Friday, February 10, 2006

Australian electric vehicle development

On a recent visit to India I photographed a very small two door electric car made in Bangalore by Reva.

Shaun Williams with his home built electric car

What I forgot to mention was that there is already a home built Australian electric car by Shaun Williams. He who took the heroic step of retrofitting an electric motor to a Toyota Echo.

electric bicycle

The axial flux electric motors initially developed for Northern Territory University (NTU) Solar Car, are now available in an electric bicycle. These have the advantage of being flat and so can fit inside the vehicle's wheel and don't need a gearbox. They are sold as a kit already built into a bicycle wheel. I have suggested to Reva they licence the design for the car, which would eliminate the need for a Trans-axle (the bit between the wheels with some gears in it).

ps: You may think this has nothing to do with computers, but the modern electric motors depend on electronics to make them mechanically simpler and on computer control to make them efficient.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

it would seem that the Reva car company has signed up with the IOC to develop the fuel cell car like the other major car dealers.

this is disappointing as there was so much potentail here.