaling just so that you could spend one hour driving.

I am curious what program on the Discovery Channel showed such a vehicle, since it really wouldn't be practical.  I mean, instead of wasting your time pedaling a bike so that you can charge up your car, why not just ride your bike where you need to go?  The efficiency of a bicycle is far greater than charging up some batteries and then discharging the batteries to power an electric motor.

So, to answer your question:  I do not know where to find an electric car that can be recharged by pedaling.

My question to you: would you really want one?

Now, there are electric microcars that are plugged into an outlet or charging unit.  These might be what was featured on the Discovery Channel, and it might be possible that the exercise bike pedaling was supplementary power.  But to power a vehicle solely by human pedaling power would take a long time.

Answer 3

no but you can buy a solar engine car-if you live where there is sun?

Answer 4

Toys R Us

Answer 5

I think it would be better just to ride a bicycle. Seriously I can't imagine this being very efficient. You would have to exert at a minimum several times more effort than it would take to ride a bike there to charge it. Probably take several hours to charge up for just a 20 minute commute by car.