How Wind Powered Vehicles Are Fuel Saving Vehicles?
Wind energy is considered to be one of the most cost-effective renewable sources of energy. It has been used for thousands of years in the form of windmills. Nowadays, this source is used along with solar sources to produce clean and cheap electricity. The use of natural winds as an alternative source to fuel vehicles requires no additional infrastructure, except the road that carries it.
How Does Wind Powered Vehicles Work?
To understand how wind powered vehicles works. Let us suppose that the vehicle is placed on top of a large, wide and elevated surface. A horizontal tunnel with an inlet close to the front bumper of the car is installed on this elevated surface. When wind blows over this elevated surface, it is forced down the tunnel and passes through a turbine installed on its exit. The turbine is connected to an electrical generator which produces electricity. This electricity now powers the car’s electric motor.
How Does Wind Powered Vehicles Saves fuel?
The technology behind these vehicles has been tried and tested and can produce 10 times more energy than required for the car to run. This means that these vehicles can go long distances on a single battery charge.
Aerodynamics of Wind Powered Vehicles
The design of the vehicle is crucial in the amount of power produced by the turbines. The wider and flatter this surface, the better is its aerodynamic performance. A flat surface provides a greater area for the wind to hit, thus increasing power production.
Apart from these two technologies, there are other technologies that are under research and development stage. These include solar powered vehicles. Other renewable sources of energy to power electric generators include methane, water mills, wind turbines etc. The use of green energy in transport sector is essential for sustainable development.
Advantages:
The following are the advantages of wind powered vehicles over other conventional vehicles:
- They are not dependent upon fossil fuels. This helps in cutting down dependency on oil reserves and importing fuel from foreign countries. What’s more, these vehicles can save fuel by 25-40 percent because they use moving air to run instead of fossil fuels.
- They do not produce greenhouse gases. It cause global warming and climate changes leading to high frequency of natural hazards such as floods and cyclones.
- Cost too low as these vehicles can go up to 500 miles on a single battery charge made from green energy sources such as solar or wind power.
- They are cheaper to manufacture as there is no need for fuel tanks, exhaust pipes, radiators and other parts of the car engine.
- The cost of maintaining these vehicles is slightly higher than normal petrol or diesel cars because they have a power generator in the vehicle which needs replacement after some time. But when compared with electric cars, wind powered vehicles are cheaper.
- They are pollution free, which means that they do not produce any harmful gases or substances to harm the environment.
Things To Know About Wind Powered Cars:
The following are some of the things that one should know before using electric cars powered by wind:
1. These vehicles attract fewer taxes because they run on green energy sources, thus making them cheaper than other conventional cars. This results in better cash flow for the car owner.
2. These vehicles need to be used for at least 500 miles before they need recharging of batteries, which makes them suitable for long journeys.
3. A single charge can power the car for 300 miles (500 km) and the charging time is about 8 hours. Thus it’s better to use overnight charging at home rather than public chargers installed in parking lots of places such as hospitals etc., which take more time.
4. Since these vehicles use moving air to run, the atmospheric pressure and speed of wind is a major factor that determines how fast or slow the vehicle will move. For instance, during winters when there is low atmospheric pressure at night, there will be less power generated because the car engine will need more power to overcome lower atmospheric pressure.
Wind powered cars will prove to be much better for the environment because they neither emit carbon dioxide nor other chemicals that can cause air or noise pollution which is recently becoming a serious issue in major urban areas of the world because of massive increase in number of vehicles on roads every year.
In conclusion, although wind powered cars have many disadvantages over other conventional vehicles, they are good for the welfare of human beings because they cause no harm to the environment and only a small number of people can afford them which makes their production feasible.
Conclusion:
Wind powered cars are the future of transportation. They are pollution-free and do not need any fuel to power them. Which makes them cheaper in the long run, with a lower maintenance cost as well. These vehicles have a sleek structure and futuristic designs with large surface area to catch wind from all directions. The cars can be used for transportation of goods because one or more trailers can be attached to them. They require low maintenance cost and are economical in the long run.