Question

trying to convert small gas truck dodge to human powered electric truck. home garage project w/freinds. need help and gauging interest. if this aint the best place to find folks please let me know.

Answer 1

Pushing a truck is hard work. The ancient Egyptian were able to motivate people to move heavy objects using manual labor. I suggest first that you start or look for a religious cult. Green Peace would be a good place to start.

Answer 2

ha! funny but not much help.

Answer 3

You had more than one part to your question. Until fairly recently It was believed that the pyramids were built using slave labor. Now ,however it is clear that the cultural achievement that could be looked upon as the equivalent of a moon landing for them was religiously motivated. They were volunteers. You must also even put their beliefs in context of the their culture. Their religion was their science also.

The work involved in moving a truck is still fairly large. If you plan on moving a truck using electrical power produced by using people to turn an alternator to produce electricity that is stored or used immediately to power an electric motor that moves the truck, the amount of work that these people will do is the same as pushing the truck plus the generating losses and the losses in the electric motor in the truck. It is harder to get a few people to do a very large amount of work than it is to get many people to do a little bit of work. As I see it the primary problem will be getting people to donate the work needed to turn the alternator so the electricity can be stored for later use. Looking at the losses in storage and the application of electricity it will be more efficient for the people just to push your truck. If two people can just barely push your truck, considering the losses you will need at least 4 or more the do the same amount of work.

Answer 4

I found a link to an article that covers battery efficiency. http://evbatterymonitoring.com/WebHelp/Section_3.htm

Answer 5

well thank you very much rick. i understand your point. and dont think my expectations are out of wack with the rules of the universe. this is just one part of an overall idea to get us in better shape and away from our current energy situation. i know we can make better use of our bodies and minds for generating the energy we need though not necessarily the energy we want. simply i feel we will all benefit by doing more work for the work we want done because as we train and practice physical we get more efficient individually and collectively.